Authors: Jerry Stiller
His eyes sparkled. “You know, being alone is not the worst thing in the world.”
He stared at my nondescript garb. “In Europe, actors wore capes. Why blue jeans?” he asked. “You know, Ludwig Satz was a great Yiddish actor, but nobody knows it. Moishe Nadir, he was a wonderful writer; nobody knows his name.”
I listened, like a good actor. Then he was off on opera, and how he admired Bjusi Bjoerling. All this while setting the table, laying out silverware and plates.
“I wanted to be an opera singer,” my uncle said. “I used to sing at the Social Club. That’s where I met
my
Anne. She loved my voice. She married
me because in those days the educated women loved artists. We’d go to the opera all the time. It’s what we had in common. I thought someday I’d be an opera singer.”
“Do you listen to music?” I asked.
“No. To tell you the truth, my hearing isn’t as good as it used to be.”
I mentioned the possibility of a Walkman.
“What is that?”
“You’ve seen them. Those people wearing earphones.”
“I always thought those people had hearing problems,” he said.
He removed the cans of salmon from the fridge, along with a head of lettuce wrapped in plastic. He peeled off and placed each leaf like a work of origami on a large plate. He sliced some tomatoes.
“How about some onion?”
“Yes,” I said, “I’d like some onion.”
“What do you do when somebody you act with smells from onions?” he asked as he sliced away.
I laughed. “If they’re good actors, you don’t mind. You become a family. If they’re lousy actors, you tell them to cut it out.”
When he finished making the salad, he smiled devilishly and said, “How about a shot? You drink whiskey?”
“Sure,” I said.
“I got Dewar’s Scotch.”
“That’s good stuff.”
He reached into the cupboard and pulled out a bottle obviously hidden away for just such an occasion. He poured a thimbleful into a milk glass.
“Tell me when.”
“When,” I said, making two fingers.
“That’s all?”
“No ice,” I told him.
When we finished eating, he poured boiling water into a cup and dropped in a spoonful of instant coffee.
“When I owned the restaurant,” he said, “a coffee salesman talked me into switching to a more expensive brand. Would you believe the customers complained? They loved the cheaper coffee.”
I knew he was apologizing for this instant coffee.
“Come, we’ll go outside,” he said.
I followed him, with no idea where he was taking me. Twenty minutes later and a few hundred yards up Collins Avenue, we arrived at the Sherry Frontenac, where seniors were frolicking in the lobby. A redheaded soprano at the piano was playing and singing
Kiss Me Again
. A few feet away a game of casino was in full swing.
“This place is nicer,” I said.
“You think so?”
He led me to the terrace. I could see from a stenciled
SHERRY FRONTENAC
on the pool platform that this was no longer a luxury hotel. I asked him if he would like to move here.
“Yes, but there’s no ocean view,” he said.
“What about price?”
“It’s the same.”
“I’ll talk to the manager,” I said. “Maybe if they see my face they’ll move you in.”
“But I wouldn’t have a view,” he said. “I just wanted you to see this place.”
Like two tortoises, we started back to the Casablanca.
Twenty minutes later we were there. I was hoping he wouldn’t ask me to go upstairs.
“You don’t have to come up,” he said. “We can say good-bye here.”
I felt a rush of sadness. He’d taken me off the hook, and I was relieved.
As we embraced, a car pulled out of the driveway and stopped. The man behind the wheel asked me what I was doing here. It was clear that he recognized me.
“Visiting my uncle,” I said, pointing to Abe.
“This is my mother,” the driver’s wife remarked, indicating an older woman in back. “She loves to dance.” The daughter was obviously trying to set up a
shiddach
, a love match.
Abe smiled and said, “We know each other.”
“Well, it’s nice seeing you,” the younger woman said as they drove off.
“How did they know you?” Uncle Abe asked.
“Television,” I said.
He looked at me and smiled.
As I got into my car he said, “I don’t like it when people come, because I know when they say good-bye, it’s tough for them.”
I kissed him a wet kiss and headed into traffic. He was right. It was tough. That was the last time I ever saw him.
Actors in pursuit of “the dream” sometimes get caught in the trap of not listening to themselves. When you listen to someone else and go against your own instincts, you’re courting trouble.
Such was the case when I accepted a role in
Sam’s Spa
, a film later called
Little Vegas
. I was to play the title role, Sam. Intriguing, to say the least, except that the script was not really about Sam, but about five other people, at least two of whom were more important than Sam. But, having turned down a chance to be in
Dirty Dancing
because I hated the script, I didn’t trust my judgment and allowed myself to be persuaded to do
Sam’s Spa
.
Many times when asked to do something on stage that is physically dangerous, actors become courageous. In real life I would shrink at things I’ve been asked to do onstage. You learn how to do a fall, for instance, and when it works, you feel proud. It rids you of former feelings of cowardice.
In this film I was supposed to hold a rattlesnake in my hand and converse with it. I knew there would be no doubles, and did not object. I figured, hell, it was some pussycat snake that was defanged and lovable. I also trusted my instinct that no animal, bird, or reptile would harm an actor. Also, the trainers were Hollywood experts. I had all these things going for me.
On the given day I was introduced to a six-foot rattler named Coffee. Coffee and I were to rehearse in one of the cottages. He was with the trainer, who took him out of a box and held him close in an easy, relaxed manner. I thought I could see the fangs.
“Does he—?” I didn’t have time to finish the sentence.
“No, he’s tame. It’s okay.”
“How old is he?”
“A couple of years,” the trainer said.
“How do I get to know him?”
“Here,” the trainer said, transferring the beautiful slithery creature into my hands. “They’re nice,” the trainer said.
I held the snake pressed into the palm of my hand, and he made himself at home on my arms. I began to wonder whether I could actually say my lines with the snake on my arm.
“Has he been defanged?” I asked as he slithered about, his tongue constantly moving.
“He’s harmless.”
“How do you know?”
“We test him. We feed him a rat, and when he doesn’t go for it, we know he’s safe.” I started to feel confident. I did my lines, put my face close to his, and got to like the feel.
“Okay, let’s shoot it,” said the director. I went down to the set and got into position for the take.
“Give him the snake,” the first assistant director shouted. I was handed a huge rattler at least two feet longer and lots heavier than Coffee.
“What happened to the other snake?” I asked.
“Oh, he was just the rehearsal snake,” the trainer said.
I survived.
Back in New York, Anne was performing on Broadway in a play by Richard Greenberg called
Eastern Standard
. Producer Jessica Levy lost her fight to keep the play alive until Tony nomination time. Anne’s performance as May Logan, the bag lady hovering on the edge of schizophrenia, might have earned her a nomination. More than one voter informed me that he would have voted for her.
When the show closed, Anne, like any actor, was saddened.
Anne asked if I would drive her to Great Neck. “Would you take me out to the house on Baker Hill Road?”
“Sure,” I said. I figured it would take her mind away from the show.
We drove over the Triboro Bridge and eventually onto the Northern State Parkway.
I played a tape. “Scott Joplin, you love him.”
We exited the Parkway and were in Great Neck.
“I was thinking of this place when I played May. It’s hard to get it out of my mind. That’s the church. It’s where I went to school, St. Thomas. Make a right.”
We climbed a small hill.
“That’s Baker Hill Road. Slow down. Stop the car.”
I stopped in front of the house.
“Do you want to go in?” I said.
“No. Drive around the corner.”
I made the turn.
“That’s the hill where my father took me sleigh riding. That’s the tree my father planted. I was eight years old. It was a sapling. Look at it, huge.”
“Yeah, like the one in our backyard in Nantucket.”
I realized that our Nantucket house is very similar to the one on Baker Hill Road.
“Let’s go.”
“Where?” I asked.
“To the other house.”
The other house was where Anne’s mother died. For some reason I thought it was on East 42nd Street in Brooklyn, next to Holy Cross cemetery. “Wasn’t it on East 42nd Street?”
“No, that’s where we all lived with the Gartners and Steenie Kearny and Tom and Mary.” We drove past the church again. “This is where I was sent to school. My mother made me sandwiches and gave me money for soda or dessert.”
“Didn’t you walk home for lunch? You were close enough.”
“Yes, I went home sometimes,” Anne said. “It’s up this street. Turn here.”
I turned up another tree-lined street. Two-family houses, all middle class.
Traveling back in time with Anne, I was touching base with this part of her life for the first time. It was to know Anne as I had never known her. There was a sadness to her she had never permitted me to see. It was also a chance for me to get closer to her.
“That’s the place,” Anne said, pointing to a shabby stucco house that hadn’t been kept up like the others around it.
We stopped. I remembered Anne describing coming home from school that day. The police cars were parked next to an ambulance. An ambulance outside a child’s house makes a child feel like the most important being in the world. Something life-threatening was taking place. The neighbors congregating outside made what happened seem almost festive. Anne was nine. Her father called her in, telling her, “Totsie, something’s happened to your mother.”
My mind flashed back to Cornelia Street. “I want you to know my mother committed suicide. That doesn’t change anything between us, does it?” Anne had asked.
“No,” I’d said, “why should it?”
“You still want to be with me.”
“Of course,” I’d said. I realized I had been entrusted with her most private secret.
I wondered what Anne had submerged all these years. What would a little girl think of her mother’s suicide? As we sat in the car outside the house I saw her as a child again.
“I want to go back to the church in Great Neck,” Anne said.
I couldn’t remember her ever going to church during the time we’d been married. I suddenly felt apart from her.
“Drive around and I’ll meet you in front in a few minutes.”
I drove around and waited.
A few minutes later she emerged through the archway. Had she become Catholic again?
“C’mon,” she said. “Let’s get something to eat. Wait a minute, there was a restaurant my father took me to called the Abbey. It’s this way.”
We drove a few blocks and finally gave up.
“It’s gone,” she said.
“You’re doing me today,” I said. “I’m the one always going back to the old neighborhood. You always made fun of me for doing it. Two people in one family doing the same thing is very sad. C’mon, let’s get something to eat.”
“Here on the Island?”
“Yeah, why not?” I said.
We drove past a steak house near Jericho Turnpike.
Anne said, “We haven’t eaten steak in a year.”
A valet parking guy took the Volkswagen. We ordered champagne cocktails and people came by and made a fuss over us. And the painful distance between the past and the present almost disappeared.
One of our great friends was Henny Youngman. Henny was a magician: His trick was that he could make anyone laugh. His only prop was his wit. He was an intellect in the garb of a clown. He loved opera. His delivery was like a shortwave radio sending out a distress signal. Sentences seemed to break up as they came out of his mouth an SOS: “My ship is going down. If you don’t laugh, I’ll sink.” He was doing the Titanic every time he told a joke. Each sentence was a trip to a precipice. He dared you not to laugh. More often than not you would, and he lived to tell another joke.
Henny befriended Anne and me before we were married. I was at Grand Central waiting to catch a train to Erie, Pennsylvania, and standing there was Henny Youngman.
“Henny Youngman,” I said,
“Where are you going?” he asked.
“Erie, Pennsylvania,” I said.
“I’m going to Toronto. I’ll see you.”
And we did. Four years later Anne was appearing in
Bus Stop
at the Woodstock (New York) Playhouse. During the intermission I spotted Henny in the lobby. I walked up and said, “Mr. Youngman, what are you doing here?”
“Same as you,” he replied.
“We met at Grand Central some years ago. My wife plays Cherie.”
“She’s wonderful,” he said. “Why don’t you come to my house. I’ll pick you up in front of the theater at 9
A.M.
tomorrow.”
I was in shock. When the show ended I told Anne.
“He’s got to be kidding,” she said.
Nonetheless the next morning we drove to the Playhouse.
At 9
A.M.
sharp Henny pulled up and said, “Get in the car.” We drove to his home. He introduced us to his wife, Sadie, and the kids. For the next eight hours we ate and laughed. Not a single one-liner, just ad libs.
“See that mountain? I own that mountain,” he cracked. “Tomorrow night I play on the other side of that mountain.”
When Anne and I were working at Mr. Kelly’s in Chicago, there were Henny and Sadie in the audience, laughing. When do comedians ever laugh at other younger comedians, I wondered.