Authors: Jerry Stiller
Here it was three years later. I couldn’t get arrested. I wondered, Will Michael Hartig want to handle Jerry Stiller? I made the call.
“Let’s have lunch at the Russian Tea Room,” he said. The Tea Room was run by Faith Stewart Gordon, and it was a place where good things used to happen for us. It was late afternoon. The place was mostly quiet. We sat in a booth and discussed my career. I tried to be upbeat.I figured
if I acted depressed and showed bitterness I could have blown it. But I still had to be honest, I was out of work and had no representation.
Michael listened as I talked to him about my hangups, where my life was at. I thought that if he wanted to handle me, maybe his business was in trouble.
What impressed me was Michael’s understanding of the actor’s process. We talked about my fears, stuff I would normally never have wanted or allowed an agent to know. He took it all in. He said, “If you were onstage as many times as Joseph Buloff you would never have fear.” It astounded me that Michael mentioned the name Buloff, a famous Yiddish actor who’d starred in the role of Ali Hakim in Oklahoma on Broadway, opposite Celeste Holm. Joseph’s daughter, Barbara, is Anne’s and my therapist. I wondered if I should mention this, but I held back. Enough already. Our meeting ended. Michael left me with these words: “I never lie in the Green Room,” which I understood to mean that if I was lousy onstage, he’d tell me.
“I’ll send your contract, one year; we’ll see how it works out,” he said.
Soon afterward Michael called. “Tony Randall’s doing a revival of
Three Men on a Horse
. He wants to talk to you.”
Tony had founded the National Actor’s Theatre on Broadway. He had invested much of his own savings and begun a collaboration with Laura Pels producing revivals.
The possibility of going into the George Abbott and John Cecil comedy on Broadway excited me. When I met with Tony, I was wearing a black-and-white checkered woolen coat that made me look like a zebra.
“What are you up to?” he asked, staring at my coat. I knew by the look on his face that I would not have to read for the role I was being considered for. The
coat
won the day.
“Jack Klugman’s going to play Patsy and I’m playing Irwin. I’d love you to play Charlie.” Bingo, I was cast. “We got Joey Faye, John Beal, Ellen Greene, and Julie Hagerty. John Tillinger is directing.”
“Sounds good,” I said. And so, I was back to work on Broadway. I was reunited with Jack, whom I’d worked with at Stratford, the Phoenix, and Equity Library Theater (ELT). My spirits revived!
Just as I was about to begin rehearsals, I got another call from Michael. “They’d like you to replace the father on the
Seinfeld
show. Have you ever seen it?”
“No,” I said.
“It’s a big hit,” he said. “You must do it. They need you right away. They’ll fly you out tonight and shoot Tuesday.”
“Michael, it’s the second day of rehearsal for
Three Men on a Horse
. I’m working with Tony Randall and Jack Klugman. They’ll hate me. I can’t do it.”
“You can fly back Wednesday.”
“I’ll miss three days of rehearsal. I gotta pass.”
“I’ll tell them,” Michael said.
As he said this, I was already telling myself I could do both. Actors do this all the time. When I was doing
Airport ’75
at Universal with Charlton Heston, Heston was also doing
Earthquake
, another disaster movie, at the same time.
“They called again,” Michael said a day later. “They want you desperately.”
“I can’t,” I said. “Tell them I can’t. Give me their telephone number. I’ll tell them.”
Already I was opening the door to a mercy plea. I didn’t want them to hate me. I called Larry David, the producer and co-creator of the show, and thanked him for wanting me. But I told him I couldn’t do it.
I opened in
Three Men on a Horse
. Two months later I was given a Drama League Award for my performance as Charlie, the third banana in the show. At the luncheon in the Plaza sat the royalty of New York theater. I was on the dais with every star on Broadway. Anne was sitting next to me. When a mike was handed to me and I was asked to say a few words, I proudly announced it was the fiftieth anniversary of my first erection. Why I said it I have no idea. Probably just to liven up the proceedings. My remarks startled everyone, to say the least.
“It happened when I was in the sixth grade and our English teacher was reading from Chaucer. ‘A Nun’s Tale’ or something like that. Suddenly I felt a bulge in my pants. I had no idea what it was but it was very annoying. At the end of the class I went up to my English teacher and said, ‘I have this …’
“She looked down and said, ‘My God, you have an erection.’
“I said, ‘Yes and it’s very annoying. How do I get rid of it?’
“She said, ‘That’s not my department. Go downstairs and see the Hygiene people.’
“I went downstairs to see Mr. Tuttle. Before I could open my mouth, he spotted my bulge and said, ‘Kid, you’ve got an erection.’
“I said, ‘How do I get rid of it?’
“He said, ‘I can’t help you, Jerry. Go to the library and look it up.’
“So, I cut the rest of my classes and went over to the library on East Broadway and got hold of this book
Anatomy of Sex
, by Havelock Ellis, and turned to the chapters on erections. Just then a gong sounded and the librarian said, ‘Everyone out, we’re having a fire drill.’
“I did something I’d never done before. I stuck the book under my jacket and started to leave. The library had a little wooden turnstile that you had to go through as you checked out your books. As I went through, the turnstile hit my erection, and lo and behold, it went away. Now every once in a while I still get an erection, and if Anne is out of town I go down to the subway, buy a token, put it into the slot, and walk through. I usually hit the turnstile and when I do, well, my erection goes away.”
At this point, amid the laughs, Anne got up and handed me a token. She said, “Here, go down to the subway and maybe you’ll get lucky.”
“You broke the ice,” Tony Randall whispered. Was this a compliment or was my theatrical career
finito
, I wondered. But I got laughs and I got their attention. It was no longer a stodgy lunch.
One month after that,
Three Men
closed and I was once again out of work. Another call came from Michael. “They still want you for George’s father.”
“Who’s George?” I asked. I had never seen the show.
A few hours later I was flying to Los Angeles to do the first of what would turn into approximately twenty-five episodes on
Seinfeld
.
From that point, my life changed. Much of it had to do with an actor named John Randolph.
In 1947, when I was nineteen, I went to see
Command Decision
on Broadway. This play by William Wister Haines about an air force squadron flying out of England in World War Two starred Paul Kelly, but the actor I identified with was John Randolph. He played Jake Goldberg, bombardier on a B-17. His performance was so warm and so heroic that I decided at that moment I wanted someday to perform on Broadway. I went backstage to tell him this.
I knocked on his dressing-room door. He stood in the doorway, dripping with perspiration.
“Come in,” Randolph said, without asking anything more of this strange kid.
“I loved your performance,” I said.
He showed me a chair. “What did you like?”
“You,” I said. “It’s like you lit up the stage.”
“What do you do?” he asked.
“I want to be an actor. If only I could do what you do!”
“If you’ve got ambition and the will, you’ll make it,” he said.
“You really think so? Maybe someday I’ll work with you.” I got up and left.
Six years later I was playing one of the three Volscian servants in
Coriolanus
at the Phoenix. The company included Robert Ryan, John Emery, Mildred Natwick, Paula Lawrence, Lou Polan, Will Geer, Jack Klugman, Gene Saks—and John Randolph.
On the first day of rehearsal I approached Randolph and said, “Do you remember me? I came to your dressing room at
Command Decision
. You told me I’d make it someday.” He broke into a smile. I doubt he remembered, but he acted as if he did.
In the following weeks I learned that John, Robert Ryan, Will Geer, and many others in the company were either blacklisted or otherwise tagged as Communist sympathizers, fellow travelers. Nearly everyone in the company, including director John Houseman, was left-of-center. Houseman’s interpretation of Shakespeare likened Coriolanus’s banishment by the Roman Senate to the Un-American Activities Committee’s bludgeoning of left-wing artists. The blacklisted John Randolph was ironically playing a Roman counterpart of Senator Joseph McCarthy.
During the run of the show I listened to stories of the broken lives of blacklisted actors. Randolph’s unwillingness to squeal to the Committee still sticks with me. Though his job opportunities were virtually nil, the smile was always there and his belief in American justice was steadfast.
The actor I replaced on
Seinfeld
was John Randolph.
My first day on the set, Stage 5, in Studio City, I learned my name was Costanza. What kind of name is Costanza? I had never watched a minute of
Seinfeld
. I’d seen a couple of minutes of Jerry’s special and had no idea what people were laughing at. I was still freaking out watching the Marx Brothers. Nobody was funnier than Milton Berle, Eddie Cantor, Jack Benny, Jimmy Durante, Fred Allen, and Henny Youngman. Their greatness haunted my memory.
Now came
Seinfeld
, the newest generation of comedy. Nichols and May and Shelley Berman were the distant past, as was the comedy team of Stiller and Meara. Now we had the new kids: Robin Williams, Billy Crystal, Whoopi Goldberg. And then came Seinfeld, completely different. He makes observations; no punch lines.
As the table reading started for the writers and network, I was already trying to figure out how to make my lines funny. I heard my cue, and added a few words. The table went silent. What had I done wrong? Then I got it: These written words were sacrosanct.
The unspoken message: “Put a lid on it, shut up and listen.” If I didn’t, I was telling them that I wasn’t on their wavelength. But what was I supposed to be? The character of Frank Costanza was supposed to be out of step with the world. If I didn’t speak up I was just saying words with no bite, and I’d always improvised funny stuff.
What’s the big deal?
I thought.
What have I got to lose?
I was a replacement. I could easily end up walking the same plank as Randolph. But I might as well give it a fight, be what an actor is supposed to be, courageous. I’d been a quiet Jew too long.
Fuck it
, I thought.
If they fire me, they fire me.
Don’t hold back.
But I did hold back.
We finished the reading. We knew there would be script revisions but we started blocking the scenes. Then the announcement: Go home and wait for the rewrites.
We rehearsed for five days. On the day of the shoot, Larry David, who also played the voice of George Steinbrenner, asked how I’d feel wearing a bald wig that would approximate the hairline of Jason Alexander, the actor playing my son George. I felt uneasy about wearing a hairpiece but agreed. The makeup department worked for three hours trying to make me look like Jason. As we got closer to the camera blocking, I felt more and more estranged from my character, which was still very nebulous. When we started the final blocking I asked Larry if the bald wig was necessary.
“Try it,” he urged.
“But it’s uncomfortable,” I said. I remembered Fielder Cook’s directorial hand in
Seize the Day
. Cook’s sharp insights made my performance as Tamkin better than I could have imagined. Was Larry right? Should I go with the wig?
We started blocking the scene with Estelle Harris playing my wife. Now the wig was beginning to separate from my sideburns. Estelle’s piercing screams could shatter glass. In fact, this was the normal voice of her character. Larry advised me to reply in a monotone. The contrast, he said, would get some laughs. As the scene progressed I could feel the wig peeling and my nonconfrontational character disintegrating. There was no conflict in the scene.
I found myself desperately searching for some way to connect with Estelle’s character. I suddenly saw myself on a bus, heading back to New York City and once more out of work. I was history in this role. I asked for a break, and called Larry over. “I can’t do this guy subdued, and the wig is driving me crazy. Do you mind if I do it my way?”
“Do it your way.”
We started the scene again, and this time I screamed back at Estelle. “You made him this way, you spoiled him. You slept in the same bed with him!”
Estelle went catatonic. The cameramen were hysterical. I continued shouting at Estelle, stunning her with the strength of my outburst. Jason, Jerry, Michael Richards, and Julia Louis-Dreyfus were laughing their heads off.
“Keep it up, do it,” Larry said.
“Can I take off the wig?”
“Yeah, take it off,” Larry said. “You don’t need a wig.” It so happened that my hair, which was dyed brown, had oxidized to a bright orange, Tang-colored, almost the same color as Estelle’s. It was a happy accident. We looked ridiculous together.
At that moment, Jason, who seemed to be enjoying all this, said, “Jerry, don’t be afraid to hit me.”
“What do you mean?” I asked
He slapped his own head, a kind of glancing shot.
“You want me to hit you?”
“Yes,” he said.
“You’re thirty-five years old and my son, I can’t do that.”
“Try it,” he said.
“I don’t want to hurt you.”
“Don’t be afraid.” Jason then ad-libbed some funny line about wanting my car. I let him have it right on his pate with the palm of my hand,
sort of a hit and a bounce. It was as if the world stopped. The cast and crew and Jason exploded in laughter. At that point, Estelle said, “Can I hit him too?”
“No, Estelle,” Larry interjected. “Only one person can hit Jason at a time.”