Authors: Jerry Stiller
That night Estelle and I performed before a studio audience for the first time. She was in a wheelchair. She had broken her ankle and had been rehearsing in a cast. It never showed on camera.
In the scene I was asked to present a good-luck coin to George. I came up with a piece of business. I held the coin between my forefinger and thumb and made it disappear. It was a magic trick every five-year-old has seen. Jason’s reaction blew everyone away. The trick was meant to show him the value of money and make him agree to take a post office job. I can only imagine that the coin trick nailed down my future appearances on
Seinfeld
. I can still remember Jerry, Michael, and Julia hovering around me as we shot the scene that night. I felt like I was in a safe place. I was back in the womb. And I was making it with these kids.
When the shoot before the live audience was completed that evening, Jerry Seinfeld introduced the cast for curtain calls. When I took my bow, there was an audible increase in the applause. I was genuinely surprised. At that moment Jerry turned and gave me a look that said, “nice going.” An acknowledgment that something had indeed happened that night.
While this was going on, a lot was happening for Anne. She had written a second play—a funny, harrowing play—called
After-Play
. The show launched Anne in a new way. She had become a playwright.
Casting the role of one of the husbands in
After-Play
, however, became a problem. The role of Phil was written for me, Anne said. Deep down I was wrestling with why I did not want to read the role at backers’ auditions. If I could be truthful, I’d have to say I didn’t understand how wonderful the play was—this comedy dealing with love and death, husbands and wives, parents and children. I really didn’t get it. It was staring me in the face, and I didn’t understand my wife’s writing. I kept justifying my doubts by remembering stories of Bert Lahr in
Waiting for Godot
not knowing whether a joke was funny and asking people’s opinions. I was no Bert Lahr, I told myself, and the possibility of screwing up frightened me. Jack Weston agreed to do Phil in a reading, along with Tresa Hughes, Tony Roberts, and Katherine Kerr, for Lynn Meadow of the
Manhattan Theatre Club. Lynn loved the play and immediately scheduled it for production.
When casting time came, those set for the show were Rue McClanahan, Barbara Barrie, Merwin Goldsmith, Rochelle Oliver, John Venema, and Lance Reddick. But the role of Phil was still up in the air. Jack Weston couldn’t do it. Something about “dental work.” Jack, my pal from
The Ritz
, was in fact undergoing treatment for cancer, and died not long afterward. Larry Keith opened in the role of Phil.
When
After-Play
opened at the Manhattan Theatre Club, the notices from
The New York Times
, the
Daily News
,
The Post
, and
Newsday
all spelled “hit.” What made the story so remarkable in the eyes of the media was that Anne in her sixties had written a play that was selling out.
It was during this period that the Frank Costanza character was heating up. Although my TV stock was soaring, I was what was known in TV parlance as a recurring character, meaning it was never known when or if the character would reappear. Rather than fall victim to just waiting for the phone to ring, I kissed
Seinfeld
good-bye in my head. Inwardly, though, I was wishing I’d become a more frequent flyer to the coast.
That summer, while
Seinfeld
was on hiatus, Jim McKenzie (the producer of the Westport Playhouse) and Carlton Davis (the producer of the Cape Playhouse) asked if I would do
Beau Jest
at their theaters. I loved those grand old summer stock theaters. I’d performed there with Vivian Blaine some years past.
Beau Jest
was a perfect vehicle for Estelle Harris and myself, so I called her and she agreed to do the show. David Saint, who directed
After-Play
, would also direct. Then my daughter Amy joined the cast. It was a great way to spend the summer. We sold out every performance for four weeks.
Meanwhile, Donald Margulies, who would later win a Pulitzer Prize and whom Anne and I first met when he wrote sketches for
HBO Sneak Previews
(a series of short sketches we did for HBO), asked if I would play Sid, the grandfather, in a Broadway production of
What’s Wrong with This Picture
. The show had originally been produced Off-Broadway and now would reopen in the fall at the Brooks Atkinson with Faith Prince, Alan Rosenberg, and Florence Stanley.
My
Seinfeld
appearances were getting me work. Television actors were now drawing a Broadway audience. It was looking good until one day, while out on my daily walk (I’d stopped jogging some time back) I heard a crunch in my right hip. No pain, but it felt like two pieces of
shredded wheat rubbing against each other. I knew this spelled trouble up the road. Nevertheless, the thought of opening in Donald’s play on Broadway wiped away any concern over a stupid thing like hip degeneration. Besides, I could use it in the role. Actors use everything. I was playing an aging ex-New York cab driver who had progressing Alzheimer’s disease. I could add a little limp.
I was thrilled I’d be opening on Broadway. Then, shortly before rehearsals were to begin, I received a call from my agent.
“
Seinfeld
needs you right away.”
The “Chinese Woman” was the beginning of five years of hopping back and forth to L.A. After shooting “Chinese Woman,” I flew back to New York and opened in
What’s Wrong with This Picture
on Broadway.
The notices were not raves, but I felt it was the best work I’d done since
Hurlyburly
. I loved the play and was saddened when I heard that the show was to close after five weeks of performances.
Although
After-Play
was selling out at the Manhattan Theatre Club, the show closed to make way for a play MTC had previously scheduled. Now what? Anne had a hit show without a theater.
The idea that Anne’s play might disappear affected me. I already felt guilty about not being in it for the first run, so I got on the phone and began trying to raise the $400,000 needed for a further Off-Broadway production. Many people came aboard: Judith Resnick, Nancy Richards, Evangeline Morphos, and Carol Ostrow. Then when Anne and I put some of our own money into the till,
After-Play
was reborn Off-Broadway.
Its second coming happened at Theater Four, on Manhattan’s West 55th Street, in January of 1995, six weeks after closing at MTC. Once again, it was beautifully received.
I now agreed to step into the role of Phil. My biggest fear was how a limp, which was growing more pronounced, would read onstage. I sat down and talked with Anne about it.
Then I explained my fears to David Saint.
David said, “You could do Phil on crutches. That’s how perfect you are. You could do it in a wheelchair.” That’s all I had to hear. Now I wanted to do it.
I would be playing opposite Rita Moreno, a Tony, Emmy, and Oscar winner whom I had worked with in
The Ritz
. What a gift. Anne agreed to replace Rue McClanahan, who was now working in London.
My continuing appearances on
Seinfeld
had been my career lifeline.
They had given me the cachet to extend the run of
After-Play
as well as allayed my fears of never being called back to appear on
Seinfeld
again.
No sooner had the play opened when one afternoon, as Anne and I were having lunch in a neighborhood restaurant, Dawn Eaton, the young woman who keeps our lives and everything else on track, called to say, “
Seinfeld
called.”
“When?”
“Tonight.”
“You gotta be kidding.”
“They’ve booked you on the 6
P.M.
out of Newark.”
“You going to do it?” Anne asked. “Three hours’ notice?”
This is exciting
, I said to myself. Inwardly I was
kvelling
. In their minds Frank Costanza was still alive.
Then I wondered, What kind of person was I to let a TV show rule me? I’m performing every night. What more do I want? I mean, can someone just press a button and I turn into Costanza? I’m going to refuse this offer, I thought. Be my own man. I’ll show them. I’ll ask for a guarantee. Sign me for ten shows.
“You going to do it?” Anne asked.
“Of course.” An actor must act. I forgot about the ten shows.
“What about your hip? It’s killing you. Six hours on a plane.”
“That’s what cortisone’s for.”
“Have them fax me my lines,” I said to Dawn.
Three hours later I was in the air learning my part from a mini cassette tape recorder. I landed in L.A., drove to the hotel, went to bed, and the next morning arrived on the Stage 5 lot.
In the “Fusilli Jerry” episode, Kramer (Michael Richards) and I get into a physical confrontation over who owns the rights to the “mansierre,” an upper body support for men. Michael and I improvised the scene, which got very physical. I was supposed to end up on the floor, landing on a corkscrew pasta. The fusilli Jerry trophy was to imbed itself in my
tush
and cause a visit to a proctologist.
I painstakingly avoided telling the cast about my hip out of fear that doing so would inhibit them. I did a lot of hopping. The question was, how to land after the fall without further aggravating my condition?
Since the action took place behind a couch, I figured that as Michael hit me I’d hook my arm onto the couch, lessening the impact, and the camera would then cut away. However, every time I fell, Julia, also in the
scene, would break up laughing. We had to reshoot. My ego was delighted that I could make her laugh, and I almost willingly repeated the scene despite fear of injury.
“Are you all right?” everybody would ask.
“Fine, fine,” I’d say. We finally got the shot.
During my breaks in
Seinfeld
, I got to play Vince Lombardi in a Nike commercial, film
A Fish in the Bathtub
for Joan and Ray Silver, and play Chebutykin in Chekhov’s
Three Sisters
at the Roundabout Theatre on Broadway. I had done more as an actor in the
Seinfeld
period than I could ever have dreamed of doing. Someone had been good to me.
My appearances on Seinfeld had become popular enough that the New York State Council on the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts, under Jane Alexander’s chairmanship, called on me for an appearance at a fund-raiser. I was thrilled at my growing popularity and my power to persuade people to support a cause.
All this attention was filling me with the air I needed. My existence as an actor took on a new meaning. I could speak and people would listen. Suddenly I felt I had finally done something in my life—and alone, no longer feeding off Anne.
One day Ginny Louloudes of the Alliance of Resident Theaters (ART NY) called and asked if I would become a board member. ART NY was part of the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA), which supported hundreds of theater groups throughout New York State. It was my chance to pay back what the Henry Street Playhouse gave me.
One of the most thrilling days of my life came when I agreed to fly to Albany in a Cherokee Piper Cub along with Kitty Carlisle Hart (who chaired NYSCA), Tony Randall, Celeste Holm, and Ginny. We were to meet with Governor George Pataki and then lobby the members of the New York state legislature for money for the arts. A special Arts Day had been designated by the legislature.
The presence of Tony, Celeste, and Kitty speaking out for the arts really affected everyone. Sitting next to three stars fighting for the “have nots” was unforgettable. What was my contribution to all of this, I wondered as we were ushered into an auditorium filled with legislators and 3,600 people representing arts organizations who were lobbying for a piece of the financial pie.
The three stars spoke eloquently about their own beginnings, how important it was to nurture talented people who need a place to start. The
arts have always been in the back of the line of funding priorities, behind education, Medicaid, the homeless, drug abuse. How do we get the message across that theater is the pulpit of the masses? After the big three made their pitch I was introduced by state Senator Roy Goodman, who was always a friend of the arts. He gave me a wonderful introduction as Frank Costanza on
Seinfeld. Be funny
, I told myself.
These people are expecting a few laughs.
So I got up and started screaming in Frank’s character, “Without arts we got nothing.” Then I went into a parody of “The Name Game,” a hit song from the ‘60s. The word I used was
shonder
, “shame” in Yiddish. “
Shonder, shonder
, bo bonder, banana, fanna, fo-fonder, mee-my-mo-monder—SHONDER!” chastising the legislature for not allocating money to the arts. Now I had them laughing and I had their attention. Tony, Celeste, Kitty, and Ginny were in shock but were nodding their heads in approval. Would Frank Costanza win bucks for the arts? I then explained how my life in the theater started with the Henry Street Playhouse, which had been partially funded by government grants. I explained that without Henry Street I would never have gotten the chance to become an actor.
After the event, I was amazed when I was surrounded by state senators and other powerful legislators asking for my autograph for themselves and their kids. The power of a hit television show.
All of this spadework for the arts made me feel beautiful inside—more joyful than I had ever expected. Suddenly I was a flaming activist storming the barricades. I was Robespierre invoking the spirit of Esther Lane and the Henry Street Playhouse.
It also occurred to me that my sudden outspokenness could make me controversial and might affect future appearances on
Seinfeld
. Why not, I thought. I’d be a martyr for the arts and I’d be remembered forever.
Toward the end of December 1995, while I was still performing in
After-Play
, an offer came in for the new
Seinfeld
season. I was guaranteed five episodes. “But can you fly this week?” they asked. “We heard about your hip. Are you okay?”