Maybe We'll Have You Back: The Life of a Perennial TV Guest Star (10 page)

“Hey, how’s it going, Matt?” I asked.

He just nodded “hi” to me and walked to the corner of the room to look over the audition material. I understood the look on his face. I didn’t feel snubbed at all. Only months before, he was the star hunk of his own show, who had a star dressing room and all the women screaming for him. He was making the big money and I was the geeky guest guy a far distance down the pecking order. And now here we were, both desperately vying for the same local TV ad.

12

CAN I GET MYSELF HIRED AS A REGULAR? “I DON’T THINK SO”

I
actually was asked back to
Murphy Brown
, but for a different part. Instead of a jerky usher I was now a jerky deli guy. In the scene I was making a sandwich for the flustered
“FYI”
anchor, Jim Dial, and not doing what he wanted. Whenever Dial tried to correct what I was doing, I flatly replied, “I don’t think so.”

I felt like I was finally getting somewhere—two appearances on a longstanding hit show. But a few days after it aired, my mother expertly brought me crashing back to Earth. Usually she starts a conversation by asking: “Anything good happening, or the same?” When I heard her voice on the other end of the phone, I knew any information fed to her would be put through her meat grinder and come out negative on the other end.

“Hi, Ma, did you see me on
Murphy Brown
?” Long pause. Maybe she didn’t hear me. “You know, Ma, it’s a big show to be on.”

“I know that, but it’s always so long from one job to the next. How long has it been since your last one?”

“Not so long. Just a little while.” I didn’t want to admit to her that it had actually been ten months since I had worked on
Vinnie & Bobby
.

“Don’t you think it would be better to be a regular on a show?”

This is the kind of expert advice I get all the time, and not just from my mother. “You’re so funny, you should be a regular,” as if the only thing stopping me is that I hadn’t heard of that career path. I suppose people think I could just finish a week on a show and then handcuff myself to the set, or demand political asylum. Maybe that’s my whole career problem: when the work is over, I leave too easily.

Between my first two appearances on
Murphy Brown
the show had become a lightning rod in the culture, because in May 1992, Vice President Dan Quayle attacked it for portraying an unwed mother as a hero, saying it was helping erode family values. (Since then, many shows including
Friends
have portrayed similar situations, but at the time it was a novelty.) The controversy had actually made the ratings soar and when the show won the Emmy that year, Diane English thanked Dan Quayle. But apparently, some very enraged Americans agreed with the Vice President and made threats against Candice Bergen’s life. It seemed they couldn’t make the distinction between the actress and the fictional character who was doing this “terrible thing.” During a taping, some nut had charged the stage. He did not get far. They were not sure if this was a result of the controversy, but after that no one was taking any chances.

Security was obviously tighter than the first time I was on. Anytime anyone entered the set, they had to sign in and wear an identification sticker. Candice Bergen now had her own private security guard who never was more than several feet away from her. Again, I didn’t have much contact with her. It wasn’t worth brushing aside her very stringent private security just to engage in small talk.

My scenes were with Charles Kimbrough, who played the stuffy news anchor Jim Dial. Kimbrough, who had kicked around Broadway for years, was thrilled to be on
Murphy Brown
.

Except for the extra security, there was an upbeat, good feel on the set. All the regulars in conversations with me had used the words “very fortunate” describing the stress-free, great-paying gig that they had. Kimbrough humbly described it as “winning the lottery.” There were no prima donnas on that set as far as I could tell.

Diane English had left to create another show, and two former actors-turned-writers, Gary Dontzig and Steven Peterman, had taken over. They were extremely accessible to me. In a show of support on the following weekend, they, along with the other writers, even came to see my act at a little comedy club in West L.A.

But by August 1993, six months had passed, and I hadn’t found work. I had read an article about how
Murphy Brown
was bringing in Scott Bakula and some other new characters that season. So I took a shot. I wrote them a letter asking for a meeting because I had an idea for how I, too, could be a new regular character on their show.

At the pay phone one day on Victory and Van Nuys, I beeped in for my messages for the umpteenth time and was surprised to hear that Steve Peterman had responded to my letter. My favorite pastime is beeping in for my answering machine messages. It’s amazing how happy it makes me when the machine picks up after just two rings, indicating that there is a message. In the three seconds it takes the machine to rewind and play it back, my fantasy goes everywhere. Maybe this message could be something big that changes my life. Anything is possible. Perhaps it’s some job offering. Maybe someone always had me in mind and now has the power to make a movie and wants me in it.

Or maybe it’s love. Maybe some woman from the past is available and confesses she always liked me and now she can’t contain it any longer.

Or if not something big like that, maybe there’s an audition.

Or maybe the message is good feedback. Maybe someone has news that someone likes me and, not now, but at some future point this can lead to something good.

Some days I’ll beep in practically every ten minutes, even though most of the time even if there’s news, it isn’t that pressing. I try hard to wait. The longest I can hold out is a half an hour.

That day, Peterman’s message was: “We got your letter and we usually don’t take outside suggestions from actors about how they could be on our show, but we, being former actors ourselves, have an understanding, so why don’t you just come by during lunch and say ‘hi’.”

I was torn between thinking I had made some headway, or that the guy just felt sorry for me and was being polite. Now that I think back on this, it’s kind of amazing that he responded so kindly. Many producers would likely be offended by some outsider giving them self-serving input. The last thing they want to hear is someone like me telling them, “I know you guys are coming up with story arcs for your season, but I’ve got a way to go you haven’t thought of, better than what you’re all coming up with here.”

I took him up on the offer of stopping by and I paced outside their office until an assistant came out and told me they were done with their important meeting. I thanked them for letting me drop by and sat down hoping I could blow them away with my idea. I told them that my idea was that I’m this guy that always comes by the office, because I have a crush on Corky (Faith Ford). Each episode I come by with a new personality trying to impress her. Maybe one week I’d be my pathetic version of a cool brooding actor, and one week I’d think I was a tough-as-nails Jeff Bridges type.

When I finished, there was an uncomfortable silence in the room. They just sat there, looking at me like I was a crazy person on a bus, who had just screamed gibberish at them.

I tried to recover. “I’d do funny things thinking I’m impressing her.”

That was followed by more uncomfortable silence. My pitch was too vague. I suppose I was hoping that they’d see something in my idea and riff off of it and come up with their own ways I could be on the show.

In essence, I was saying to them, “Please just make me a regular! That’s my idea. Find some way to squeeze me in. I’ll only take a few seconds of each episode. Come on, you know I’m funny! Me in your show is the idea!”

I tried one last time to save face. “Or maybe once in a while I could pop up, not every episode, just once in a while. You know, I’m like having a crush on her.”

One of them shrugged his shoulders. To be nice, and they both were, he might have muttered “I see.” They then announced that they had to get back to work.

Trying to break the uncomfortable silence, I started babbling. I told them how grateful I was that they had gotten me a pass to get on to the Warner Brothers lot, because I loved buying Warner Brothers label CDs at the company store that offered a big discount. They seemed relieved that I had changed the uncomfortable subject.

13

AN EMPTY NEST IS BETTER THAN NO NEST

It
’s slow. Nothing’s going on. I mean, it’s dead.” When I’ve attempted to stop by one of the six theatrical agents I’ve had, trying to stir some activity up, those are the words I almost always hear. Everyone hears them as a matter of fact, and you want to say, “Really? Nothing’s going on? Isn’t this the land of show business where they make most of the TV shows and movies?” It’
s slow. Nothing’s going on. I mean, it’s dead.” When I’ve attempted to stop by one of the six theatrical agents I’ve had, trying to stir some activity up, those are the words I almost always hear. Everyone hears them as a matter of fact, and you want to say, “Really? Nothing’s going on? Isn’t this the land of show business where they make most of the TV shows and movies?”

I remember stepping into my latest agency asking why I hadn’t had any auditions. The owner pointed to his computer demonstrating just how dead things were. I didn’t ask what that meant, just assumed his computer was completely empty, so I stepped out of his office and into Gloria’s, his partner, just to say hi and show my face to her too.

“Can’t talk, it’s crazy! It’s crazy busy!” she exclaimed trying to get rid of me.

“But Mike said it was dead,” I wanted to say.

It took me well over a decade to learn that once you’ve worked a certain amount and people know who you are, there’s only so much your agent can do. Most of them just field calls when someone calls for you. Most jobs come from people you’ve worked for before or people who ask for you. Usually the casting agents or their assistants call up and have in mind the people they think will fit into some certain role for an audition, or with an offer for the part. They’re usually in a rush and want to get the type as close to what the producers are looking for.

People will say, “Can’t your agent submit you for different kinds of stuff, like killers or detectives in gritty movies?” That might happen if you’re an established name like Steve Buscemi, but not in guest guy world. If it’s a yuppie who thinks Will Smith is a mugger in
The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air,
or a dock worker who saw something suspicious in
Law & Order
, you got to look like that and not be a distraction.

Most actors think they’re missing out on some great opportunities and scour the city looking for that role their agent didn’t think of them for. I witnessed some of this desperation back in the early nineties with a new agency that had a box next to its building where actors could pick up their sides and scripts for auditions all hours of the night. (This of course was before the accessibility of getting them so readily and paper-free by e-mail.) There would be a pile of sealed manila envelopes with each actor’s name on it. It was a medium-sized agency, there were no marquee names I recognized as I leafed through the stack looking for my envelope. They were mostly character actors. I remember waiting for comedian John Byner to get his packet while I stood by one time.

On one particular night, I found my envelope while another actor I didn’t know stood by watching me.

“What’s it for?” he asked.

“
Empty Nest
,” I told him.

He waved his hand in disgust and shook his head.

“Why aren’t I up for that?!” He was about thirty-five, unshav
en, and seemed ragged from fretting over his career.

“You like this agency?” he asked.

“They’re okay I guess.”

“They suck! They tell me it’s slow, that there’s no auditions. I saw the box. It’s jammed with scripts for other people’s auditions, but not for me! I’m gonna give it to them tomorrow!”

He stormed off and reminded me that in Hollywood there’s always someone to make you feel you’ve actually got it together, or are less desperate. Only in showbiz could someone like me refer to someone else as a “character.” I admit there have been times that I’ve found my envelope, but continued leafing through out of curiosity to see who else had an audition. But I had never come over to stalk the box when I had no reason to make the trip.

I skimmed through the sides as I was opening my car door. It was the part of a perennial hypochondriac who comes to this clinic every day and runs down a litany of his ailments.

“My eyes are itchy, my throat has a tickle, my stomach is twinging, and I have a ringing in my left ear. Then there’s the usual shooting pains, foot sores, post nasal drip, and heart palpitations. But who’s complaining?”

That seemed like a pretty good fit for me. Sometimes on the sheet with the information where and when the reading is, they’ll also say which producers will be there. I had mixed feelings when I saw that Bob Tischler, my old boss from
Nightlife with David Brenner,
was now running
Empty Nest
. We had not left off on the best of terms. My last days there were not a warm experience. I knew even if it was a good experience, a familiar face in the room isn’t always a good thing. I had learned auditioning for someone you had some kind of history with doesn’t always mean you have leverage. I have read for friends from my stand-up days and people I’ve worked for on other shows to no avail. Sometimes old acquaintances can be the toughest rooms. They start off very friendly and when it comes to the reading, they sit there with their arms folded and then quickly thank you for coming by when it’s over.