Maybe We'll Have You Back: The Life of a Perennial TV Guest Star (12 page)

Although Treat Williams was a star on
Good Advice
, he had been quite humbled. In the early eighties he starred in the movies
Hair
and
Prince of the City
among others and was on the cover of
TIME Magazine
along with Elizabeth McGovern and William Hurt as cinema’s new major actors. But he claimed that his party days probably stunted that promising career. He told me that he knew
Good Advice
wasn’t looking enormously promising, but he was glad to get it at this point in his career. He asked me what I was hoping for in my career.

“I’d love to be in movies. I’d really love that.”

“Me too,” he said, as he shook his head sadly in agreement. “I’d like that, too.” I was glad when he later rebounded with some small movie roles and found a home on
Everwood
. It’s nice when nice guys succeed.

Our chemistry translated on-screen; the taping went very well and the producers told me they’d try to get me back as the recurring newsstand guy, if the show made the fall schedule. This was the kind of news I clung to. When
Good Advice
aired that summer, I checked the ratings and reviews as if it were a stock I owned. Unfortunately, after a few tepid reviews and poor ratings, the stock sank rather quickly, drowning my hope along with it.

16

MY
SEINFELD
DAZE

I
wasn’t going to go to Steve’s surprise party at first. I wasn’t feeling that social, though I was painfully alone at the time. I do things like that. I’ll moan to myself how isolated I am, go outside, see someone I know, and then hide from them. It’s not always because this person is the most annoying. Sometimes with some people I just know what the conversation is going to be and I don’t have the strength to relive it in real life after experiencing it in my head.

“What’s been up, Fred?”

“You know, plugging along. Did a spot on
Murphy Brown
last month. And you?”

It was 1994, and twenty of my fellow stand-up comedians and I were all standing in the dark in our friend Steve’s living room in L.A., waiting to surprise him on his thirty-seventh birthday. Like most of the guys in the room, I’d met Steve in 1980 in the New York comedy club scene. Most of us had been pushed out of that scene, which had boomed in the early eighties, peaked by the mid eighties, and busted by the early nineties. It withered for a couple of reasons. One: Television. People didn’t need to pay to see comedians at their local bar once it became accessible on every cable show. Two: Demographics. Once the massive baby boom generation grew up and started having families, they stopped going out to clubs. There simply weren’t as many people seeking the kind of social activity that comedy clubs provided.

After getting stage time so effortlessly for so many years, it became too difficult to vie for the few remaining venues. Some of us had gone on to attempt lives away from the comedy clubs by pursuing sitcom writing careers. Some had intermittent success. Some had done very nicely. And others were just as in the dark about what to do next as they were standing in that unlit living room.

About an hour after we surprised Steve, Larry David, the co-creator of
Seinfeld
, entered. Knowing Larry, I bet he planned on coming late so he wouldn’t have to scream “Surprise!” and feel like a fool.

I was a little nervous seeing him there. I had known David, a stand-up turned
Saturday Night Live
writer also from the New York club scene, and now that
Seinfeld
was a hit, I had written him a letter the previous year asking him to please keep me in mind if there were any acting parts on his show. I didn’t feel awkward so much because he hadn’t responded, but because I was possibly making
him
feel awkward. I worried that he would think, “Here’s another one who has asked me for something and now I have to acknowledge him.”

My interactions with him were always awkward. As he revealed years later on his own HBO series
Curb Your Enthusiasm
he’s not the most socially adept person. And as I may have mentioned, neither am I. If I’d try to give him a compliment or even just attempt small talk, he’d grumble something and get this suspicious look on his face. One time, I bumped into him at another party where he greeted me by saying, “You don’t have to shake my hand,” and then he just walked away. As a stand-up, he had the reputation among the other comics as someone who would suddenly storm off stage at the slightest sign of disrespect from the crowd.

But at this party, he was more open to me than I expected. He wanted to know about my dating life. In the past, he had explained to me that I was doomed. “You’re a loser. You’re a Jew from Brooklyn!” He wanted to know when was the last time I got laid. I glossed over the subject. I said I wanted to have someone tell me that a woman likes me and that by coincidence it’s a mutual attraction. He said, “That’s never going to happen to you. You’re too neurotic!”

He asked what I was doing with my career. I knew I couldn’t fake confidence around him. It had been a while since my last job. He asked why I had not written a
Seinfeld
spec script like so many others had. That’s why I hadn’t, because so many others had. At the time, every aspiring writer was writing a
Seinfeld
spec script, and almost every civilian thought they had a premise for an episode.

You write a spec script to show a sample of your ability. As a general rule, showrunners looking at prospective writers never read scripts for their own show. They know their show so well, they can pick apart an outsider’s attempt too easily. I told him it was hard for me to find the incentive to write something I knew would never get made, just so I could have a sample of my writing. He insisted I write a
Seinfeld
script. He stressed several times that nothing would happen, but he would read it.

I went home and thought about it, going back and forth trying to decide whether I should bother. I did have some writing aspirations. I had several notebooks filled with movie ideas, scenes, and situations for myself similar to the bits I had done on
Nightlife with David Brenner
. But I wasn’t sure about going the sitcom staff-writing route. Although it had been six years since I had arrived in Hollywood, I still dreamed of making it as a well-known character actor. Being a staff writer seemed like taking on a whole other crapshoot. It could prove very rewarding financially, but the time commitment would leave me no time to do anything else.

Then I thought about all those people who’d do anything for the opportunity I had been given, even though it was one where “Nothing will happen” had been reinforced many times over. I had heard that when Jason Alexander (George) was a guest speaker at a Learning Annex seminar, the place was packed with anxious writers trying to get him to take their
Seinfeld
specs.

I got a copy of a
Seinfeld
script and watched tapes of episodes while looking through old premise books of mine. I came upon an idea I had when a friend told me she wanted to fix me up with a woman who was out of town. Since this woman was away for months, I needed to have a strong image of her to supplement the possibility of this fantasy. I imagined the desperate extreme of needing to know and taking my friend to a police composite artist for an accurate picture of this prospect. I decided that that might make a good story line for George.

And in 1990, I had met a woman in London who I really hit it off with when I did my stand-up act on a Comedy Central show there. I paid for a costly ticket so she could come visit me in L.A., hoping it could actually turn into a real relationship. But when she arrived, she didn’t act like the woman I knew in England. It was as if the woman I had met had given her ticket to someone who just looked like her. She got upset when I said or did things unlike the proper way they do it in London. She would cringe whenever I said “What?” instead of “Pardon?” After a few days, she led me to believe that she was going back home, but then I later discovered that she had stayed another few weeks in L.A., off the ticket that I had paid for. That became my Jerry story. I wrote that he keeps seeing her pop up arm in arm with various hunks at all the hot spots of Manhattan.

From start to finish, the whole process of writing the script took close to a month. A week after I sent it, I got a call from Larry David.

“I read your script, and I really like that composite story.”

“Really, think you might do it?”

“I don’t know. Let me show it to Jerry.”

I was quite surprised. I hoped that maybe he’d buy that story line. I wasn’t sure how that worked, but I would sell it at any price. A week later, he called again.

“Want to be on staff?”

This time, I was more than surprised. I was dazed. I still had dreams of making it as an actor, but knew it was an opportunity I could not pass up.

“Wow, yeah. I wasn’t expecting this. I guess I’ll put the acting on hold. But I do have a day in a movie coming up.”

It was one of my first and few movie parts. I had auditioned for the role as one of the bad guys chasing Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels in
Dumb and Dumber
. I didn’t get it but was offered a small role as an impatient guy banging on a phone booth. He told me the writing job wouldn’t start for a month.
Dumb and Dumber
wouldn’t be a conflict.

“Okay. Also I’m starting to make my Screen Actors Guild medical insurance.”

The minimum required basic plan was $8,000 back in 1994, and I was finally getting covered.

“You’ll make Writers Guild insurance,” David said. He was very patient with all my questioning. “It’s a better plan,” he added.

I told him that I didn’t have an agent, but trusted whatever he’d give me. He assured me that he’d give me exactly what he’d give me if I had an agent, so I could save that 10 percent
commission.

There was this minimal position given to first-time staffers called “program consultant.” The salary was two thousand a week for forty weeks. He had the option to let me go after just thirteen weeks. And at that level, there was no extra compensation if a script I’d written was used. When you get higher up the totem pole, you get $17,000 per script.

All of a sudden, I had fantasies of being a regular person with a real life, having a day job, going on vacations and not having to check my machine every second hoping for that next job. But I knew, even if I pushed aside my acting aspirations, I wasn’t in for an easy ride, that the job was a tough environment to survive in. At that time,
Seinfeld
was eating up many comedians and writers each season. Some of these writers went on to do extremely well, but many were struggling even after being on such a well-regarded show.

Word got out about my job, and an agent I didn’t know tracked me down to represent me, even though he wouldn’t be getting a commission. He claimed he wanted to cultivate a relationship with me. That’s how things work in the town: If I had just written my script on my own and circulated it without a connection of some sort, it’s unlikely anyone would have signed me and tried to pitch me.

Larry told me to keep a log of my everyday experiences as a source of possible story lines. He thought my day-to-day life lent itself to bizarre misadventures possibly suited for
Seinfeld
premises. One of the first premises I pitched was inspired by a puzzling situation on the set of
Dumb and Dumber
, where there were two wardrobe women. I was equally attracted to both of them and was looking for clues as to which one was available or which one might like me, if she was available. My dilemma: which one should I pursue? If I paid too much attention to the wrong one, I might turn off the right one. No one likes to be asked out as a last resort.

Dumb and Dumber
would be my last acting job before my writing career started. My agent didn’t seem too heartbroken when I told him I had to put my acting career on hold. In the film, I had to knock on the pay phone where the bad guy (Joe Mental) was doing business with his boss. The film was the directorial debut of the Farrelly Brothers, who told me to improvise, just go on a rant and be pissed that that guy won’t get off the phone.

So I paced back and forth. “This is where it all ends, at a pay phone. Great.” And then I paced some more. “Sir, did you ever hear of the concept of other people, me being that for the phone, sir?” I am still ignored. “Oh, you got me mad. I almost like that.”

Finally, the bad guy punches me out right through the booth. A stuntman, who had been fitted with my clothes by the two women I had crushes on, took my punch.

From that one day of work, I got not only a
Seinfeld
premise, but recognition from diehard
Dumb and Dumber
fans for years to come. I’d later bump into each wardrobe woman separately only to discover that what I thought was a dilemma was a moot point. When I asked Pam if I could call her sometime, she said, “How about you give me your number.” Then, when I did get Mary’s number, I waited the requisite two days to call her, and am still waiting for her to call me back.