Growing Up Brady: I Was a Teenage Greg, Special Collector's Edition (5 page)

Turns out Mr. Graves had a daughter. Her name was Claudia,
and she was a babe ... literally. We met in nursery school (I swear), hit it off; one thing led to another, and pretty soon three-year-old
Claudia became my very first girlfriend. We were inseparable, and
crazy enough about each other to perform the most hallowed of
all preschool love ceremonies. We exchanged ABC gum.

What ... me worry?
(Barry Williams)

In case your pre-pubescent memory fails you, "ABC" stands for
"already been chewed," and to exchange it makes a toddler couple
about as committed as they can get. Anyway, on one particular
Sunday afternoon, my "girlfriend" and I were swapping Bazooka
and playing in the Graves' living room when a thought struck my
nearly fully hardened skull: "If I ask Mr. Graves how he became an
actor, maybe I can do it the same way."

I summoned up all the intestinal fortitude my teeny-tiny gut
could bear, marched into Peter's office, and spit it out. "Mr.
Graves," I squeaked, "how did you become an actor?" With which
he smiled what seemed like an all-knowing smile, stood up, towered over me, and put a hand upon my shoulder.

Anxiously, I awaited his pearls of wisdom, the magical advice and
secret information that would instantly transform me into a successful working actor with a big hit series just like his. I remember wishing I had a tape recorder so I wouldn't forget anything he'd say.

Finally, after a long, pensive pause that could have used a drumroll, Mr. Graves drew a breath, looked down, and said, "Well, Barry,
I just thought about it."

"Huh?"

Not exactly the kind of response I'd hoped for, but I said to
myself, "If it came from Mr. Graves, it has to be good advice." I was
a dumb kid, what can I tell you.

Anyway, determined to follow in Peter's oversized footsteps, I
ditched Claudia, marched home, and thought. I sat still in the
kitchen, stared off into space and thought for days on end, until
finally I began to really bug my folks. However, by this time, they
were used to my odd thespian tendencies, so they just smiled, and
passed off this latest bout of bizarre behavior as simply another
passing phase.

After about a week, I gave up on Mr. Graves' abstract-thought
route, but was still bound and determined to act. My parents, on the
other hand, weren't nearly as enthusiastic. Dad was a nose-to-thegrindstone businessman who didn't know much of anything about
Hollywood, except that it was full of nut cases and worse yet "show
people." Mom was slightly less negative, but had absolutely no idea
how a kid might go about getting his foot into Hollywood's door.

With two less-than-eager parents to soften up, I knew that getting started was going to take a while, and with formal acting
lessons out of the question, at least for the moment, I did a lot of
pretending, practicing, and rehearsing on my own.

The bulk of my informal training came a few years later, while
serving as club mascot for the neighborhood gang which already
counted among its members my two brothers, Craig and Scott. We
weren't anything like the horrifying gangs of today, but we also
weren't a Wally-and-Beaver-esque boys club either. Most of the
guys were between thirteen and fifteen years old and, basically,
were the kind of kids whole neighborhoods love to hate-real
egg-throwing, class-cutting, hitchhiking, tit-squeezing bastards. I
was seven years old and wanted desperately to fit into this motley
assemblage of older guys.

Guess who became the gang's designated guinea pig.

One of my first "duties" as club mascot involved a vacant lot, a
hollow tree, an enormous swarm of bees, and the granddaddy of
all firecrackers, the cherry bomb. It seemed that a swarm of bees
had moved into our favorite vacant lot, found themselves a hollow
tree trunk, and were busily converting it into a sort of buzzing bug
condo. Curious and very much against overdevelopment, one particularly demented gang member began to wonder out loud about
what might happen should a lit cherry bomb just happen to fall
out of the sky and into the hive. Being the youngest and still the
dumbest, I was elected.

Everyone took up safe positions about a hundred and fifty feet
from the nest, except for me. Scared to death, but wanting desper ately to act cool in front of the gang, I slowly-very slowly-inched
my way toward those industrious but unsuspecting little insects.
Matches in one hand, cherry bomb in the other, I finally got within
tossing range. Shakily, I lit the wick, and as it sputtered orange, I
tossed.

Bull's-eye! I had done it, a perfect sky-hook swish that dropped
effortlessly into the half-rotted husk of the tree. My heart swelled
with pride at my accomplishment... for about one second.

KA-BOOM!

At once, dead wood, honey, and about a half-trillion bees filled
the sky. Now, as pride in my heart was replaced by terror in my
gut, I ran screaming for my life, but wasn't exactly successful in my
getaway.

I learned three things that day:

1. Bees don't like it when you blow up their house,

2. I'm allergic to bee stings, and

3. I absolutely love being the center of attention.

Even with twenty-three bee stings and a face that resembled a
rather large, misshapen cantaloupe, I was ecstatic. I had proven
that I could be every bit as mindlessly destructive as the big guys. I
had gotten stung for it, literally, but in the aftermath, my parents
doted on me (I made up a story for them about a terrible swarm of
bees that attacked me for no reason at all), the guys in the gang
looked at me with newfound respect, and even my brothers were
(reasonably) nice to me.

I was in terrible pain, swollen up like a sort of prepubescent Elephant Man, nauseous, and the happiest multiple-sting victim my
doctor had ever seen.

For the first time in my life, I was a star.

Eager to please, and having now had a taste of the spotlight, I
was more willing than ever to pull off whatever ridiculously dangerous stunt the gang could think up. They took advantage of my
enthusiasm ... a lot.

In the months to come, my body would become a sort of crash
dummy, testing gravity, electrical current, and on one occasion
alcohol.

Ah, my pals, funny how we never got together as a group unless
we were sure that there were no adults around to spoil our fun.
For example, on one particularly destructive Saturday night in
1963, my parents made the enormous mistake of going out to play
bridge and letting us know that they wouldn't be home until well
past midnight.

My brothers asked if the gang could come over to hang out, and
that's when my parents made an even more enormous mistake:
they said yes. Mom and Dad left the house with smiles on the their
faces, oblivious to the evil doings that were about to occur. The
gang showed up almost immediately, barreled into the living
room, and decided to rummage through the old folks' stuff. First
stop was the liquor cabinet, and as it turned out, it was the last
stop as well.

Y'see, the gang's unofficial leader was Bret (the big kid), and he
had an idea. He thought it would be great fun for one of us to get
rip-roaring, stinking shit-faced and entertain the others.

Guess who got the part.

In this case I was a fairly reluctant volunteer. I didn't want to
lose my status as chief mascot/guinea pig, but I was also aware that
this time, we were dealing with some big unknowns. Still, with the
chance to be star for a night, and the gang shoveling on their
enthusiastic support and encouragement, I could hardly say no.

We took inventory, and since my dad's liquor cabinet was
stocked with more vodka than anything else, we figured it stood
the least chance of being missed later on. That became my poison.
None of us had any idea how much liquor it took to get somebody
drunk (remember, this was 1963), and so we guessed. We decided
that since my dad's Kamchatka looked an awful lot like water, we
should probably start with a full, 8-ounce water glass-and see
what happened.

The stuff smelled like gasoline, so I killed the taste by holding
my nose and gulping it all down without breathing.

Now the guys huddled around me, staring as if they thought I
was about to metamorphosize, like Jerry Lewis in The Nutty Professor. And while I enjoyed their attention over the next several minutes, my performance left them less than thrilled.

"How do you feel?" they asked repeatedly.

"Uh ... fine, I guess."

"You don't feel drunk?"

"Uh ... nope."

Hmmmmm ... the more sober I stayed, the more disappointed
they became. After a coupla minutes, they tested me once more,
this time by having me recite the alphabet. I did it ... perfectly,
then sang it for them too.

That did it. The guys decided that they must have underdosed
me. The solution? "Have the kid drink some more." Again they
poured; again I held my nose; and again I gulped down the highoctane concoction.

"Sobriety" quickly became a thing of the past. Severe motorresponse impairment set in, and the gang finally got its yuks. They thought my wobbliness was hysterical, and used it as their cue to
begin pushing me, poking me, teasing me, testing me, and laughing at me. Not my idea of a great time, but they seemed to enjoy
it-until the floodgates opened.

Without warning, a massive wave of nausea overwhelmed me. I
erupted with all the unleashed ferocity of Vesuvius, and the barf hit
the fan, the couch, the carpet, the stereo system, and just about
every piece of furniture that shared the misfortune of getting in my
path. No room was spared from the wrath of my inebriated guts.

Thankfully, once I was empty, the show was over, and I was
able to pass out.

No one ever said being a star was easy.

After that particular episode, the gang and I finally started to
wise up. We stopped being mindlessly destructive and instead
became deceitfully constructive. Now, instead of exploiting my
flair for the dramatic by having me do something stupid like
jump off a pedestrian overpass, we'd harness it, work up a plan,
and score some ill-gotten booty. Our greatest scam ever was
built on just such a foundation.

As any grown guy can tell you, the most alluring of all adolescent vices isn't cigarettes, or beer, or fireworks, or even rubbers.
It's girlie magazines-the sleazier, the better. A dog-eared fullfrontal "beaver" mag is in fact an adolescent-male equivalent of
the Holy Grail, endlessly appealing yet hopelessly out of reach,
unless, of course, your dad subscribes. None of us were that lucky,
so we got our stag mags the old-fashioned way... under false pretenses.

Bret (the ringleader) had some very adult-handwriting and a
plan for how it could score us some copies of Playboy and its
more explicit low-rent cousin Cavalier. His plan involved deceit,
lying to grown-ups, forgery, and my budding acting skills. It was
perfect.

We swiped some of his dad's grown-up-looking stationery and
one of his fountain pens, and we were ready to roll. Together, we
composed a note to the counterman at the "Palisades Pharmacy,"
and then let Bret's grown-up penmanship put it on paper.

The result was absolutely beautiful, and at least to us, seemed
unrecognizable as counterfeit. It read like this:

Dear Pharmacy Clerk:
Please give my nephew one copy of Cavalier, one
copy Playboy, and two cartons of Camel cigarettes.

Thank You.

We forged a phony name on the end, and it was done. All we
needed now was somebody crazy enough to risk an assault into
the front lines of the drugstore while playing the role of nephew.

By now you know that I couldn't resist that challenge.

I took the responsibility of my role very seriously, and dove into
it with head-first, Stanislavskian glee. I even went so far as to create
a history for my fictional uncle, which I was more than happy to
share with the pharmacy counter man. I told him about my
"uncle," the "war hero" who'd been badly injured in Korea-so
badly injured that he could no longer leave his house. I also stated
that in fulfilling his shopping list, I could present him with the few
simple pleasures in his otherwise unbearable life. I laid it on so
thick that for the clerk to deny my request would seem nothing
less than unpatriotic.

Basically, I lied-and acted-my ass off ... and it worked!

Unbelievably, the unsuspecting clerk bought my story, packed
up my ill-gotten gains, and sent me on my way.

Later that afternoon, with an unfiltered Camel in one hand and
a pair of Kodachrome breasts in the other, I felt smugly content. I
had finally proven myself to the gang and I had proven myself as
an actor.

My brothers punched me in the arm and told me that what I
did was really cool. No good review has ever made me feel any
better.

Even after my unbridled theatrical success in my brothers' gang,
my parents still loomed as a sort of Berlin Wall between me and an
acting career. Years went by, and they didn't budge. Still, the seed
had been planted, and was growing quickly. I'd even created a
great new "stage name" for myself. Instead of Barry William
Blenkhorn, I would add an "s" to my middle name, blow off the
Blenkhorn, and become "Barry Williams" ... yeah that's it. Needless to say, dumping the family name didn't exactly help my cause
with the folks, but I wouldn't give up. I wanted my "chance" and
eventually became pretty vociferous about getting it.