How I Got to Be Whoever It Is I Am (6 page)

I was fine. I’ve always been unusually focused, and I was focused on how to become a good actor, so the lack of accoutrements
didn’t get to me. Since there was no cooking allowed, and it wasn’t financially viable for me to go out to restaurants, I
got myself an electric frying pan, which I smuggled past the front desk under my coat. Today I’m
way
more law-abiding.

I hid the electric frying pan under my socks in a drawer. I’ve always had a lot of socks. No matter what my financial condition
was, for some reason I’ve always had more socks than any one person could wear. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not comparing myself
to Imelda Marcos and her shoes, but I’ve always had a lot of socks.

Anyway, in my illegal electric frying pan I would regularly cook chicken wings, which I got for nineteen cents a package.
Today, I still eat chicken wings as much as any other food. According to my recent physical, I’m in tip-top shape. I’m not
suggesting you run out and get chicken wings; I’m just saying…

I think my experience at Capitol Hall—on Eighty- seventh Street between Columbus and Amsterdam in Manhattan—helps me identify
with people in shelters. Of course, unlike me, most people in shelters don’t have confidence that someday they’ll be better
than fine. Ironically, Capitol Hall is now a homeless shelter.

I hooked up with my pal from the Playhouse, Julie Ferguson, who had also come to New York to study acting, and we got an audition
for the Actors Studio. Julie and I had bonded with one look at the Playhouse as we felt equally silly prancing around the
so-called movement class—another concept I have no use for in an acting class. Let it be for aspiring dancers.

I had no idea the Actors Studio auditioned around a thousand people a year and accepted only a few. Julie and I were not among
those few. It was the only thing in Manhattan harder to get into than a private preschool.

J
ulie and I then auditioned for the legendary acting teacher Uta Hagen and were accepted. I had studied acting for two years,
as had Julie—at least. Nevertheless, we were invited to join Uta’s beginner’s class. I later realized that, generally speaking,
acting teachers, like dentists, don’t have a high regard for each other. I remember throwing Uta a kiss as we left. I had
no way of knowing that would be our last happy exchange for several decades.

Among the things we were asked to do in class was to carry an imaginary suitcase across a room and open an imaginary window.
I asked Uta what the purpose of that was. She deeply resented that I would question anything she said and let me know it.

Nevertheless, I couldn’t stop myself from asking the question again. This time Uta threatened to throw me out of the class.
What made it worse was when I wrote my first book and again said I saw no point in all that imaginary suitcase carrying and
window opening.

But I do credit Uta with something she said to me that was very helpful. I was doing a scene in class from the novel
The Catcher in the Rye
. When the scene was over, Uta said there was a “pure acting moment” in the scene and asked me if I knew what it was. I had
no idea. At one point the actor playing my teacher started to hand me an essay I had written. I reached for it, but he took
it back to look at it again. Uta identified that moment as the “pure acting moment,” because, as she put it, it was a moment
when I didn’t know what was happening. That state of not knowing what’s coming next is a state good actors aspire to. It’s
called “living in the moment” and not anticipating what’s coming. Learning that concept was very helpful as I tried to unfold
what at the time felt like the mystery of acting.

Decades later, Uta was a guest on my cable talk show to promote a book she had written. Even though she had long since dropped
those exercises, before the taping began she let me know she still really didn’t appreciate my writing about the exercises
in a book. I even once spoke at her school and again questioned those exercises, but I don’t think Uta heard about it.

It did seem her feelings toward me were somewhat mixed, because she also said that every time her acting studio asked me for
a donation, I sent one. I particularly wanted to do that, because she had charged only three dollars a class.

As I’ve said, because of all my experience in being kicked out of things, Uta threatening to kick me out of class for asking
those questions didn’t affect me that much. After three years she did say about me, “He questions everything, which is the
way it should be.”

I saw Uta one more time at a party about a year before she passed away. She was sitting on a sofa next to a man we both knew,
and as I came over to her, she said to the man, “He came into my acting class and acted as though he knew everything.” I said,
“That certainly wasn’t what I was feeling, and I’m really sorry that I offended you.” She took my hand and kissed it.

That observation about me acting as though I knew everything came several decades after Uta acknowledged I was right to question
whatever I felt was worth questioning. I believe Uta had it right that time. It’s the same as in journalism: because we question
things doesn’t mean we have the answers. America’s recent history tells us once again that the problem isn’t too many questions
but too few.

I have a fantasy that one day I’ll be taking a class with Uta in heaven. Once again I’ll question something, and once again
she’ll threaten to throw me out, but it would still be great to see her. If she asked, I’d even carry an imaginary suitcase
for her. I can’t imagine a need to open an imaginary window, because my fantasy of heaven is that we’re outside.

R
ecently, I was offered a considerable amount of money just to show up and mingle at a party in Philadelphia. Not to speak.
Just to mingle. I couldn’t do it. I imagined myself mingling, and I’m sure more than one person there would have asked what
brought me there. “Are you a friend of the host?” “No, I’ve never met him. I’m here because they paid me to come and mingle.”
I stayed home.

It all brought to mind another time when I was not only
not
paid to show up but told if I
did
show up, I’d be thrown out of the building. When I first came to New York in the fifties, I was able to get a meeting with
a major casting director. The woman seemed very pleased to meet me and said I seemed like just the kind of young person she
liked to reach out to, a serious, dedicated fellow. I assured her I was, and she said she’d be in touch in a few weeks and
would be able to place me in a very small guest role on a popular weekly drama.

I walked out of her office at least one inch off the ground. This was in a period when no one had any interest in placing
me in anything, other than on a line to see if there was a cab available for me to drive, which is what I was doing at the
time.

On the way to the elevator, I ran into a young woman I knew from Uta’s class. She turned out to be working as the casting
director’s assistant. She seemed surprised to see me, and when I told her of the meeting, she said, “I remember you as someone
who took a lot of long pauses when you did scenes in class.” She didn’t mean it as a compliment. I instantly became uneasy
and assured her that I could go as fast as anyone wanted me to, and all those long pauses would certainly present no… She
didn’t seem to be listening, and as she walked away I swallowed hard and said it was really nice to see her.

After about a month of not hearing from the casting director, I called my former classmate and asked if I could take her to
lunch. She said she didn’t
eat
lunch in such a way that I chose not to ask about dinner.

I let another few weeks of silence from the casting director go by before I wrote what I thought was a very friendly letter
reminding her of our meeting and told of meeting her assistant and the pauses issue. I assured her there’d be no problem with
pauses and hoped I would still hear from her.

What I heard instead from an agent with whom I was having some conversations was that the casting director told him if I as
much as showed up in the lobby of the building where she had her office, she’d have me thrown out!

I showed the letter I had written to a couple of friends to see if I had missed something, but no, it was a pleasant letter
from a young man looking for a job. I can only assume that what angered her was it was also a gentle reminder of a broken
promise. So it wasn’t just teachers who could be abusive.

Later when I was working enough that people had heard of me, I ran into her a couple of times, and she couldn’t have been
nicer. Neither of us mentioned the past.

Recently, a friend of mine told me this casting director’s name came up in a conversation with George C. Scott, and he went
ballistic, so evidently her hostile nature was not just visited on me. It’s highly unusual when
anything
is personal. If it’s happening to you, it’s most likely happening to others.

In all this time I’ve never run into the casting director’s assistant, my former classmate. I know she went on to be a producer.
If I did run into her, I probably wouldn’t recognize her, and if she introduced herself, I’d probably smile and be pleasant
to her as well. Oh, I’m not saying I wouldn’t slip a long pause or two into our exchange.

W
hen I was studying at the Pittsburgh Playhouse, there was one teacher who thought it was humorous to needle me and other students.
This whole needling humor thing is tricky. It’s, of course, stock-in-trade for many successful entertainers. If you’re going
to see Don Rickles, for example, it’s what you expect. Needling humor that doesn’t amuse the person being needled ends up
as just mean.

Although I didn’t find this teacher particularly amusing, his needling didn’t prevent me from basically liking the guy. That’s
why a couple of years later when I ran into him in New York and he invited me to dinner, I accepted. I was around twenty years
old and hardly knew anyone in New York, so I looked forward to the evening.

He invited me to his apartment, and the atmosphere was such that I felt free to say to him that while I always found him to
be a nice guy, he might want to take a look at that needling thing. He seemed very appreciative of the observation and correctly
took it as a sign that I cared about him. At the end of the evening he said something like, “You’re such a sensitive young
man. May I kiss you good night?” Still being pretty naïve about this type of thing, I assumed he meant on the cheek. Even
though I was uneasy, I tried to appear casual as I said, “Sure.” On hearing that, he planted a smacker on my lips. I was stunned,
quickly said goodbye, and got out of there.

From the time I was around twelve years old and tried to kiss Myrna Auerbach’s cheek in seventh grade, I’ve never had any
doubt about the direction of my sexuality. At the time of the teacher’s kiss, I understood so little about what makes a homosexual
that I actually wondered if it was like virginity. I knew that if a girl had sex she was no longer a virgin. I wondered if
that also meant that being kissed by a man made you a homosexual. I’m still not sure if I was unusually naïve or just normally
naïve. My problem was I had no idea where to get the answer to that question. Having no one else to ask, about four months
later when I ran into the teacher, I asked
him
. He said, “You’re a homosexual if you think you’re a homosexual.” Well, I knew I wasn’t a homosexual, as surely as I knew
he was.

In any case, it reminded me of a young woman I had dated when I was around twenty. We didn’t have sex, but close, and she
asked me if she was still a virgin, and I said, “Absolutely.” Still, I had a few tough months when I thought I had lost my
heterosexuality.

Years later this man married a famous actress and I did a movie with her, but of course I chose not to tell her that before
he kissed her, he had kissed me.

S
omething important was happening to me. I had now been acting for over five years. I had always been doing scenes, getting
used to being in front of tough teachers, and in spite of a general lack of encouragement, I was gaining confidence.

I was also fortunate enough in my first year with Uta to become friends with a young woman named Eleni Kiamos who suggested
me for a leading role in an off-off-Broadway play where I got a nice notice in a trade paper that led to my getting an agent.

Once I asked my agent’s partner if I should have pictures made, and he said, “Sure. Then the people who don’t want to see
you will know who it
is
they don’t want to see.”

There was only one place I was working. That was on the Sunday morning dramas on CBS filmed in New York City. Eleni had introduced
me to the casting director, who was her friend. With a friend like Eleni you don’t need many friends. I seemed to be a favorite
over there and only there. One day a group of us gathered around a table for a reading. As I recall there were James Earl
Jones, Ossie Davis, and Ruby Dee, among others. After the reading, the producer and director decided they didn’t need so many
people. They gave five or six actors (not me) twenty-five dollars and thanked them for coming, making at least some feel they
weren’t good enough. When I saw that, I went to the person responsible for hiring me and said, “This is inappropriate. You
really can’t do that.” She said, “This is the way we do it.” I said, “I can’t let that happen.” She said, “Well, if you want
to report it, we’ll hire the people, and you’ll never work here again,” and that’s exactly what happened. There’s something
called principle, and it always came ahead of anything for me when I realized something was wrong, simply because I had no
choice. It wasn’t that I was such a wonderful person. I simply had no choice.

I
started getting parts where I quickly learned that the abuse I got in Uta’s class and at the Pittsburgh Playhouse also came
from nervous directors. My first live television appearance was on the hour-long
Armstrong Circle Theatre
. It was about the nuclear submarine the USS
Nautilus
going under the North Pole. The director, who had not said anything to me throughout rehearsal, suddenly took me aside close
to airtime and angrily said, “If you keep doing what you’re doing, you’re going to make a fool of yourself—not just yourself
but the whole cast—not just the cast but the United States Navy.” I had no idea what he was talking about, so I asked. He
said, “You’re coming off stupid.” I have a copy of that show from 1958. I looked at it recently, and unless I drastically
changed my performance just before airtime, which I doubt, I’d say the director was coming off hysterically.