Stories I Only Tell My Friends: An Autobiography (10 page)

I’m getting more unnerved by the minute. An hour goes by. I watch a stream of the elite enter the set; the guy who starred in
Caddyshack
; the blond kid from
On Golden Pond
. A young actor with big teeth and curly hair reads Ponyboy; people are buzzing about the supersecret movie he stars in about to come out from Steven Spielberg called
E.T
. I look over at Tommy Howell to see his reaction to this guy’s reading. Tommy is stone-faced, cool as ice.

“How
old
is that kid?” I ask Emilio.

“Tommy Howell? He’s fifteen.”

There’s a commotion at the stage door. The storm has stopped, the sun’s come out, and its blinding light streams in as a man dressed like a homeless person enters. He has long, filthy hair, a three-day beard, and ripped, stained Mad Max leather pants. He is also on roller skates. Francis makes a beeline for him and they huddle in the corner.

The other actors point and whisper, “That’s Mickey Rourke!” says one of them.

“Who?” I ask. I’ve never heard of the guy, but he is being worshipped like the love child of Laurence Olivier and Jesus Christ.

“He’s the next James Dean,” someone says. All around there are nods of agreement.

“Really?”
I say, looking over. “He sure as shit looked a lot better in
Rebel without a Cause
.” We all chuckle quietly, beginning to bond over being thrown together into this extraordinary pressure cooker.

It’s getting late, nearing 4:00 p.m., and I’ve been waiting and watching for hours. Francis seems to be tiring; he no longer swaps guys in and out like hockey players changing lines on the fly, he’s now reading names off a list.

“Rob Lowe? Is Rob Lowe here?” he asks, squinting into the darkness.

Adrenaline explodes in my chest.

“Um, yes. Hello, I’m here.”

“You’re playing Sodapop,” he says, without looking at me.

I walk into the glare of the lights. I’m blinking, trying to focus. I’ve been sitting in the dark too long; I’m disoriented. I can’t see Francis or the camera or the other actors watching but I can
feel
them, just beyond the light, compressed into an omnipresent being.

My heart is a jackhammer. It sounds like someone is running up a flight of stairs in my head. Something is wrong. I remember the problem. I have forgotten to breathe. I try to exhale slowly so no one sees me do it. I’ve got to mask my discomfort and cover my nerves at all costs. The other actors gather around me. Tom Howell is Ponyboy and a guy named John Laughlin from
An Officer and a Gentleman
plays our older brother, Darrel.

“Why don’t you guys take a moment and begin when you’re ready,” says Francis. I’ve got the first line of the scene, so it will be up to me when we go. I look the other actors in the eyes; we’ve never met, never even said hello. Now we will be the Curtis brothers, now we will manufacture the memories, the relationships, and the rapport of these characters’ lifetimes, in an instant. I’ve got my pages in my hand; they’ve been there since I sat in my Mazda in the rain. But I let them fall to the floor. I will go from memory—let the chips fall where they may. I know this fucker cold. I won’t let the fear overtake me, not now, not today. I say a quick prayer: “Keep it simple. Keep it honest. Let it rip.” I start the scene.

I’ve never agreed with the conventional wisdom that “actors are great liars.” If more people understood the acting process, the goals of good actors, the conventional wisdom would be “actors are
terrible
liars,” because only bad actors lie on the job. The good ones hate fakery and avoid manufactured emotion at all costs. Any script is enough of a lie anyway. (What experience does any actor have with flying a spacecraft? Killing someone?) What’s called for, what actors are hired for, is to bring reality to the arbitrary.

I know nothing about being an orphan. I wasn’t alive in the 1950s. I’ve never been to Tulsa, Oklahoma, and I’ve never met a Greaser. But I
do
have brothers whom I love. I know what it means to long for a parent who is no longer in the family. I have met my share of rough kids and have felt that I didn’t belong, and when I remember my old gang of friends back on Dayton’s north side, my personal truths provide enough emotional ammunition for me to play Sodapop Curtis.

Like a skater approaching the point in his program where he has to land a triple axel jump, I know the moment for my “breakdown” is coming up fast. I’m trying to stay “in the scene,” not stand outside of it, up in some corner, looking down in judgment like the characters in an episode of
Bewitched
. But part of me can’t help it, the stakes are too great and I know if I don’t land this jump, I mean really stick it, this audition is over and, with it, practically, my career as an actor.

“I hate it when you two fight,” I say, beginning the final speech. “It just tears me up inside.”

I look at Tommy Howell. I don’t know him from Adam, but I see his eyes are moist. That’s all I need, that tiny peek at humanity and empathy from a fifteen-year-old stranger. It sets me off. Behind it, the pressure and the nerves and the stakes, and the need to be liked and accepted and chosen, build into a wave that I cannot stop if I want to. The emotions explode. At the end of the scene, Howell and Laughlin and I are huddled in the glare; they are holding me as I weep.

*   *   *

After the audition, I hear nothing for weeks. No phone call comes in to my agents. I know I shellacked it in my reading, but after Francis sent the other actors back to the shadows, he asked me to read a different part, the role of Randy the Soc (it’s pronounced “Soshe”—more than a few actors had their tickets punched by calling them “Socks”). It’s a small part with one big speech but I can see that physically I would be right for it. I pray that I’m still in the running for Sodapop. Other than Ponyboy, Sodapop is the most coveted role in the movie. The part is huge, romantic, and, with the big breakdown scene at the end of the movie, unforgettable. I’m worried I’ve lost it.

I spend all my free time four houses down at the Sheens. Cruise is still camping out in the guest bedroom, but neither he nor Emilio have heard about their auditions either. We work out, play hoops, call our agents, call up girls, hide our booze from Martin, hit baseballs with Charlie and Chad, anything to try not to lose our minds with anticipation.

I have settled on USC as my college. If I don’t get a part, I will enroll and study film. I’ve been toying with following my dad into law or pursuing marine biology. But in the end, my heart is stuck on reaching people with stories on film. If I can’t be in front of the camera, I’ll be behind it.

Finally my agent calls.

“Do I have the part?”

“No.”

My heart sinks.

“But they want you to fly to New York and read again.”

I can feel the blood coming back to my face. I’m still alive in
The Outsiders
sweepstakes.

“What part am I reading? Soda or Randy?” I ask, holding my breath.

“Both.”

I try not to be disappointed that Randy is still an option.

“Pack up. You leave day after tomorrow.”

I put down the phone. It rings in my hand. It’s Emilio.

“Dude, did they call you? Are you going to New York?”

“Yeah! I made it. What about you?”

“We’re going, too! Me and Cruise!”

“What parts?”

“I’m going for Soda, Randy, and maybe Darrel, depending on ages,” says Emilio.

“What about Cruise?” I ask.

“Soda, Randy, Darrel, and Dallas.”

“Holy shit,” I say. This thing is clearly still a wide-open free-for-all.

I hang up, excited that my friends are among the chosen. We are competitors and it will likely come down to one of us versus the other. And if it does, we will try to blow each other out of the water with zero regrets on all sides. But until then, it’s down to the Sheens’ Gilligan’s Island pool to celebrate.

On the plane we sit with the other two “L.A. finalists,” Tommy Howell and Darren Dalton. Together we try to predict who will get what role. We also find a cute stewardess and work her relentlessly for alcohol.

It’s a night flight with lots of empty seats, so it feels like we own the plane. By the time we land we are connected like a less dangerous, teenage, show-business version of the Dirty Dozen. We are all thrown together by fate, required to work together to achieve a goal that will be a highlight of our lives. Along the way any one of us could fall. You don’t want it to be you, but you don’t want it to be your new brother either. There is also a group waiting to knock us out entirely, the “New York” actors. Their reputations precede them—tough, intense, serious hard cases. We make our plans to battle them, to come out of this together, leaving the others in the dust. We are the L.A. Greasers. After surviving the three-day, thirty-hour battle at Zoetrope Studios, we feel like Hollywood’s finest.

We check into the Plaza Hotel. I am taken aback at the luxury and spectacle of the lobby. Last time I was in New York, Dad and I stayed at the Sheraton. The front desk tells us we will be sharing rooms. In a flash, Cruise is on the phone to his agent, Paula Wagner.

“Paula, they are making us
share
,” he says. He is certain that this is not right and wants it fixed ASAP. The rest of us are staggering around like happy goofs, but this guy’s already showing traits that will make him famous; he’s zeroed in like a laser—all business and very intense.

“Okay, then. Thank you very much,” he says like a fifty-year-old businessman getting off the phone with his stockbroker. “Paula says it’s fine.”

After sorting out our rooms, we decide to pile into a cab and check out the sights.

“Forty-second Street,” someone says.

The cabbie’s eyes widen as he turns to look at the group squeezed into his backseat—a fifteen-year-old, a seventeen-year-old, and the three “adults” weighing in at around nineteen years old.

“You boys sure you want to go down there? Ain’t nothin’ but women and trouble to be found there.”

“Yes, we’re sure!” we howl, and laugh, banging on the Plexiglas divider like animals.

We are all seriously dragging the next morning as we arrive at “Zoetrope East.” Any effects of our long night are mitigated by the growing tension of the East Coast versus the West Coast acting brawl that is moments away.

This time the auditions are called what they actually are: screen tests. And unlike at the L.A. audition, the group from New York is much more select, maybe fifteen guys in total. We lounge together in a giant loftlike waiting area in some dingy office building somewhere near Broadway. I’m freezing—having little travel experience, I have not packed correctly for New York in the winter. It doesn’t help that I’m jet-lagged and hungover. I find a spot on the floor next to a radiator and take a nap (to this day, when I feel too much stress I want to fall asleep).

“Dude, wake up,” says Emilio, banging me in the ribs.

I try to clear my head as I roll up off the floor.

“Francis wants us in the studio.”

It’s a small, hot space. The basic setup is exactly like L.A., except for—inexplicably—Carly Simon, wearing a sort of catsuit, curled up in a corner. I also recognize Matt Dillon, already a huge teen idol and the star of S. E. Hinton’s first movie adaptation,
Tex
. It hasn’t come out yet, but it’s supposed to be good. Matt is in front of the camera reading the part of Dallas. And by reading, I mean reading. He is holding the entire script, eyes locked on the text. After a while, however, he puts it down and begins paraphrasing. Soon he’s ad-libbing completely and making up dialogue while the other actors try to keep up.

I don’t know if Francis asked him to freelance like this or not. If he did, then clearly Matt has got the part locked up. If he didn’t, then Matt Dillon has dangling, clanking, scary-big elephant balls.

Next up is a tiny kid I competed against a few months back for a part on the hit TV show
Eight Is Enough
. It came down to the two of us for a new starring role they were adding to that show. We both went to the network reading in a boardroom packed with stone-faced executives in business suits. He came out on top.

Now he’s reading the part of Johnny, the tortured, doomed Greaser. Like with Tommy Howell, it is clear that he is the front-runner. When he’s done I call over to him.

“Ralph! Hey, Macchio! It’s me, Lowe.”

Ralph comes over to say hi. “Hey, man, good to see ya.”

“How many times have you read for this?” I ask.

“A lot. Matt and I have been doing this for
days.
”

“Have you read for any other parts?”

“Nope. Just Johnny. Matt, too. Just Dallas.”

I see Francis looking around the room. “Rob? Rob? Can you come read the part of Randy?”

This is what I was afraid of. I feel like I might pass out.