Stories I Only Tell My Friends: An Autobiography (22 page)

“Girls were screaming. Zoweeeee!” he says, and giggles like a kid.

Chris and I become unlikely buddies during our
Three Sisters
run. He is unexpectedly sweet, with an odd yet vaguely self-aware sense of humor. He is also brilliantly unpredictable on-stage, which makes him one of the most riveting actors in contemporary theater.

One night, in front of a full house, he walks to the apron of the stage, turns his back on the audience, and plays an entire speech directly to me in a voice so conversational that old ladies start yelling from the back row.

Another time, our director, the esteemed Nikos Psacharopoulos, asks Chris to stop directing his dialogue to the audience, and not to look into the seats during important scenes. But Chris is having none of Nikos’s requests.

“Why
wouldn’t
I look at them? I know they are there. They know I’m here. It would be rude to ignore them!”

Getting nowhere, Nikos moves on to a complicated and boring lecture on the severity of the angle of the “raked” stage we are using. He goes on at length about sight lines and safety issues and the angle of the slope. Finally, Chris has had enough. “Oh. And don’t bring your bowling ball onstage. It will roll into the front row!” he says, cackling like a maniac.

I love and admire Chris, who is not who most people think him to be. From him I learn the value of avoiding conventional interpretations of material whenever possible and to be funny whenever possible—even if some people don’t get it.

That the Oscar winner for
The Deer Hunter
is also a comic genius will take our pigeonholing industry almost three decades to figure out. I knew it in one ride in a Cadillac.

I once saw Chris appear with Diane Ladd in a reading of the sappy warhorse
Love Letters
. A more unlikely bit of casting I can’t imagine and Chris did not disappoint. Backstage I asked him how much rehearsal time was required.

“None.”

“What? What do you mean ‘none’? You never rehearsed this play?” I ask, incredulous.

“They’re letters. I wouldn’t know what’s in them,” he said, picking his teeth distractedly.

Genius.

CHAPTER
15

Artistically pumped from these last two projects, I settled into a dizzying late summer.
About Last Night
was still rolling at the box office and my romantic-leading-man status was in full flower. I was pulled in seventeen different directions from all areas of my life, everyone wanting something. Oftentimes it was great. “Do you want to go backstage and meet Bruce Springsteen?” “Do you want to host MTV’s live New Year’s Eve?” “Will you visit the kids of Children’s Hospital?” But a lot of the time it was people who I didn’t have any connection to, wanting something for nothing, looking to hitch a ride. The audacity and chutzpah was, and continues to be, shocking.

For instance, my grandfather and grandmother were major presences in my life, whom I loved deeply. When Grandma died, I was back in Ohio at her bedside, holding her hand. Eventually, I was done crying and they began to prepare her to be taken away. Reaching over my grandma’s body, a nurse handed me a pen and said, “I hope you don’t mind, but could I have your autograph?”

This kind of thing happened all the time. And here’s the problem. I was (and still am) aware of the good fortune that hard work has brought me. I don’t want to seem ungrateful. I also genuinely like people. I want to get to know them in a real way. I am bummed out at the concept that someone just wants a scribble from you, when it’s clear they’ve never seen your work, they just know you’re “famous.”

I began to feel a counterintuitive, melancholy loneliness and even low-grade anger at these moments. I didn’t like the way it made me feel when a passing car full of teenage girls screeched to a halt, emptying the crazed occupants, who bull-rushed me, pointing, screaming, and laughing. Years later, someone will call this phenomenon “objectification.” Then, I didn’t really know that I was being treated like an object. I did, however, begin to treat some people the way they treated me.

*   *   *

Apparently, the drinking water in California is very, very bad. Additionally, known carcinogens are being routinely put into the water table, our food supply, you name it. And when you really think about it, there’s only one place to turn in such circumstances. Stars! Lots and lots of stars!

It’s Jane Fonda calling to ask me to join her on a campaign to pass Prop 65, the Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act. The producers of
Footloose
want to put together a USO-style, celebrity-filled bus tour to barnstorm around the state, talking about cancer and water. Clearly, this will have more impact than my Kool-Aid stand for McGovern. I tell Jane to count me in.

The bus is set to leave at 7:00 a.m., an hour I simply don’t see unless I’m being paid. The night before, I am at frenemy Michael J. Fox’s house for the kickoff party, this being our attempt to settle a fairly friendly but simmering rivalry. A few months before, I was ringside at the Marvin Hagler–John “the Beast” Mugabi match and had a run-in with Michael, whom I had never met.

“Hey, Lowe.”

“Oh, hi. Nice to meet you.”

“Yeah. Um, where the hell was
my
invitation?”

“Your invitation? Invitation to what?”

“To join the Brat Pack. I guess it was just lost in the mail.”

I looked at him closely, to see if he was kidding.

“Ah, well, fuck it. I got my own thing goin’ now anyway. The Snack Pack!” he said, turning back to the fight, with a twinkle in his eye.

Eventually we spent the postfight debating whose movie themes were better: “Man in Motion” vs. “The Power of Love.” We were both big fans of beverages and so we started buying each other drinks and talking crazy, good-natured, competitive smack.

“Hey, Teen Wolf, what time is it?” I asked.

“Screw off! You’ve made seven movies. My last one [
Back to the Future
] made more than all of yours
combined
!”

And on and on.

At one point, we were seriously contemplating our chances of sucker punching Sugar Ray Leonard, who seemed small to us. Thankfully, even we knew that it would be suicide and that Ray is one of the nicest guys ever. “Can you imagine if we did it, though?” Fox said, and we both fell about the room, laughing like idiots.

The party at Mike’s house is much the same, with tremendous ball busting on both sides and an acknowledged mutual affection. Around 4:30 a.m., I can take no more of Mike’s beloved dog’s attention, so in spite of a free, live living-room performance by Tom Petty’s lead guitarist, Mike Campbell, I beg off to bed. I stumble to an out-of-the-way guest room and am unconscious in seconds. Even the commotion of a large object leaping onto the bed doesn’t stir me; I figure I’ll let Mike’s dog sleep where he wants. Soon the room is absolutely freezing and I’m glad to have the warmth to snuggle with. Mr. Michael J. Fox may be making a fortune in movies, but I can tell you what he’s not spending money on: his heating bill!

“What the hell is going on?” asks Mike’s assistant at first light, rousing me from my cozy confines. I’m still feeling the effects from last night and I try to open my eyes.

“Oh, sorry. I let the dog sleep with me.”

She stares at me with a look that distinctly says, Oh, now I’ve heard
everything.

I look next to me to discover Mike is in the bed, not the dog. I leap out of bed.

“Jesus Christ!” I say with a start.

“Shuuuut up. Tiiirred,” says Mike, just like my teenage sons do today. “Get out of my bed,” he adds.

I decide it’s not worth trying to explain and stagger out to the kitchen. Please, Lord, let Marty McFly at least have some coffee in this crazy house.

Eventually Mike and I pile into a rented Greyhound bus for the two-day road trip. Our itinerary has us stopping for big rallies in Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo, the farms of Salinas Valley, Berkeley, and finally a giant gathering at the historic Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco, where Jefferson Starship will perform.

On the bus, I see many familiar faces. Obviously, Jane and Tom are there, along with Whoopi Goldberg, Morgan Fairchild, Ed Begley Jr., Daphne Zuniga, Peter Fonda, Stephen Stills, Ed Asner, Mike Farrell, and others.

There’s lots of political shoptalk and everyone is raring to spread the message of voting for the initiative, which the ag industry and chemical companies are spending heavily to combat. In fact, they are outspending us by many millions. But we have the one thing they don’t: the power of celebrity.

Ensconced in the back of the hot, stuffy bus, Mike and I are like geckos in a terrarium. Still very much playing the bad boy from
St. Elmo’s Fire
, I open the emergency hatch on the roof for some fresh air and a better view. Soon Mike and I are sticking our heads out like a pair of Labradors as the bus flies up Highway 101.

“Do you hear that?” I scream at Mike over the howling wind in my face.

“Whaaat?”

“I hear a siren!” I say, and sure enough, highway patrol is screaming up behind us.

“Oh shit! I think he’s after us!” yells Mike.

We both duck back inside and close the hatch.

There is a commotion in the aisles, as it becomes clear that we are indeed being pulled over. This ought to be good. Knowing full well that I could still probably explode a Breathalyzer, I’m glad I’m not driving.

The driver pulls the Greyhound bus to the shoulder. The cop asks him to step outside. If this becomes a strip-search situation, I’m quite sure there are some folks on the bus who will have an issue. Peter Fonda shakes his head.

“Wow, man. Busted by the heat before we even get started.”

“Maybe he’s been paid by Dow Chemical to stop us,” someone adds.

Now the driver comes back on board.

“The officer wants everyone off the bus.”

This is quickly becoming the kind of situation that generates headlines you don’t want.

“I’ll go first,” says Jane, exiting.

“I got your back, sister,” says Whoopi, right behind her.

And so we all disembark, piling out one after another after another like a celebrity clown car. By the time Michael J. Fox and I file past the cop, he is in a starstruck daze, looking at us all lined up on the side of the highway in the middle of central California farmlands.

“Whoa. Wh … what are
you
guys doing here?” he asks.

Jane takes charge, telling him our mission and giving the poor man both barrels of her A-list movie-star charm.

“I see,” says the cop, flummoxed. “I pulled you over because you were speeding and I saw people trying to escape via the roof.”

“That was me, Officer. I was actually trying to close the broken hatch with Mr. Michael J. Fox here,” I say, gesturing to Mike, who is trying to be invisible.

Now the guy really loses it.

“I just saw
Back to the Future
!” he gushes.

Mike elbows me. “I’m sure
St. Elmo’s Fire
was sold out,” he says under his breath.

Soon we are all posing for photos with our new friend from the California Highway Patrol.

“My sergeant will never believe this!” he says as he gets a good-bye hug from Whoopi Goldberg. “You all slow down now. And good luck on Prop 65. You got my vote.”

We file back into the bus and roll out. They say politics is retail. We just made our first sale.

We roll into the towns and hold our rallies. The crowds are massive and vocal. Sometimes Mike and I have to retreat back to our perch on the roof of the bus to get out of the frenzy. These communities are a million light-years away from the Hollywood universe and they’ve never seen this kind of celebrity activism before. And in spite of the several unintentionally comic moments (like sitcom stars telling lifelong farmers how to grow “safer” crops), it feels good to be in service of a cause greater than my own self-interests, a cause that adds some substance and humanity to my increasingly rarefied existence. I enjoy the moments when I can connect with people in their world and on terms that are related to their own lives.

Soon enough I will have more perspective on the complicated relationship between Hollywood activism and its effectiveness, as well as its true intentions, but for now it gives me a much-needed way to channel all this personal attention into something I hope is meaningful.

The Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act will pass with a huge margin, despite being massively outspent by the opposition. Its success will usher in the ballot-initiative-movement phenomenon that is now out of control in California. (One would hope the government wouldn’t need its citizens to take matters into their own hands; making laws is their job—they should be better at it.) Today it is a crime to knowingly expose the public to carcinogens in the workplace or in the public food or water supply, without notification. You can still see our Prop 65 notices of such dangers posted in public spaces throughout California.

*   *   *

The cliffs are windswept and brutally tall. The beach before them is so wide, it’s clear that there was nowhere to hide. The young men who were shot dead here would’ve been exactly my age, dying alone and unprotected, giving “the last full measure of devotion,” in the lonely, cold mist of an early June morning.

I am standing at the German gun emplacements of Pointe du Hoc, where so many fell. On my left there is the beautiful and appalling field of crosses and Stars of David for the heroes whom, until today, I had never seriously considered. Brokaw would eventually write his book and Spielberg would one day make his movie, but in the early fall of 1986, nothing has prepared me for the emotion of this great battlefield on France’s Normandy coast.

I’ve come to nearby Deauville for its film festival, to promote the European release of
About Last Night
. Ed Zwick and Jim Belushi are back at the hotel. I’ve come on a whim to see the sights with a new friend who has led me to this desolate overlook.

Glenn Souham’s security company is handling our needs while in France, and he and I have become friendly during the dull black-tie dinners and long press junkets. Glenn is Franco-American, tall, sandy haired, and athletic, from a renowned family whose war exploits earned them an emblazonment on the Arc de Triomphe. After walking me through a tutorial of the events of D-Day, he leaves me alone to take it all in.

I’m twenty-two years old. I’ve never known for want. There’s always been food on the table and the sweet smell of possibility, of a horizon free of impediment. I had opportunity, worked hard, and made my dreams come true. Here’s a guy on a plaque, eighteen years old, from Iowa. Another is twenty-two and from a town in northern Michigan. A door lowered; they ran into raging fire; if they lived they tried to climb those terrible cliffs, hand over hand, wide open to the barrages from above. If they got there, some fought, some charged into the maw of the .50 cals, anything to silence the howling guns, to save their brothers and achieve the objective. To do the job. To save our country. All the training, all the planning, all the money, all the strategy, finally and simply came down to that. When the door was lowered, could the twenty-two-year-old from Michigan step out and face the job at hand?