The Importance of Being Ernie: (21 page)
CHAPTER 37
The Darkest Hours
I returned to Los Angeles from Salt Lake City and faced two life-changing situations. The first involved my girlfriend, Dale. Our relationship, loving and supportive at first, had run its course. There was no acrimony or drama; we were merely drifting apart. I was leaving town to do theater, and she wanted a more permanent boyfriend. We separated as friends and still are to this day.The second matter involved my mother’s erratic behavior. I tried to keep my distance, but it was impossible to not get sucked in to her bizarre activities. One of the stranger missions: I was recruited to retrieve the discarded dance floor from the Queen Mary. Not the one from the venerable luxury cruise ship. I’m talking about The Queen Mary in Studio City, the infamous gay nightclub.
My mother had noticed that the disco was undergoing a renovation, and the club’s old parquet floor was in the trash bins behind the club. According to her psychic cronies, the wood had very good vibes and would look great in her new town house. My parents had just sold our old home on Milbank Street.
I agreed to the covert mission, mainly because my mom and dad were on the verge of getting back together. Kids can never accept their parents’ being apart, even if they are like oil and water. I was willing to do everything and anything to keep the peace, even if it meant Dumpster diving for old dance floors.
The plan was for my brothers and I to rendezvous before dawn at the trash bins in the dank alley behind the club. If the coast was clear, we’d pluck the dance floor sections from the garbage and be on our way. Of course, there were risks. The alley behind the club was an infamous pick-up spot for hustlers, male and female. The cops cruised the area regularly, rounding up whomever they could. My fear was that it would be us.
We arrived in the middle of the night, all of us dressed in black like cat burglars. Nothing suspicious about that. No cop cars or hustlers were in sight, so we began our excavation of the smelly, overflowing bins.
I wore the thickest, most industrial rubber gloves I could find and tried hard not to imagine what other treasures of the night I might be touching. The whole stressful time, I could hear a TV newscaster’s voice breaking another sad child actor story:
“Barry Livingston on Hard Times: Dumpster Diving Behind a Gay Nightclub.”
“Barry Livingston on Hard Times: Dumpster Diving Behind a Gay Nightclub.”
My brothers and I selected the least scuffed and warped sections of dance floor, tossed them into my mom’s Nova hatchback, and fled from the scene of the crime. Luckily, we didn’t get caught.
The dark truth behind Mom’s bizarre behavior and emotional turmoil soon revealed itself. She had recently had a momentary blackout while driving and sideswiped a car. This event was impossible to ignore, so she saw a doctor, something my mother rarely did. A week later, after undergoing a battery of tests, she came home after a follow-up meeting with the doctor. My mom stared at me, tears welling, and whispered, “I have cancer.”
The initial diagnosis was lung cancer, no doubt from smoking two packs of unfiltered Pall Mall cigarettes a day. More tests revealed that the lung cancer had metastasized to her brain, to her liver, to her kidneys, to just about everywhere in her body. The doctor gave her three months to live. She lasted six.
In her last few months, she and my father made peace with each other. He was a devoted nurse, caring for her until the final days. Anyone who has offered home care in a dire medical situation will know how gut wrenching it can be. My dad rose to the challenge. There was a unique bond between these two flawed human beings. That love revealed itself in the end.
For all my mother’s shortcomings, she was a charismatic woman with a bawdy sense of humor and tremendous generosity. She not only raised Stan and me, her biological kids, but she adopted three more children: Bill, Michelle, and Gene. She was also a surrogate mother to dozens of other young people, mainly my friends and those of my siblings. All were welcomed into our home for extended stays. It was her drive and vision that got me into show business, a mixed blessing to be sure. Her aim was true, though. At fifty-five years old, my mother passed away.
I retreated, physically and emotionally, into the sanctuary of my newly purchased house. Dealing with the loss of a parent is always a kick in the gut, no matter how close or distant the relationship was during life. I was very close to my mother, and her loss left a giant hole in my heart. This tragic event, combined with a bleak forecast in acting, led me into the most self-destructive period of my life.
I had a moderate cocaine habit for a couple of years. It was a social thing, partying with friends and using it to impress the girls with the hopes of getting laid, which never happened often enough. Now, I started “freebasing” the drug, purifying the white powder and smoking it. This was the darkest period of my
Lost Weekend.
Lost Weekend.
I spent many nights getting high until dawn with a drug-dealing buddy, Louie. There’s really not much to tell about these events. If you were a fly on the wall watching us, you couldn’t have found a duller duo. We’d talk, smoke, talk, cook up a new batch, smoke, talk, talk, talk ... boring, boring, boring. Eventually, the drug supply would be exhausted and I’d go home.
Like most users who survive the drug, there comes a tipping point, a moment that screams out you are headed for an early grave. Mine occurred late one night while I was trying to score.
It was midweek, about two in the morning, and I kept calling Louie to buy some cocaine. His phone just rang and rang, no answer. I wouldn’t give up, though. Anyone who’s ever been hooked knows about that crazy need. Finally, at about four in the morning, a raspy, exhausted voice answered the phone.
“What?” Louie hissed.
“Louie, it’s Barry. Can I come by?” I purposely left my query vague to throw off any wire-tapping cops. Louie knew the drill.
“Sure, come over,” he said. Serious drug dealers run a 24/7 operation and are used to catering to late-night customers.
Minutes later, I skidded to a stop outside Louie’s apartment in the Los Feliz area of Los Angeles. It was eerily quiet, nearly dawn. I sprinted to the front door of the building, rang his bell, and waited for a voice on the intercom. I got no answer. I rang again, holding the button down longer than necessary, and waited. Again, nothing. “Shit,” I muttered. “He’s probably gone back to sleep.”
Louie had the upper floor of the old duplex. I noticed that a French door on his balcony was cracked open. I also saw a tall, decorative Conquistador statue nearby; it rose up from the ground floor to right below Louie’s balcony, so I decided to play Spider-Man. Proof positive, again, that drugs will make you dumb as a stump.
I hopped up onto the Conquistador’s raised, bent knee and climbed. Once I reached his head, I was high enough to pull myself onto the balcony. Ta-dah! Nothing to it! I slipped through the open French door.
Inside Louie’s bedroom, I saw my pal sprawled out on his bed, facedown, bare-assed naked and snoring. “Louie,” I whispered. He didn’t respond. “Loouieeee,” I whispered a little louder.
Louie awoke, startled by my voice. In a panic, he whipped out a .38-caliber pistol from under his pillow and aimed at me.
“It’s Barry, don’t shoot!” I yelled. Too late.
The gun’s hammer went
click
... but didn’t fire.
click
... but didn’t fire.
“What the hell?” said Louie. He stared at his gun and seemed more troubled that his weapon didn’t work than the fact he nearly shot me.
“You said to come over; I was downstairs ringing,” I yammered.
Louie inspected his weapon and found that it was fully loaded. He grinned and said, “Must’ve been a bad round. You’re a lucky fucker.”
I laughed, too, playing along, trying to keep things light. I knew I’d almost had my head blown off, but I didn’t want to dwell on that thought. Keeping Louie in a jovial mood, and getting my drugs, was still my main goal. That’s how screwed up my priorities had gotten.
I left Louie’s house sometime after dawn and went home with my coke, which I finished with one last massive snort.
Once the drug was gone, I tried to sleep. I lay in bed, tossing and turning, unable to turn off my mind. I kept seeing my near-death experience at Louie’s. Voices whispered in my head. The most persistent one was my mother who kept repeating:
Stop what you are doing or you will die, goddamn it!
Stop what you are doing or you will die, goddamn it!
She loved to swear, even in my dreams.
It’d be too easy to say that my mother’s ghostly voice scared me into swearing off drugs. It helped, but frankly, I was already pretty disgusted with my all-night bingeing. My close call with Louie’s .38 pushed me into a new level of self-loathing, and I stopped cold-turkey.
My bout with smoking “freebase” lasted six months. Looking back, it felt like years. I never made any solemn vow to quit, no celebrity rehab with Doctor Drew, no big announcement to my friends, no religious conversion. Through a combination of events, I decided to control my addiction and not let it control me.
I say
control
because over the next few years I would have a toot of this or a puff of that if it was offered. Eventually, in a few years, I quit doing everything, period. I was lucky. I heard the saner voices in my head, and summoned the willpower to follow their advice.
control
because over the next few years I would have a toot of this or a puff of that if it was offered. Eventually, in a few years, I quit doing everything, period. I was lucky. I heard the saner voices in my head, and summoned the willpower to follow their advice.
Allow me to preach for a moment: drugs are a big waste of time and money, and a threat to everything you should cherish—your passion, your friends, and your life. The best advice I can give kids today, including my own, is don’t start down that road.
Unfortunately, teenagers want to know the truth from actual experiences and not from parental words of warning. Fair enough. If you must go there, use extreme caution and moderation. In the end, I hope it won’t take a gun pointed at your face to get you to stop. One last thing: listen to the advice of your mother, living or deceased, because she usually knows best.
CHAPTER 38
Staying Sober with John Cassavetes
I was off all drugs—pot, coke, whatever—for the first time in years, and I needed a project to fill my idle, workless days. I didn’t want boredom to lead me back into my old ways, which was certainly possible. Fortunately, an exciting theater project happened along.I’d been studying with the brilliant character actor, Martin Landau, who inherited the class of my old mentor, Jack Garfein. One day, completely by chance, the legendary actor/writer/director, John Cassavetes, poked his head into the barren Hollywood warehouse where Landau was conducting classes.
It turned out that Cassavetes hadn’t seen Landau since the 1950s when they were both starving actors in New York. Cassavetes said he was looking for a theater space to present three plays he was developing. Landau offered up our empty warehouse and, just like that, Cassavetes accepted. He also asked Landau if he’d like to be a lead in one of the plays. My teacher’s acting career in 1980 was almost as dead as mine, so he jumped on the offer, a decision that he came to regret. More on that in a minute.
Cassavetes called the project The Love and Hate Trilogy, and he planned to direct all three plays. The first piece was
Knives,
which Cassavetes had written. Ted Allen wrote the other two plays,
The Third Day Comes
and
Love Streams
(later a Cassavetes film). Gena Rowlands, the director’s talented wife, starred in all three plays. Landau was set to do the male lead in
The Third Day Comes,
Jon Voight would costar in
Love Streams,
and Peter Falk headlined
Knives.
Landau’s acting class, which I was a member of, became the repertory company that would fill out the supporting roles.
Knives,
which Cassavetes had written. Ted Allen wrote the other two plays,
The Third Day Comes
and
Love Streams
(later a Cassavetes film). Gena Rowlands, the director’s talented wife, starred in all three plays. Landau was set to do the male lead in
The Third Day Comes,
Jon Voight would costar in
Love Streams,
and Peter Falk headlined
Knives.
Landau’s acting class, which I was a member of, became the repertory company that would fill out the supporting roles.
Rehearsals for the plays commenced. At nine in the morning, the cast of
Knives
assembled. The actors would read from the script as Cassavetes paced back and forth, listening. At some point, he’d hear something in the reading, stop the actors mid-scene, and improvise new dialogue. All the while, his assistant would furiously scribble down his verbal riffing. After Cassavetes was done, he’d cackle and signal the actors to continue. At noon, the
Knives
reading concluded and work on
Love Streams
would start with Cassavetes applying the same writing method. At three in the afternoon the cast for
The Third Day Comes
arrived to work with Cassavetes.
Knives
assembled. The actors would read from the script as Cassavetes paced back and forth, listening. At some point, he’d hear something in the reading, stop the actors mid-scene, and improvise new dialogue. All the while, his assistant would furiously scribble down his verbal riffing. After Cassavetes was done, he’d cackle and signal the actors to continue. At noon, the
Knives
reading concluded and work on
Love Streams
would start with Cassavetes applying the same writing method. At three in the afternoon the cast for
The Third Day Comes
arrived to work with Cassavetes.
The marathon “table reads” and rewrites continued for three weeks. A small forest of trees must have been sacrificed to provide enough paper for the director’s improvised revisions. Most of his verbal jamming was brilliant; some of it wasn’t. But I was amazed by his stamina, an endless supply of creative energy. I’d heard the rumors about his alcohol and drug abuse, but I never saw it. Perhaps I wasn’t looking for it. I was still trying to maintain my new course of sobriety.
In true repertory fashion, the actors lent a hand in the set building process. My job was to sand, stain, and varnish the arms of ninety-nine theater seats. That meant refinishing 198 wooden arms, two per chair, which I did gladly. There was great camaraderie among the company, bonded by our mutual respect for Cassavetes. One actor, though, was becoming increasingly unhappy: Martin Landau.
I was playing the role of a Communist sympathizer in
The Third Day Comes
and privy to Landau’s struggle in rehearsals. The play was a
Death of a Salesman
type of a story with Landau portraying a character that was losing his career, his family, and his mind. The role seemed well suited to Landau, but the actor seemed confused and troubled about how to play the character. He’d ask for clarifications about motivations and back story. Cassavetes would chuckle and shrug, leaving his actor ever more frustrated.
The Third Day Comes
and privy to Landau’s struggle in rehearsals. The play was a
Death of a Salesman
type of a story with Landau portraying a character that was losing his career, his family, and his mind. The role seemed well suited to Landau, but the actor seemed confused and troubled about how to play the character. He’d ask for clarifications about motivations and back story. Cassavetes would chuckle and shrug, leaving his actor ever more frustrated.
As a bystander, I could see that Cassavetes was being purposely vague, hoping that Landau might channel his exasperation into his character’s emotional life. They were both method actors after all, well versed in techniques that tap into real feelings.
Landau resisted the Cassavetes approach, and their lines of communication began to fray. Things came to a head one night while rehearsing a scene where Landau’s character comes home from work, having just been fired from his longtime job.
Cassavetes said, “Marty, I want you to find a way to enter a scene that suggests you’re really losing your mind, okay?” Landau nodded and entered the scene giggling, as if he’d been out getting drunk.
“Stop!” Cassavetes said. “I’m not too sure about the giggling, Marty. Try something different.” The actor grimaced. Being a consummate professional, Landau shuffled back offstage. A moment later, Landau entered the scene ... skipping.
“Hold it, Marty!” John called out again. “Don’t skip. Find another way to enter.” Landau, tail between his legs, walked off again. This went on for at least five more times: Landau entering in some wacky way and Cassavetes vetoing the choice.
“John, maybe you should come up and show me what you want because I don’t know what you want,” Landau said, at his wit’s end.
Cassavetes was a brilliant actor himself. He leaped at the opportunity and raced up onstage to demonstrate. As Landau looked on, Cassavetes entered, giggling and inebriated, just as Landau had done in his first attempt.
Landau stared, incredulous. “That’s exactly what I did twenty minutes ago, the first time!”
Cassavetes cackled as he walked offstage. Landau’s bulging eyes were burning a hole in the director’s back. John dropped into his chair and said, “Do it like that, Marty, but when you enter I want you to walk in ... backward.” Another cackle.
Landau gawked at John. It looked like he was either going to bolt out the door or choke his tormentor. Being an old-school trouper, though, the actor bit his lip and walked offstage to try to please Cassavetes, again.
The actor made the entrance, this time walking backward and giggling. Oddly enough, it was brilliant; Cassavetes let the scene continue. After it ended, Landau faced Cassavetes and waited for his critique.
Cassavetes grinned and said, “We’ll work on it tomorrow.”
Not with Landau.
The next day Landau bounded into the theater like a man whose death sentence had just been pardoned by the governor. I asked him what was happening.
His beaming face frowned, and he said, “I’m going to have to bow out of the play.”
“Why?”
He kept up a sad veneer, but his twinkling eyes gave him away. “I’ve just been offered a role in a TV movie,
Death at the Amusement Park.
Mike Connors is the star, but I’ve got a nice supporting role.”
Death at the Amusement Park.
Mike Connors is the star, but I’ve got a nice supporting role.”
What’s a better career move I asked myself: doing
Death at the Amusement Park
with Mike Connors or an original play with Gena Rowland and directed by John Cassavetes? There was already a huge buzz all over Hollywood about John’s project; I hadn’t heard a thing about the next starring vehicle for Mike Connors. Talk about mixed-up priorities. It was pretty clear: Landau couldn’t hack being the director’s hand puppet anymore, and this was his ticket out.
Death at the Amusement Park
with Mike Connors or an original play with Gena Rowland and directed by John Cassavetes? There was already a huge buzz all over Hollywood about John’s project; I hadn’t heard a thing about the next starring vehicle for Mike Connors. Talk about mixed-up priorities. It was pretty clear: Landau couldn’t hack being the director’s hand puppet anymore, and this was his ticket out.
Jon Voight’s friend, Mike McGuire, took over Landau’s role. He jumped into the part with a week of rehearsals and performed his role brilliantly.
Of course, Martin Landau had the last cackle a few years later. His reputation rebounded with the Francis Ford Coppola film,
Tucker: The Man and His Dream,
which earned him an Oscar nomination. After that, he went on to win Oscars for
Ed Wood
and
Crimes and Misdemeanors.
Perhaps doing
Death at the Amusement Park
was a great career move after all.
Tucker: The Man and His Dream,
which earned him an Oscar nomination. After that, he went on to win Oscars for
Ed Wood
and
Crimes and Misdemeanors.
Perhaps doing
Death at the Amusement Park
was a great career move after all.
As opening night approached, we worked around the clock on The Love and Hate Trilogy. Nothing could divert Cassavetes’s attention, not even the theft of his car.
I was standing outside the theater and saw two sketchy thugs speed off in the director’s blue Dodge. I ran inside to tell him about the theft, expecting him to express shock or dismay. Instead, he cackled, as usual.
“Shouldn’t we call the cops?” I asked.
“Why bother?” he said.
“Huh?” I replied.
“It’s a rental car,” he said with a shrug. “I haven’t the faintest idea where I got it. I can’t even remember how long I’ve had it! Sooner or later somebody will get in touch.” Then, he went back to work.
The Love and Hate Trilogy opened, and, in typical Cassavetes fashion, some critics hated the plays, calling them boring and self-indulgent, and others loved them for their unique characters and intense acting moments. I had lost all objectivity. I was just glad to have been there to witness the crazy worlds that Cassavetes orchestrated onstage and off. He was a true maverick.
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