by Erik Tarloff
And maybe I didn’t love him. Not like love love, anyway. We had fun together, and I cared about him, and I knew he was a pretty remarkable guy, but since I wasn’t really tempted to follow him to New York, not for more than a couple of minutes anyway, I have to conclude my feelings for him didn’t run all that deep.
What? You think that was mature of me? That’s nice of you to say, but I don’t think I was especially mature. Not at that age. I think I just knew, maybe I’d known all along, that Chance was going to be going places where I wouldn’t be able, or even eager, to follow.
George Berlin
Chance came to see me one afternoon. He wanted some advice. He was thinking about dropping out of school and going to New York to try his luck. What did I think? He claimed to want my opinion, but in retrospect I think his mind was made up. He knew what he was going to do. What he wanted was my blessing. Which is kind of touching, I guess. We’d become close, I was very encouraging toward him, I thought he might be a major talent. You could even say I kind of mentored him, although not in terms of acting instruction—I was in no position to do that—but just providing validation and moral support.
Anyway, I had to think fast and search my own conscience. Ordinarily, I would never tell a kid it’s okay to drop out. Never had before, and this wasn’t the first time I’d had one of these conversations…kids have identity crises in college, it’s kind of a thing, and they feel a need to run away. Just snap the umbilicus and split. But I believe in college. I believe in the value of a broad education no matter what you want to do with your life. And Chance wasn’t only a talented actor, he was a very bright guy. His mind was like a sponge. Plus, I think, even for actors, the more you know the better you’ll be at your art. Stuff—knowledge—things that have to do with history and literature and art and even science, stuff can influence your work in ways that are indirect but profound. Hemingway used to cite as influences not only Tolstoy and Shakespeare, but also Mozart and Cezanne. It all goes into the mix. If you’re receptive enough and smart enough and have the sort of integrative temperament an artist needs, it all goes into the mix.
But with Chance…well, he was so motivated, and not only about acting, but about everything. The quintessential autodidact. He didn’t need us. So I shook his hand and told him I’d be very sorry to see him go and I would miss him, but I thought he was probably making the right decision.
Wilson Denny
Sophomore year, Chance and I rented an apartment off campus on the bad side of town, and trust me, that town didn’t have a good side. Our place was an incredible hovel, but we both liked the idea of having our own space and putting some distance between ourselves and the school authorities. Guys that age don’t notice how lousy their living space is, but they know whether or not adults are in a position to supervise them. That was much more important to us. Also, we found a place with two bedrooms, so we didn’t have to worry about hanging any damn towels on any damn doorknobs anymore.
Did we consider not being roommates that year? You mean living alone, or rooming with other guys? Well, either way…I mean I can’t speak for Chance, and we obviously can’t ask him now, but I know I didn’t. We were pals. Like I said, there were hardly any black folk on campus, so I didn’t have an obvious other place to turn. But that’s neither here nor there, really. Chance and me, we were tight. Maybe even best friends. We were incredibly lucky the school assigned us to the same dorm room freshman year. I can’t imagine either of us would’ve been happy rooming with almost any of the other guys in our class. Me for obvious reasons, and Chance because…because they were the kind of guys he went to high school with, and he didn’t have any friends in high school. Or so he told me.
So I was more than a little pissed off when halfway through junior year he suddenly announced he was splitting. For one thing, it kind of left me in the lurch in terms of the apartment. I couldn’t afford the rent all by myself, and we’d signed a year lease. But it wasn’t only about the apartment. Chance was my best buddy at State and the sad truth is I didn’t have a second-best buddy. Being black at a lily-white place like that, you were pretty isolated. People might be nice to you—I mean, it wasn’t like I felt the full weight of institutional racism directed my way most days—but they didn’t get especially close either. It was a nod in the hall, a quick hello, how’s it goin’? Even the girls you slept with, they mostly kind of withdrew afterward. I’d reconciled myself to feeling isolated when I’d first arrived as a freshman, but then I’d been incredibly lucky in terms of Chance being my roommate, and now, over the course of a couple of years, I’d been spoiled. I didn’t relish being a recluse for the next year and a half, plus probably four years of med school. And in addition, I thought Chance should probably have talked this over with me first instead of just dropping it on me. Isn’t that what friends do?
Nancy Hawkins
I don’t know if you know this, and I don’t know if I should even tell you, but…see, after Chance left for New York, me and Willy, we had a little…a little thing. A little fling. And it didn’t end well. For anyone. Willy and I barely spoke afterward, which was awkward, since we saw each other all the time. It was impossible to avoid each other at such a small school. And when Chance found out…well, he pretended it was cool, his letters said he thought it was great, that he always knew the two of us had this mutual attraction and were bound to act on it sooner or later. But the truth is, things weren’t the same afterward. Between Chance and me, I mean. Fewer letters right away, and pretty soon none at all. He stopped writing. Now, that could have been for all sorts of reasons, I suppose, but given the timing, it seems clear to me it had something to do with me and Willy. So, I mean, that wasn’t a good idea from a whole bunch of points of view. I mean, obviously. And looking back, I think maybe Wilson and I were both mainly trying to keep in indirect contact with Chance, that’s how come it happened in the first place. And it just didn’t work.
NEW YORK
Leon Shriver (actor)
Chance failed his audition at the Actors Studio. It was a crushing experience for him. Lee told him he seemed to have some talent, but he just didn’t have enough maturity or professional experience to benefit from the Studio. He didn’t have any experience, in point of fact, although he may have lied a little on the paperwork we had to fill out before we performed. People do, all the time. But let’s face it, he was a college dropout who’d done some community theater and a couple of college productions, and that’s it. Now, professional experience wasn’t strictly speaking a requirement at the Actors Studio, not officially, but they kind of frowned on amateurs, or people whose résumés made them look like amateurs.
On the other hand, I mean, come on. This was Chance Hardwick. A totally great actor. A natural. Without any training at all, he was already better than almost everyone studying at the Actors Studio. Almost anyone working on Broadway. And he gave a great audition. I know, I was there. And to some extent we were even competing with each other, so you can imagine how hard it is for me to say that.
The thing is, Lee was just…he was being Lee. Pulling rank, playing the guru, arrogating unto himself the role of ultimate judge. I think he resented the fact that…see, all of us in the room knew we’d seen something special, there was that kind of sharp, unconscious, collective expulsion and intake of breath when Chance finished his scene, the sound every actor hopes for, the one that signifies the audience has been transfixed by something onstage, they’ve been holding their breath without even knowing it, and they all let it out at the same time. It’s a glorious validation of the whole theatrical enterprise. And it happened that afternoon when Chance auditioned, and I think it bothered Lee. He felt they should have waited for his reaction, he wanted to reassert control of the situation. Felt the need to set us straight, you know? So he rejected Chance with that patronizing rhetorical pat on the head.
And Chance never forgave him for it. I mean, in retrospect, rejections of that sort ear
ly in your career can be a funny detail in your biography. Like all those publishers who rejected Moby Dick. Here you had one of the best actors of his generation, if not the best, turned down flat by the most distinguished acting school of its time, and by its most famous instructor. But that kind of story is funny only in retrospect. When it happens to you, you don’t know that within a couple of years you’re going to have a huge career. When it happens, it’s nothing but a devastating setback.
Lee did tell Chance he should come back in a year or so and try again. I guess he viewed that as a small concession. Chance said—although under his breath, so I may have been the only person to hear it—he said, “Sure, and they say pigs’ll be flying by then.”
We auditioned together, Chance and me. Each agreed to be in the other’s scene. You were required to play a scene with someone else—that was the rule. No monologues permitted. The scene had to be from a contemporary play and it had to involve a change in attitude or emotion and it had to be in English. We were both waiting tables at the same Village dump in those days, and we both had high hopes of seeing our name in lights—[laughs]—and we’d become workplace pals. Casual pals, but friendly. ’Cause we were both dealing with a lot of the same shit. Sometimes we’d go out for a beer after our shift, and, you know, cry in said beer about how tough things were. So we agreed to audition together—a little mutual encouragement, because we were both apprehensive about the whole idea, aghast at our own temerity—and to help each other prepare. I’m not sure Chance even had anyone else to turn to. He was still pretty new to New York, I don’t think he knew a lot of people. And as for me, I had other options, but I just trusted him. As a guy, I mean, not as an actor so much. I didn’t realize how good he was yet, I’d never seen him act except when we rehearsed a bit for our auditions. I just had a good feeling about what sort of person he was.
He chose a scene from Long Day’s Journey, I did one from All My Sons. We were hitting dysfunctional family life pretty hard, weren’t we? [laughs] But that’s what most American plays were about in those post-war years.
The irony is, I passed the audition, he didn’t. But credit where credit’s due, he forgave me. [laughs] All kidding aside, it’s not so easy to accept another actor’s success when you’ve struck out. Acting may not be a zero-sum game, but it is when you’re actually competing for the same one part. And even when you aren’t, it sure can feel like it sometimes. Because the odds are so long, you start feeling like, well, if one of you made it, then the other’s chances must have shrunk.
But like I say, Chance was a good guy. A generous colleague. More generous than I would have been in those circumstances. Congratulations, you deserved it, that sort of thing. Big handshake. He was a stand-up guy when it couldn’t have been easy, even if things finally did work out for him in a way anyone else would envy. As I say, no one could’ve been confident about that at the time. For all we knew, it might have been the burial ground of all his ambitions right there. And of course, considering how things ended for him, maybe what did happen later wasn’t so enviable after all.
So Chance forgave me for my lucky break. The only person he didn’t forgive after that deflating experience was Lee Strasberg. Where Lee was concerned, he held a grudge, a deep grudge. A few years after all this happened, and after Chance had become a star, they bumped into each other at some event here in New York, and Lee approached Chance and introduced himself and told him how much he admired his work. He didn’t have any memory of the audition. He had no idea they had a history. And Chance looked him up and down, ignored the outstretched hand, and told him to fuck off. I’ve never seen Lee look so shocked. Except maybe when he was acting, playing somebody who was shocked. I mean, he was so shocked at that moment he was too shocked even to be offended. I doubt anyone had ever told Lee Strasberg to fuck off before.
Michael Strachan (writer)
We were casting my first play, a little off-off-Broadway production. And Chance came in to read for one of the parts. One of the smaller parts.
I wanted to cast him. I thought he was great. But the producer and the director disagreed with me. “Too fey,” they said. “He’s all wrong for it.” I was amazed at how obtuse they were being. I mean, it seemed so obvious to me. “Are you kidding? The kid’s an amazing talent! He can be anything we want him to be.” But they won the argument. I still want to kick myself for not sticking to my guns. Might have made a lot of difference. To me, not to Chance. The guy they eventually did cast…well, let’s just say he went into another line of work soon after we closed. And we closed after about five performances.
Before we opened I contacted Chance to tell him how much I liked his reading and how sorry I was that we’d gone in a different direction. And he wrote back a while later. He was generous about the play, told me he thought it deserved a better fate. Of course, that could be interpreted as a dig for our not having hired him, but I think he meant it sincerely. And we kept in touch after that. In fact, he’s the reason I ended up coming out here to California. This was a couple of years later. He knew I’d been having a rough time in New York. He wrote to say there was work to be had in pictures and money to be made—they were always looking for good writers—and I ought to give it a shot. Seeing as I had nothing to lose, I took a chance and came out here to scout around. And never looked back.
Ellie Greenfield Lerner (girlfriend)
I suppose, like they say in the movies, Chance and I “met cute.” Still makes me giggle when I think of it. See, I used to work part-time in a little record store in the Village. Little hole-in-the-wall place. Long narrow room crammed floor to ceiling with racks of LPs. I was a student at NYU at the time, so the location was convenient, and the owner was good about being flexible when it came to my hours and everything. And it was a neat job…I’d be alone in the shop most of the shift, I could play whatever records I liked, deal with customers when they came in, do schoolwork behind the register when things were quiet.
Chance used to drop in a lot. I’d come to recognize him as a regular, even though he almost never bought anything, just flipped through the LPs. I think we were a kind of regular stop on his afternoon wanderings. He’d come in and head straight to the jazz section at the rear of the store and see if anything new had come in. Of course I noticed him right from my first day. Good-looking guy like that. I mean, gorgeous. Obviously. But really ratty. He was going through a difficult time back then, and he totally looked like a bum. Like the handsomest bum on the planet, mind you, but still, pretty disreputable. In dirty torn jeans and this filthy torn army coat with God knows what kind of stains on it. He was usually unshaven. Couple of days’ growth of beard. Hair kind of tangled up. Believe me, you have to be awfully handsome to still look handsome in the shape he was in. But in a funny way, that might have added to his allure. To a girl who’s nineteen years old, at any rate. He was kind of mysterious, do you see, kind of romantic, this guy who was so great-looking and obviously down-and-out at the same time. Like Arthur Rimbaud or somebody.
But other than my saying hello to him when he’d come in, we didn’t speak. I mean, I’d say hello and he’d kind of mumble something back or give me a furtive nod. He didn’t ignore me, but he didn’t make conversation, that’s for sure. Occasionally he’d come in, notice the music I was playing on the store system, and kind of wrinkle his nose. A little show of disapproval. He didn’t like my taste, I guess. Which was pretty unformed at that time, admittedly. Cornball stuff. Your Hit Parade stuff. Once in a while he’d even roll his eyes. That was as close as he came to communication. It was hard to tell whether it was humorous disapproval or pure unvarnished scorn.
And then one day, I noticed in the big store mirror—there was a mirror over the entrance reflecting the entire room, I guess for just such an occasion as this—I noticed Chance, in the jazz section way in the back, slipping an LP under his coat. I’ve got to tell you, it was shocking. I had no idea how to deal with something like that. It had n
ever happened before, not in my experience, and I was naïve enough to believe it never happened. But there it was, right in front of my eyes. Well, behind my head, actually, but reflected in a mirror right in front of my eyes.
So I was stumped. What was I supposed to do? The manager hadn’t given me any guidance about how to handle shoplifters. It hardly seemed worthwhile to call the cops. I mean, how much did LPs cost in those days? A buck, maybe? Two? This wasn’t grand theft. And I wasn’t exactly in a position to overpower him physically. Chance wasn’t a big guy, it’s true, but I was a little girl. Still, I was steamed, I didn’t feel like just letting this go. It was so brazen. So…so…it struck me as almost contemptuous. I wasn’t going to let him get away with it without at least letting him know I knew. I didn’t want to seem stupid, a dupe, like he’d somehow pulled the wool over my eyes. Also, I wanted him to know that in my opinion it was a really lousy thing to do.
So as he headed toward the front entrance, sauntering out as casual and cocky as you please, even giving me a little wave, I said, “You hold it right there, mister.”
He could have bolted, of course. If he had run for it, by the time I got out from behind the register and through the front door to chase him he could have been down the street and around a corner and been lost among the crowds in Greenwich Village. But instead he froze. “What is it?” he said. First time I’d ever heard his voice, other than those mumbled “hi’s.” His voice was deeper than I expected.