A Life in Parts

by Bryan Cranston

  A lot of important things happened in 1977. Apple Computers became a company. Elvis gave his last concert and took his last breaths. The Son of Sam murders were solved. My brother and I arrived in New York for another historic event: my Los Angeles Dodgers were taking on the perennial powerhouse New York Yankees. The 1977 Bronx-Is-Burning World Series. And we were there. Ed and I had to go. But of course we had no tickets, and we were running low on money. So we figured we had to sneak in . . . to Yankee Stadium . . . during a World Series. All balls—no brains. The greatest thing about youth is that you’re not yet battle-weary, so you’ll try anything.

  We locked up our bikes near the YMCA in Midtown where we were staying and hopped on the subway to the Bronx. We arrived at Yankee Stadium. You can have something described to you a thousand times and still be unprepared for what it’s like in life. Pre sky boxes, pre corporate sponsorship, Yankee Stadium was a giant energy machine—full of loudmouths and troublemakers and dyed-in-the-wool fanatics. It was a monolith, and you could feel its history, its majesty. We were in awe. We had to find a way in. We sniffed around to assess our options. We couldn’t see any way to climb a fence or steal into a service entrance. Security and police were everywhere. We were just about to sulk back to the subway when some guy with cartoonish buck teeth whispered, “Youze wanna get inta da game?” We had him repeat the sentence just to hear his lyrically thick accent.

  “Sure,” we said. “But how much?”

  “My cousin’s da ticket take-a at gate tree,” he said. “Ya each put a twenty under deez old tickets, an yer in.”

  He handed us a couple of used tickets. Ed and I looked at each other. Are we doing this? We nodded to each other and lined up at the cousin’s gate. We saw cops on the other side of the turnstiles watching happy ticket holders enter the stadium. Our hearts pounding, we slipped the bogus tickets to the cousin with our twenties folded underneath. When he felt the bills in his hand he just said, “All right all right, enjoy da game.” And just like that we were in.

  We found two seats behind the Dodger dugout along the third base line. Heaven. A few outs into the game an usher reminded us that we didn’t actually have seats. We resigned ourselves to pinging around the stadium, getting kicked out of seat after seat for the rest of the game. We zeroed in on two empty seats about ten rows behind the Yankee dugout. We made our way there, pausing to check our fake tickets to give our neighbors the impression that we were in the right place, before slipping into our temporary seats. The first half inning was just ending. We wondered how long it would be before another usher would give us the bum’s rush.

  It never happened.

  We watched the entire game from those fantastic seats. What luck. Well, with two exceptions. The Dodgers lost that game—they’d go on to lose the series. And at one point a New Yorker right behind us, a die-hard Yankee fan, didn’t approve of us rooting so enthusiastically for our team. He gently reasoned with us by brandishing a knife and threatening us through gritted teeth, “Sit da fuck down and shut da fuck up or I’ll stab youz in da fuckin’ backs!”

  For the rest of the game, we became Yankee fans.

  • • •

  Winter was closing in, so we scuttled plans to go farther north and headed back to Florida. We decided to ride south on the Blue Ridge Parkway, which runs from Virginia through to North Carolina along the crest of the Smoky Mountains. The ride is beautiful on a motorcycle—unless it’s rainy, foggy, and cold. That’s how Ed and I found it. Stuck on a serpentine, slippery road without the payoff of a nice view, we were miserable. The rain was pelting so hard it was a miracle we saw the PICNIC AREA ONE MILE AHEAD sign. We hand signaled to each other. We needed to find shelter. We turned off the parkway and glided down the road to a small clearing near a running creek.

  The picnic area was basic: four corner posts and a modest roof sheltered a table. We drove our bikes inside, rearranged the table to accommodate the bikes and pup tents. Our fancy digs for the night. We opened up one of our carburetor valves with a screwdriver to trickle out fuel for our camp stove, and we heated up some water to dissolve two chicken bouillon cubes for supper. We shared a couple of rye crackers. And then after dinner there was gin. As in gin rummy. Ed and I got so good at knowing each other’s strategy that the games would go on for hours. Thank God, because the rainfall was relentless. All we had was time.

  Eventually, we brushed our teeth and scrubbed our faces of road grime and retired to our tents. Tomorrow we would continue our sojourn south. I climbed into my sleeping bag and cracked open my one literary companion on the trip: a thick anthology of plays I’d included when we packed up our Hondas back in California. I’d so loved my acting classes in junior college that I thought if I was going to be an actor, I’d better start reading. I’d better start learning. I had just finished Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman, which I loved. I was just starting Henrik Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler. I got a few pages in before I felt the pull of sleep.

  The next morning was like the day before. Rain. Looked like we would have to spend another night. On the plus side, we wouldn’t run out of drinking water, the main ingredient in Top Ramen, Sanka, Postum (a powdered malt beverage), instant hot chocolate, and, of course, bouillon soup. Add to that a bag of raisin and peanut mix, and rye crackers. Or the saltines we’d stuffed our pockets with at roadside cafés—and we had a veritable feast.

  Day three: more rain, steady rain, no sign of any other soul. We thought about leaving and finding the next town to check into a motel but realized that could be ten or one hundred miles away. No GPS in those days. We didn’t know exactly where on this beautiful goddamn Blue Ridge Parkway we’d landed. We’d have to wait it out. Our routine continued: meager meals, followed by some calisthenics to keep us loose, conversation to keep us sane, gin to keep us interested, and reading to pass the time.

  Day four: the same.

  Day five: the same.

  I stared out at the rain, mesmerized by its constancy—the utter lack of change. I grew up in eternally blue-skied Southern California. I’d never seen rain like this. Thick streams of water cascaded off the roof in columns. They looked to me like bars on a jail cell. I slowly stuck my hand out to disrupt the flow—momentarily breaking the bars. But I pulled my hand away and the bars were back. I felt stuck. I felt like a prisoner.

  Did I really want to be someone who jailed others? Police officers did so many noble things. But was that who I was? I didn’t know. I didn’t know who I was supposed to be.

  I was becoming dark in my thoughts. I was road worn. Fatigued. Was I losing my mind? I was extremely hungry, and worried about running out of food. Ed and I had fewer conversations. What was there to talk about?

  I turned to my book of plays. I sank deep into Hedda Gabler, reading by the daylight filtered through the rain clouds. The entire drama unfolds in a single room. But though I was stuck at that rest stop, the play didn’t make me feel more claustrophobic. The opposite. It set me free. I forgot about where I was. I forgot time. When I got to the last page I was straining to make out the words. My only light source was a street lamp fifty feet away. It was night.

  I was astonished. I hadn’t noticed the change from day to dusk to night. How could I have missed that? I was so completely absorbed in the play that the story took me away.

  As I lay there drifting off, I had a feeling. It cast out any shred of ambivalence about what I should do with my life, how I should be. I knew at that moment, lying inside a sleeping bag in a pup tent under a shelter on the Blue Ridge Parkway in Virginia: I was going to become an actor.

  After being pelted by a week of ceaseless rain, my active mind had shut down and, at the risk of sounding overly—who cares? It’s true. Somehow my heart and soul had opened up. I saw my future. I saw it so vividly it was as if I’d had a conversation with my older self. At that precise moment I conjured a credo that would guide me for the rest of my life: I will pursue something that I love—and hopefully become good at it, instead of pursuing something
that I’m good at—but don’t love.

  When I awoke the next morning—day seven—the skies were clear. A sign? Maybe. It felt that way. I rode away from that shelter knowing exactly what I was going to do.

  Lifeguard

  Ed and I returned to Daytona Beach, broke again. We got day jobs on the pool decks of hotels. Officially I was a lifeguard, but my first order of business wasn’t rescuing flailing swimmers. Instead, I was charged with keeping the pool and deck spotless and selling suntan lotion. This was at the oddly named Alaskan Hotel, a box of whitewashed stucco and thin walls, featuring cheap fixtures and cheaper food. And me: a ginger-haired idiot posing as a lifeguard. I wasn’t in a position to save my own life.

  Mostly I hawked Sub Tropic oils and lotions by the caseload. Though it wasn’t as desirable as the Hawaiian Tropic brand sold at other hotels, Sub Tropic paid for the pool cleaning and maintenance at the Alaskan. In return, Sub Tropic got exclusive rights to sell its products on the premises.

  After selling oils to pale tourists dreaming of a perfect tan, I’d sell them an aloe vera concoction to soothe their nasty sunburns. I negotiated a deal that paid me 50 percent of whatever I sold—only commission, no hourly wage—so I tended to focus on selling rather than swabbing the pool deck. Every three days, my supplier would count the remaining inventory of bottles unsold, and I’d owe them their cut in cash—Sub Tropic got the other 50 percent. He’d then restock my supply for the next three days.

  Here was Sneaky Pete again: working, planning, conniving a way to increase profits poolside. At the end of each day I would pick up the half-empty bottles of lotion and oil abandoned on the pool deck, and I’d bring them to the subterranean room where the filtration system was housed. Once a week, under the cover of darkness, I would empty all the lotions into one big bucket and all the oils into another—regardless of the brand or SPF rating. Then I would clean the empty Sub Tropic bottles I had collected and make them look like new. Next, I’d use a funnel to fill the Sub Tropic bottles with the amalgamated liquids, thus creating my own inventory, which I then sold. I kept 100 percent of what I made on these doctored products. I thought I was pretty clever. Sneaky, but clever.

  Rainmaker

  I gave the pool my daylight hours—crack of dawn to dusk. At night, it was all theater.

  My epiphany on the Blue Ridge compelled me to stop by the Daytona Playhouse to see if I could help out backstage. I just wanted to be a part of the production. Ray Jensen, the artistic director of the playhouse and the director of the soon-to-open musical, The King and I, asked if I had ever acted before. I timidly shrugged. Yes? I was going to add, “Not that much,” but before I could open my mouth, he said, “Great, how would you like to be in The King and I?”

  The part was mine! But, wait, what part? Ray said, “The Kralahome, the King’s prime minister and right hand.” He handed me the script and said, “We rehearse in an hour. Try to memorize your lines by then.” I looked at him dumbfounded. He laughed. “I’m kidding. You have a week.”

  I learned my lines in no time, and my castmate, Louis Rego, assisted me with my extensive makeup. He applied purple eye shadow to my lids and the bronze body makeup everywhere else, in an attempt to turn an Irish and German kid Siamese. The makeup went a long way toward convincing me that I could pull off the performance. I was intimidated and nervous about doing a full-fledged production, in a musical no less, but for some reason I’d been given this opportunity. I was not going to waste it.

  After early performances I would remove the purple eye shadow, but it left a distinct pink hue on my eyelids. I drew a lot of attention (including some unwanted romantic advances) as I went around town with my eyes painted pink. I consulted Louis for advice. He told me to put a layer of Vaseline on my lids prior to the makeup. That would allow me to wipe it all off after the show without leaving any color behind. Perfect. I did as Louis instructed.

  In a very physical performance under the hot stage lights, near the end of the play, the Vaseline began melting into my eyes. Apparently, I had applied too much. I tried to wipe it away but the damage was done: my eyes were stinging and burning and everything on stage was a blur, though I could make out the shapes of people and objects just enough to fake my way around. I gave a disastrous performance. Or that’s what I thought. At the end of the play when the king was dying, the Kralahome was bereft and I knelt down by his majesty’s side to recite a few mournful last words. Vaseline tears streamed down my face, forming a small puddle on stage. As I struggled to concentrate, from the darkness of the audience I could hear sympathetic murmurs. Did I hear people crying?

  At the curtain call, my applause was much bigger than it had ever been. After the show, audience members and cast congratulated me on a great performance. No one knew that I was using a PEV (Performance-Enhancing Vaseline).

  Later that night, I thought about what it would be like if I could elicit that kind of reaction in people by really feeling the emotion, truly experiencing the pain of the character—allowing real tears to flow or relishing real affection or getting overtaken by real anger or feeling real anything on stage.

  I’d gotten a taste of what it was to be an actor: a real actor with a real audience. I gave something to the audience, and they fed off me. And then I fed off them. I could feel a kind of hive mind at work in the darkness of the theater. A symbiosis. A connection. I didn’t have any craft. And I didn’t have a vocabulary to describe it then. But I felt its power. And I wanted more.

  After The King and I, I acted in There’s a Girl in My Soup. And then Ray Jensen asked Louis and me to produce Tennessee Williams’s play The Night of the Iguana. We agreed. Let’s see what producing is about. About three days before we opened, Ray Jensen quit. He’d been embroiled in a fight with the board of directors and tempestuously walked out.

  With nowhere else to turn, the board asked Louis and me to take over. Louis was more experienced, and he thought it best if he called the show and handled the technical aspects, while I stepped in as creative director. I had three days to put the finishing touches on the play, which centered on a defrocked priest, Shannon, who’d ended up in subtropical Mexico and was coming to terms with his failures.

  The play was about self-imprisonment, how we can be trapped by our own decisions, our own inadequacies. I thought about how I’d felt jailed by the rain on the Blue Ridge Parkway. What if we could make it rain on stage? I was imagining a gossamer wall of water, a wall you could see through but couldn’t fully penetrate. It was perfect for the story.

  I talked to the construction guy and we devised a plan to fashion a system so that rain could hit the roof and then cascade down to form a curtain between the actors and the audience. The water would flow into a trough hidden downstage, which would lead to a basin outdoors. We figured out a way to do it cheaply, without inflicting any damage on the theater.

  We took it to the theater board and described how it could safely be done, but some complacent board members weren’t comfortable with such a “crazy” idea. “We don’t need to do that,” they said.

  “We don’t need to do anything,” I argued. “None of us needs to be here. But we’re here to tell the story the best we can for our audience. Otherwise, what’s the point?”

  I fought for it and eventually won. It rained on stage. It wasn’t just a visual trick, it supported and amplified the story. Our audiences loved it. They gasped in awe.

  A year before, I was a police science major. Now I was demanding rain. And getting rain.

  As the Playhouse’s season was ending, my brother heard about parts in the chorus of the annual Summer Music Theater. I auditioned with a song I knew well from my nights at the Aku Tiki: Elvis Presley’s “Return to Sender.” Not your typical audition song for musical theater, but it was all I had in my hip pocket, so I gave it a shot.

  Ed and I both made the cut. (In retrospect, I don’t think the local talent pool was that deep.) We were offered the summer gig. It paid $75 per week. Terrible money, even back i
n 1978. But we weren’t doing it for the money.

  The lineup was Two Gentleman of Verona, Pirates of Penzance, and Damn Yankees.

  I loved Damn Yankees, of course, because it was about baseball. In the cast was a talented but reckless actor, Kevin McTeague, who played the role of Mr. Applegate, aka the Devil. The role was fun and wicked and powerful. I coveted that part.

  One day, McTeague disappeared. We heard he’d split with a girlfriend to parts unknown. I thought maybe I would throw my hat in the ring. Maybe I could play Mr. Applegate. But I never followed through on my impulse. I was just a kid. I’d barely made the chorus; I’d be foolish to think I had a shot at the part. I wasn’t ready.

  For the first time, I felt the pang of wanting more than I had, more than I was given, more than I’d allowed myself to think was possible. Someday I should play that role, I thought. Maybe even on Broadway.

  Hypnotist

  I met Michelle (Mickey) Middleton at the Daytona Playhouse. She was pretty, kind, talented, a couple of years older than me. I don’t recall asking her out on a date, really. We were just part of a crew of theater rats who hung out together from the moment I walked into the playhouse. We all spent long nights working out scenes, and we shared pitchers of beer and oysters at the local bar, and we played in backgammon tournaments around Daytona. Backgammon was the craze.

  We also stared into the blank slate of the future, nursing fantasies about what our lives would be like when we were real actors. We shared our hopes and goals. We were friends, and then more. I looked up one day and I had a girlfriend.

  My cousin Freddie had learned hypnosis to try to help his mother cope with breast cancer, and he taught me some basic techniques. Not everyone is susceptible to hypnosis. If you’re an open, emotional person, it’s more apt to work on you. If you’re guarded, not so much. I was hard to hypnotize; despite my effort and desire, I couldn’t shut down my racing mind. But Mickey? A few seconds and sweet Mickey was gone. Lights out, Daytona Beach.