I did see Blake again. In 2002, I was on Broadway in Morning’s at Seven. Blake drove three and a half hours from upstate New York to see the show and meet me afterward. She could only stay a minute because she had to make the long drive back. But I got a chance to thank her again for that afternoon twenty-seven years before.
I have mentioned that Harold Ramis during Groundhog Day told me, “It is impossible to succeed in show business without the help of at least four heroes.” The same thing has to apply to life. All of us require angels to get us through unexpected and perilous turns we encounter.
Blake Atherton was one of my angels. Once upon a time in an empty dance studio I had a moment where I saw her as a romantic figure. But I was mistaken. She was a heroic figure who taught me through a chance moment of misdirection that one should never underestimate the lasting power of kindness.
22.
THE WORLD’S NOT WHAT IT USED TO BE
WHEN I WAS in grade school, I used to see an advertisement everywhere that read, “Join the Army and See the World.” The allure of the ad, of course, had nothing to do with the drawing power of the Army, but had everything to do with the romance of the world. I know the world isn’t what it used to be. A lot has happened since the fourth grade to kill the romance.
Among the culprits, and in no particular order, are: the twenty-four-hour news cycle, terrorism, AIDS, flying coach, and the Hallmark Channel. I don’t mean to pick on the Hallmark Channel. It is the last vestige of programming aimed at the romantic. But several years ago even they gave up on our current world and resigned themselves to produce made-for-TV movies that take place in the Old West—or Canada. While most people look toward a nuclear Iran or melting ice caps to get a heads-up on the end of the world, I train my eye on the programming of the Hallmark Channel. The more modern the time frame and the more cynical the casting, the closer we are to the end of the world. For example, if you see a Hallmark movie entitled The Search for Mrs. Santa starring Liza Minnelli and Simon Cowell, consider it one of the seven signs of the Apocalypse.
In spite of everything that has happened in the last few years to our poor old world, I do think the lure of travel is still alive and well in the entertainment industry. Lots of youngsters wanting to be in show business look at Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie flying off to Namibia to have a baby as an adventure.
When I shot my opening scene of the second season of Heroes, meeting Dr. Suresh at a hotel in Cairo, I had many young fans swooning over the idea that they flew Sendhil and me to Egypt to shoot at a café in front of the pyramids. In reality we shot in East L.A. at an abandoned hotel in front of a green screen.
My focus here is not that we shot in front of a green screen and added Egypt in later, which frankly I prefer. But I realize that in those young fans’ hearts and minds, they still thought flying to Cairo for a day’s work would be something to put in the “wonderful” column of the Chinese dinner menu of life. The romance of travel still burns.
I remember one of my first jobs out of town. I was cast in a TV movie called Last Flight Out with an absolutely incredible cast: James Earl Jones, Richard Crenna, Eric Bogosian, Arliss Howard, and the great Haing Ngor. The movie was about the last flight out of Vietnam at the end of that war. We were shooting in Thailand.
The production flew me to Bangkok first class on Northwest Orient, which was as luxurious as you can make sitting in one place for twenty-two hours. The head cartoonist for the Garfield comic strip in Asia sat beside me. Behind me a beautiful Asian woman was curled up in her seat like a cat, reading a movie script. To hell with the mixed nuts, we drank martinis and ate three kinds of appetizers before we even took off. They gave us massages midflight. Only Humphrey Bogart flying the plane could have made this flight more exotic.
When we arrived in Bangkok, hundreds of screaming fans awaited us. They weren’t there to greet any of the American cast on the plane. They wanted to catch a glimpse of the Asian woman curled up in the seat behind me. She was the biggest star in Vietnam. Her name was Kieu Chinh. In America you have seen her work in The Joy Luck Club. She played a woman who had to give up her two infant children during the war. If you haven’t seen the movie, rent it and keep a box of Kleenex nearby.
When we left the plane, the screaming started. She was like Elvis. We needed police protection to get through customs. In the car on the way to our hotel, she told me that she had lived in Vietnam. Now she had a place in Studio City, California, as it turned out, about four blocks from my house. She told me she had seen me several times shopping at Gelson’s. I found this amazing. One of the great actresses of the world shopping at the grocery store with me, squeezing peaches, checking heads of lettuce, and I was unaware. I think one of the things we hope to find in travel is confirmation that people are the same everywhere. I never expected this to include the produce section.
We arrived at our hotel in the heart of Bangkok. You want luxury? This was luxury. Our hotel had a gigantic live elephant covered with Christmas lights standing by the front doors. We walked past the elephant where a gentleman from the hotel greeted us, bowed to us, and led us to a couch in the lobby. He told us to sit and relax and have a drink on the house. We had been through enough stress for one day. He would check us in and handle our luggage.
I had a gin and tonic and took in the wild orchids and waterfall in the lobby. It was stunning. The man returned and said, “Stephen, follow me.” He took me up in the elevator and down a hallway. He was quiet and not chatty. He just mentioned that he could provide me with anything I needed or anything I had forgotten to pack. I wanted to marry this man.
We walked down exquisite mahogany hardwood to my room where I was instructed to remove my shoes and leave them outside the door. He joked that no one would steal them. He showed me to a chair in my suite. As he left, a beautiful woman in a full Thai ornamental gown and headdress came into the room. She brought in a plate of fresh Thai fruits. She washed my hands in rose water. She pulled back the covers of my bed and tossed gardenia blossoms on the sheets and pillows. The room exploded in the scent of perfume. Then for the final touch she pulled out a remote control! God had sent me an angel! She asked which I preferred, CNN or ESPN. I like easy questions. She turned on the game and instructed me to eat some fruit and drink the water she placed by my bed and then go to sleep. I would feel better in the morning, she told me. I wanted to marry her, too.
We spent three days in Bangkok. One night Eric Bogosian and I walked down to the infamous sex district, Patpong. One morning I shared some tea with a shopkeeper and bought a ruby and a sapphire for Ann. One afternoon some monks kidnapped me. They took me to a temple, and beat me with sticks. They gave me a necklace with a picture of the reclining Buddha on it and returned me to my hotel. Then it was time to leave for our shooting location about three hours away in the jungles near Rayong.
We arrived at our new digs, a place called the Rayong Resort. We were on the ocean on a corner of land carved out of the jungle. Instead of mahogany, the rooms had concrete floors with a drain in the middle. This was an important architectural feature as the rooms were cleaned by hosing them out. We were told not to drink the water and take short showers because the water had diphtheria in it. Too much exposure could be fatal.
The woman at the front desk warned me to be careful walking on the beach. That was where the medical waste washed ashore. Since AIDS was rampant, a prick from a buried syringe could prove disastrous. We were told only to eat food that was boiled, not to go outside early in the morning or at dusk because of malaria mosquitoes, and by all means not to drink tea with shopkeepers.
One afternoon I had some time off. I looked out at the jungle surrounding the hotel, with the wild orchids growing out of the trees. I had to take a stroll to get a better look at this amazing part of the world. Our hostess at the desk stopped me and asked me where I was going. I said I was going to look at the orchids. She smiled and responded, “Well, mind the cobras.”
My experience in Thailand had
danger, drama, and a cornucopia of things I had never imagined. Somehow the chemistry of all of these elements, both the good and the bad, created what I would call romance—the exotic possibilities of life on Earth.
Yet drama, danger, and novelty alone do not necessarily create the world of wonder. “Stunning” and “stupid” are sometimes next-door neighbors. You can take the same three ingredients, shake them out a different way, and you get my experience in Mobile, Alabama.
I flew coach to Mobile to shoot the film Love Liza. We arrived at the airport and were taken to the Lamplighter Inn along the juncture of Interstates 10 and 65. There were no elephants out front, but I did notice two things that made the Lamplighter unique. It was the only hotel I have ever seen in my life that advertised “heated hallways.” The second was that the restaurant at the Lamplighter was closed. Let me be more specific, not closed but closed down: locked, bolted, chained shut with tables and chairs stacked to the ceiling inside.
I mentioned at the desk that we were going to be here for a few days and needed a place to eat. The desk clerk told me there was a coffeemaker in the room. I explained that I liked a good cup of coffee as much as the next guy, but I would need solid food as well. She told me that Schlotzsky’s delicatessen was across the freeway.
“You have a delicatessen in Alabama?” I asked in amazement.
She shrugged and said, “Well, we got Schlotzsky’s.”
I told her I didn’t have a car. She told me that I “didn’t need no car. It’s right across the interstate.” She pointed out the front window and there was the Schlotzsky’s sign, across the six lanes of seventy-five-mile-an-hour interstate traffic.
I took my bags up to my room. It was nasty but gigantic. I have no idea what this room was before it was converted to a hotel bedroom, but I could have taught a yoga class in there. On one end there was a bed and a dresser with a small TV sitting perched on the dresser. An expanse of about twenty yards of industrial carpet reached the bathroom and closet on the other end. There was a dressing table and mirror outside the bathroom and on the dressing table was the aforementioned coffeemaker with Styrofoam cups and packages of Sweet’N Low, sugar, and stirrers. The other remarkable feature of this room was a large dark stain on the rug outside the bathroom. It looked like someone had been stabbed to death on it.
I got my Love Liza script and studied it that afternoon in preparation for the next day’s work. Around evening time I was getting a little peckish and wondered if I dared try to make it to Schlotzsky’s deli. With script in hand I walked to the edge of the hotel property and looked down across the interstate. When you’re standing near a freeway, the cars seem to go a lot faster than you imagined. But the traffic was light. I decided to go for it.
I headed down the grassy embankment to the interstate’s edge. I looked to the south. The cars seemed to be a quarter of a mile away. I hitched up my pants and ran like a mo-fo. I got across three lanes before any cars were even close and climbed over the median railing that divided northbound from southbound. I looked north. It seemed that there was a sufficient margin of safety. I took a breath and dashed across the remaining three lanes to the grassy bank on the other side. I trudged up the embankment to the deli’s parking lot.
Deli food is never a great choice after vigorous exercise. I was finishing my turkey and cheese with Russian dressing and a bag of Miss Vickie’s jalapeño potato chips when it occurred to me that I would now have to run back across the freeway—on a full stomach—at night.
It wasn’t as bad as I thought. The advantage of running across an interstate at night is the headlights. You have a much greater sense of depth perception and speed. I huffed and wheezed my way between a variety of rapidly moving pickup trucks, like a high-stakes game of Frogger.
I had an uneasy sleep that night, nervous over the start of filming and burping up Miss Vickie’s potato chips. I awoke at dawn and remembered my coffeepot. Of all the luxuries in all the years I have spent on the road, the most useful perk is not the free massage, or the free tickets to the basketball game, or the first-class seats on the plane. It is a coffeepot in your room.
I brewed a small carafe of coffee and poured myself a cup. I took a sip unaware that the little machine made coffee hotter than the surface of the sun. I not only spit out the coffee, but dropped the whole Styrofoam cup. Coffee splattered everywhere, and then I noticed the spill pattern of the coffee matched the large dark stain on the carpet. The mystery was solved. I slept easier that night knowing that no one had been murdered in my room. The next night, instead of Schlotzsky’s, I ordered a pizza. It was delivered to my door. That’s the first rule of the road: we live and learn.
I WAS AT a party for CBS when Steve Miner, a major bon vivant, good guy, and absolutely great director, asked me if I wanted to do a movie with Gérard Depardieu. I almost dropped my cocktail weenie. Gérard Depardieu has always been one of my favorite actors. Steve saw the glimmer in my eye and hit from all sides. He said they were doing a remake of a French film, My Father the Hero, for Disney. He had this great young actress, Katherine Heigl (sixteen years old at the time) for the lead. We’d shoot in the Bahamas. He said that there was a part for my wife, Ann—to play my wife! He said the production would put us up in a suite at Merv Griffin’s Resort on Paradise Island. And he’d even throw in an extra suite for me to bring a nanny to watch our young four-year-old, Robert.
Was there any answer other than yes? Yes! Yes! A resounding yes! I mean, come on. Every angle was covered. It sounded like an actor’s dream come true. What could possibly go wrong?
Pause for dramatic effect.
The trip began great. Robert slept through most of the five-hour flight from Los Angeles to Miami. Our first trial was a three-hour layover. Robert woke up. Waiting has never been his strong suit. It also wasn’t the strong suit of the nanny we brought to watch him. She left to buy some gum and a magazine.
After waiting for two hours and not hearing our flight called, I was anxious. I heard a couple of guys sitting near us saying that there was a big tropical storm moving into the area. Out of my growing concern, I went to check with the desk agent. That’s when we hit a pothole. She told me that our flight was scheduled to leave in an hour, but we didn’t have seats. I showed her my tickets. She told me that what I had were “reservations” for the flight, but not “seats.” I felt like I had fallen into an episode of Seinfeld. I asked her what she thought a reservation meant, if we didn’t have seats? She said it meant we were entitled to get seats, but as it stood, the flight was full. I asked her when the next flight was. She said it was being delayed by the weather. It may not leave at all. I came back to face Ann.
As I walked back to the waiting area, Robert was screaming that he wanted to go home. Carla, the nanny, was reading a magazine because she “wasn’t on the clock yet.” I told Ann the news. Maybe we were stuck here overnight. Ann didn’t move. She just stared straight ahead and blinked twice. In a Clive Owen fashion, she stood up and said blankly, “Give me the baby. Give me the tickets.” I passed her the screaming child. She walked up to the ticket counter and plopped Robert in front of the agent. “I heard you bumped us from our flight. You can watch him until we leave,” she said. With that Ann left. The desk agent found four seats for us on the flight. We left in an hour.
We arrived in the Bahamas in a blinding rainstorm. That wouldn’t have mattered except the luggage handlers left our bags on the runway. I pointed out our four bags sitting on the tarmac. A man driving a cart told me not to worry. He would get them on his next run.
We got to Merv Griffin’s Resort Casino Hotel with our soaked clothes and ruined luggage at one a.m. Our son was still screaming. We were told that our room wasn’t ready yet because a man had killed himself on our floor. The police had closed the area off. They were just starting to let housekeeping up there, so if we could just wait a little longer our room would be cleaned. He suggested we grab a bite at the Casino Café. It shouldn’t be too long.
There was
nothing edible on the menu that was one a.m.–appropriate. Spicy clams, onion rings, jerk chicken. I asked the waitress if they had a children’s menu. “Not in the casino in the middle of the night, sir.” I considered just getting Robert a martini and a pack of cigarettes to hold him over until morning. Instead I ordered him a ten-dollar hot dog.
Everybody was cranky. And you can’t blame them. It had been a long day of travel, none of us were used to being up this late, let alone eating this late. We shouldn’t have been surprised when Robert announced he had to throw up. But we were. I said, “Carla?” Which in nanny short-speak meant, “Take him away somewhere and let him erp.” She just looked at me with that “no way” look that only an off-the-clock twenty-year-old can muster.
I went back to the desk with Robert in my arms and said, “Excuse me, sir, we have to get upstairs to our room. The maid can clean it tomorrow, first thing, but we have to go to sleep.” The desk clerk was starting to shake his head “no” when I pulled an Ann. I set Robert in front of him and said, “Look, this boy is about to vomit. I’ll leave him here until you give me a room key.”
With key in hand, we got off the elevator on the ninth floor. Our room was a disaster area. There was the smell of mildew everywhere. Tiny bottles of Johnnie Walker from the minibar littered the bedside table and dresser. There was black mold dripping from the air conditioner vents. The “sanitized for your protection” ring was gone from the toilet. Ann started crying, Robert kept crying, we all crawled into one unmade bed where perhaps a dead man had just slept. It was the longest two minutes of my life. That’s when I decided to leave Ann and Robert crying in the room and go downstairs to look at the casino.
Here’s the story I got. Merv Griffin’s Resort Casino Hotel had fallen into bankruptcy six months earlier, which is why the hotel had gotten so nasty and also why the film company got such a great deal housing the entire production there. Gérard and Katie stayed in Thailandlike tranquility at the exclusive Ocean Club Hotel down the road.
The Dangerous Animals Club Page 27