Revenge of the Nerd

by Curtis Armstrong

  “Oh, Beatles, Nilsson, Stones, Creedence—”

  He cut me off with a sneer. “Oh, yeah, I forgot. You’re twenty-eight.”

  I wound up in the bar later with Rebecca, who told me she was giving Tom a bottle of perfume for his birthday.

  “Perfume?”

  “Well, you know,” she said, “we’re going to be spending a lot of time together. I want him to smell nice.”

  “Ah,” I said. “A present for you, then.”

  Finally, on July 7, the five of us sat around the poker table as the cameras rolled on Risky Business for the first time.

  It was rugged going at first … the first try was a master shot which felt terrible to me and Tom, I know, felt the same way. We then shot it a few other ways but the actors didn’t click until the three-shot (Tom, Bronson and me). Everything came together then and it stayed cooking for the rest of the afternoon.

  All told, each of us smoked ten cheap cigars apiece. Before lunch, mind you. We were nauseous through a good portion of the day. But Paul and Jon were happy. And believe it or not, by the end of the day, I was feeling pretty good, too.

  Six and a half hours later, we shot the brief scene where Joel sends Miles and Glenn away because Lana won’t leave his house. And, as we were ahead of schedule, we shot another scene, just with Joel … But we’re over the hump. My first day in front of a camera is over.

  I don’t think we got ahead of schedule again after that. If I had any real concerns about my performance thereafter, though, they weren’t reflected in the journal. Rebecca, though, was uneasy.

  July 9

  Talked to Rebecca for quite a while in her dressing room today. She seems to value my opinion quite a bit. She’s uneasy about her first day of shooting (yesterday). Paul, it seems, is asking her to deliver her lines at machine-gun speed. Sounds like a terrible idea to me. During our read through the other day, she took her time and was really splendid. She’s not getting that time now and it bothers her. If this is true it doesn’t surprise me.

  She talked with a call girl before she came here. Apparently, this woman talked in real life exactly the way Paul wants her to talk! Not the same thing, I said. Told her there was a difference between real-life speed and theatrical speed. She jumped on that theatrical speed gag. Hope she uses it. She really is perfect in this role if she’s left alone. (Isn’t it wonderful how one day on a movie can turn me into an expert on film acting?) She told me what Paul had told her about me in L.A. “We have this guy for Miles who’s never made a movie before. But I wouldn’t think about not using him because he reads the lines the way I wrote them.”

  Shera Danese, who played Rebecca’s coworker in the film, was a constant source of entertainment during off hours. There were few things I wouldn’t do in those days for a laugh, but Shera was tops when it came to general misbehavior. She and I often led the others into adventures they regretted the next day. She was like a cross between Judy Holliday and someone out of The Sopranos. Most intriguingly, for me, was discovering she was married to the great actor Peter Falk.

  July 17

  Peter Falk came to town today to visit Shera but they’re staying in Chicago. Wise move. He wouldn’t be able to move around here without getting mobbed. Interestingly, Bronson and I were in Chicago today, too, on a secret mission. Love, it seems, has come to Bronson Pinchot. His Dark Lady of the Sonnets is Sarah Partridge, who plays the babysitter that Joel fantasizes about in the film. He has arranged a lunch with her but insists on my accompanying him to fill in any long, awkward pauses during the meal, should any arise.

  So the three of us were sitting in a window at Harry’s Café when who should walk by but Shera and Peter. They didn’t see us, but were obviously looking for a place to eat and wound up walking right into Harry’s. Shera saw us and brought Peter over to introduce him. He was charming but no matter how many times this happens, when I meet someone I really admire I am genuinely speechless …

  At dinner after Peter had gone back to California, I admitted I had been terrified to meet him.

  “Huh?” Shera said, fork arrested halfway to her mouth.

  “Oh, my God, yes! I’ve been a fan my whole life. I mean, the body of work! The ability to be brilliant as a dramatic actor and also have this phenomenal comic talent … I mean, as far as I’m concerned he’s one of the best American actors we’ve got! He’s an inspiration!”

  “Really?” she said, incredulously. “That’s amazing, ’cause to me he’s just a pain in the ass.”

  July 18

  A crisis has arisen. My father called and said he’s coming down in a few days. You realize what this means to the Louis Armstrong Story?! To paraphrase Ray Charles, another legendary black musician I wasn’t related to, I was busted. I have five days to figure out how to get out of this. The problem is my father, normally a good-natured soul, completely disapproves of this little jape so I can expect no help from that quarter. Now what? After several days of quiet, during which time I figured the rumors regarding my being one of Satch’s descendants had died down, I was reminded that these kind of things never go away. Our set photographer, the only black member of the Chicago crew, had come on the set the other day, spotted me, grinned and said, “Heeey, Brother!”

  I did eventually find a moment to explain to Tom and Rebecca. Rebecca was in the lobby when I took her aside.

  “So, you may have heard this rumor that I’m Louis Armstrong’s grandson,” I said.

  The sunglasses came off.

  “Yeah,” she drawled. “I heard that.”

  “Well,” I said, “it’s not true. No relation, really.”

  “Yeah, I thought it was bullshit at first,” she said. “But then I thought, well, your hair is awfully curly…”

  I broke it to Tom around the same time. He just stared at me for a moment and then started giggling uncontrollably.

  July 23

  When I got back to the hotel this evening, I headed for the bar like a stag thirsting for cool waters. Tom, Shera and Rebecca were drinking in the bar. I joined them for three bottles of $100.00 Champagne. Peter Sova joined us and invited everyone up to his room for a party. Peter has been trashing the film in general and Paul Brickman in particular quite a lot, which I’m trying to not let bother me. Tonight, though, he was in fine fettle. A great impromptu Bacchanal, where much ice was thrown and many drinks consumed. Tom and Rebecca necked for hours, it seemed. Shera and I necked, too, but it was for their benefit and they didn’t notice, so we stopped.

  July 30

  A six p.m. call. We drove out to do the “what the fuck?” scene. Tom and I rehearsed it a bit in the afternoon and we were well prepared. The scene was done in three takes; then Tom’s single and then mine. I was less than ecstatic over mine but by then it was about two o’clock in the morning so who knows. Paul and Jon and Tom all seemed happy. Later we did the end of the car chase (“Porsche. There is no substitute.”) My tag line (“Fuck you.”) was put in at the last minute. Hope it’s used. Dawn broke and Tom, Rebecca and I were driven home. Got back at six. The phone rang. Rebecca. We talked for over an hour. Then I had a few restless hours of sleep.

  One of the little mysteries of this diary: after spending twelve hours on the set together, we come back to the hotel, exhausted, and Rebecca calls me up and we talk for an hour. About what? I have no idea. I’m sure at the time I thought I’d remember forever.

  Some few hours later, though, my father arrived. We spent some time out at the pool, swimming, reading and talking. The Louis Armstrong situation was studiously avoided. As we headed back into the lobby on our way back to the room, we ran into Tom and Rebecca.

  “Oh, Tom, Rebecca, this is my father, Bob,” I said, introducing them.

  “Hi,” said Rebecca.

  “Hello, Mr. Armstrong,” said Tom politely, shaking his hand.

  And then my father, straight-faced but in a startlingly effective vocal imitation, roared out, “Hey, Jackson!!! How’s it goin’, Pops?!”

  *
* *

  After a few weeks, I hit a long patch where I wasn’t needed. The days became endless and the nights worse. The exhilaration of working long hours on my first film and being thrown into the rambunctious company of my fellow actors wore off quickly with no one around, and a prolonged front of boredom and loneliness set in with unusual severity. The journal reflects this, with page after page filled with maudlin scrawls of self-pity. Judging from this it’s apparent that there was a good deal of drinking and drug taking going on, and distressingly, more and more of it alone. Cocaine was, of course, easily available and relatively cheap in Chicago and was supplied round the clock, care of some of the borderline hoodlums we found ourselves associating with. I had too much time on my hands and it seemed like I was spending most of it poisoning myself.

  At one point I knew they were shooting the party scene: a huge set piece in the film where the hookers take over Joel’s house. Miles Dalby is the only one of Joel’s friends who doesn’t go, because, as he says, “I don’t have to pay for it.” So everyone on the film was shooting at that location for days at a time without me. I couldn’t stand the loneliness another minute and drove over to the set.

  Anyone who’s seen the film remembers what it was like: apart from Rebecca and Shera, there were about a dozen gorgeous young women and truckloads of teenagers. It was a rich mixture. I’m not sure when the idea occurred to me but at some point I thought the thing to do would be to dress up in drag, get completely made up and costumed, and then sneak onto the set and try to make an appearance in the film as a hooker.

  I went straight to wardrobe and asked if they could help me out. Everyone was running on fumes at that point and this idea struck them as funny as it did me. They started selecting an appropriate hooker outfit while I went into makeup and hair. They went into a kind of gleeful overdrive and within an hour or so I was transformed into a working girl.

  Everyone was on their lunch break, but right after everyone was called to the set by Jerry Grandy, our first assistant director, I sashayed over and slipped unnoticed into the dining room set with the rest of the girls. Jerry was well into placing background for the shot when he got to me.

  “And, ahhh…” He froze for a moment. “You … CURTIS!! Out!! What are you … get out!!”

  The place exploded. Jerry laughed for probably the first time in weeks.

  “Give me a chance,” I said. “C’mon. Put me in deep background. I don’t care! Just give me something to do!” My pleas fell on deaf ears. I was allowed to stay on the set only long enough to pose for a few snaps with the actual actresses and then I was unceremoniously escorted off the set.

  But on my way back to base camp, I got the idea that I should be introduced to Tom. It was not uncommon for him to be introduced to potentially generous young women on the set and I had seen for myself the lines outside his hotel room. Tom was still napping after his lunch, but I had the A.D. knock on the door and when he answered, tousled and still half asleep, the A.D. said in an undertone, “Tom, there’s someone here who’s been begging to be introduced to you. You’re not going to be called for a while, so I thought…”

  Tom brightened right up. It was apparent that as far as cute blondes were concerned, his trailer was Liberty Hall. He gave a sort of an old-world gesture of welcome as I came around the open door and stepped into his trailer. He closed the door and turned to me.

  “I thought you were so hot in Endless Love,” I told him.

  And if you can believe it, he threw me out without a word and went back to sleep. I gave him a golden opportunity and he turned me down flat. Sometimes I think I was the only really great piece of ass who didn’t get to screw Tom that summer.

  August 2

  Today was bad. Very bad. We shot the scene at the Drake Hotel. And I sucked. I just couldn’t get control of myself. My concentration was shot. Tom and I signed autographs for about twenty minutes afterwards and I was propositioned by two women. (The high point of my day.) But for the first time the editor will have to bail me out. What a disappointment.

  August 3

  Shot the scene at the Porsche dealership today. It was fun. I feel a lot better today than I did yesterday. (Producer) Jim O’Fallon was very complimentary about my work today—mine and Bronson’s especially. I felt encouraged. What the hell is going to happen? Jennifer Brickman (director Paul Brickman’s wife) also said I was at the beginning of a brilliant career. Was she just being nice or does she know something I don’t know? Is there anything I do know?

  I know when the director smiles into his shirt, I’m doing all right.

  I know when the producer insults me I’m on the right track.

  I know when I get winks and phone numbers hastily scribbled I’m attractive to a woman or two.

  I know when I talk with my wife late at night that I want a home.

  I know when I talk to old friends that nothing has changed and everything has changed.

  I know smoking and drinking is bad for my health.

  I know I’m guilty.

  I know I get on well with people.

  I know that’s good for me.

  I know I’d rather be in New York.

  I know I could be a movie star.

  I know I write well when I’m drunk.

  I know that’s bad for me and I don’t care.

  And I know knowing that is better than knowing nothing.

  This entry makes me smile. I remember Paul’s habit of pulling up his shirt collar over his mouth when I made him laugh during a scene. But it amazes me how much of this self-indulgent dreck remains essentially true, even thirty years on. When I talk at night to my wife from a location somewhere, I still know I want a home, and this isn’t even the same wife I was talking to in 1982. I’m still guilty.

  There are obvious differences, too: I haven’t smoked in decades. I don’t get drunk anymore. I now know I didn’t really write well when I was drunk. I just thought I did. I know the difference between a successful working actor and a “movie star” and I know I will never be the latter. I know a lot more now than I did then. One I would append to my list above:

  I know being 28 makes me feel really mature. 28 is far from mature.

  August 4

  (Director of photography) Peter Sova quit today. This is hot off the presses. I was over at the production office and Peter took me aside to tell me. I was the first actor to be told. I’m to say nothing to the others because he wants to tell them personally. That’s all for now.

  Except it wasn’t, really. For one thing, he had been fired. I had been aware of the tensions before this. Peter made no bones about the fact that he thought the way Paul wanted the film to look was “ridiculous.” Peter had actually been briefly hospitalized at one point during the shoot. High blood pressure, some said. An ulcer, according to others.

  “You know,” he had told me one day, “it’s a fucking teenage sex comedy. He’s shooting it like it’s an art film. Bullshit.”

  “Good luck,” he told me the day he left. “You’re really good in the film, but he’s going to screw it up. You all deserve better.”

  What we got was Rey Villalobos. Then it turned out he had a scheduling conflict, and he was replaced by Bruce Surtees. So, all told, three D.P.’s on the film. To give an example of how this played out, let’s take the sequence that begins inside the Drake Hotel, continues out on the street with Miles, Joel and Lana and the arrival of Guido and goes all the way through the car chase, ending with “Porsche. There is no substitute.” The Drake interior was shot by Sova. The scene on the street by Villalobos. The chase itself by Villalobos and Surtees on different nights. And the final Porsche exchange by Sova.

  It says something about Paul Brickman’s relentless vision that Risky Business looks as gorgeous—and consistent—as it does. No movie of its type during the 1980s looked anything like it. Unique. Funny, erotic, dramatic, imaginatively scored, well cast and framed and shot beautifully.

  Just like an art film.

  Aug
ust 5

  It’s been a long road. Today it came to me that I have a week or two left here and then I’ll be gone and all of this will be history. Oddly, this depresses me. As miserable as I’ve been—the loneliness, the late night drunks alone, the pressure, the tensions, the politics—I don’t want it to end now.

  Everyone’s been swell. I know I’ve bitched a bit about Tom and all that, but in the long run he was great to work with. I spoke to Avnet about seeing some of the dailies before I leave and to my surprise he’s willing to show them to me now. Not a chance, I told him. When I’m done and there’s nothing for it, fine. Not a second before. What a learning experience.

  And the biggest lesson I’ve learned is I don’t want to make movies for a living—ever.

  We shot the wrestling scene tonight. As at the Drake (which I heard came out well, despite my reservations) some of it was improvised. An interesting side note: As soon as we started rehearsing the scene, Tom became incredibly competitive with me in a way he never has before. And it was because we were doing something physical. He was a wrestler in high school and wanted to look better. Paul had to keep him on a tight rein.

  August 8

  Tom and Rebecca are having it off in a grand style. In my naiveté I thought it wasn’t all that serious, but last night Shera and I interrupted them and threw ice all over the bed.

  We had, the four of us, a party in the bar tonight, during which we danced and stripped. It was the best floorshow in that bar since I’ve been there …

  August 9

  An all-nighter at the Drake. Wound up at dawn with two shots not complete, which means I’ll be here longer than I thought. Tonight we’ll shoot the rest of the interior Porsche scenes during the chase. I hope to God we finish those. Today was also our first day with Rey (Villalobos) behind the camera.

  Everything was very tense but Tom, Joe (Pantoliano), Rebecca and I rose above it. I felt the scene went well.