Easy Street (The Hard Way) A Memoir

by Ron Perlman

  “So, how you doin’?” he asked.

  “I gotta go, Mr. Sinatra,” I told him. “I gotta go.”

  But that wasn’t gonna be the last time I saw Frank. Every year the family and I went back to our apartment in New York City during Christmas and summer breaks. The next year we just packed everybody up and got on a plane. My wife preferred about twelve suitcases, and that’s if you’re gonna stay less than two weeks. There’s fourteen if it’s longer. So I get to my pad in New York. Got the kids, the wife, and a moving van full of suitcases finally up to the door of the apartment, with sweat coming down my forehead, when I hear the phone inside ringing and ringing. So I finally put down my suitcases and say, “Hello!”

  I heard, “Perl, Sam.” Now, I never told Sammy I had a place in New York, much less gave him the phone number to it.

  I said, “Sam! You okay?”

  “I’m a little beat, man,” he said. “I’m gonna take a little nap ’cuz we got a show tonight. By the way, what are you and your bride doing at eight o’clock this evening?”

  “We’re free,” I told him. “Why?”

  “You’re gonna have two tickets waiting for you. Hot seats on the aisle, eight o’clock, Radio City. I’m taking a nap now, so I gotta go.”

  I turned to Opal and said, “Unpack quick and put something nice on. We just got invited to Frank, Dean, and Sam Together Again at Radio City Music Hall by fucking Sammy fuckin’ Davis fuckin’ Jr.” She unpacked and got herself all dolled up. By this time, by the way, Dean had left the tour, so it was Frank, Sammy, and Liza Minnelli. We showed up at Radio City Music Hall and told them my name. We got escorted to the tenth row, right on the aisle, center. The whole first act was Sammy, then the beginning of the second act was Liza, and then the second half of the second act was Frank. And then there was a medley with all three of them. Anyway, Sammy did over an hour. I had already seen him live now, four, five, six times, so I was used to being dazzled. But on this particular night, in New York City, in Radio City Music Hall, in what he probably knew was gonna be the last time the Rat Pack roared, he was magic, and he did like an hour and ten minutes. He was mesmerizing.

  The minute he sang his last note, as the house lights were getting ready to come up and the stage lights were getting ready to go down, this guy put his hand on my shoulder and he said, “Mr. and Mrs. Perlman.”

  “Yes?” I asked.

  He said, “Would you please follow me?” They took us around the back of Radio City, of the theater, and then down the first aisle, all the way down to the stage. We got to the stage, and there’s Jilly Rizzo directing traffic. He said, “Hey, Ronnie! How the fuck are ya? Is this your beautiful wife?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Frank’s waitin’ for ya. Go ahead. Straight to the back of the stage.”

  They escorted us to the back of the stage of Radio City and took us in this tiny little elevator up to the fourth floor, which is where the dressing rooms are, way up in the rafters above the stage. I was in this packed elevator, ’cuz there are all these people, all these special guests who have been invited to go backstage during the intermission. The elevator doors opened, and there was Sinatra in his tuxedo, warming up his voice, pacing like a sixteen-year-old kid giving his first recital. I said, “Hey, Mr. S. How you doin’?”

  “Hey, how you doin’?” he asked.

  I said, “You know, I knew you were gonna say that.”

  Anyway, we got escorted into this room off to the side. It’s obviously where you entertain guests; this is not an actual dressing room. This is an antechamber where guests wait for the stars. There was a table that ran the length of the room on which was about a hundred bottles of Cristal champagne, about thirty bowls of Beluga caviar, and smoked salmon. You name it, every delicacy in the world was on this table. It was gorgeous. In the room, waiting to be greeted by the Rat Pack boys, was Bobby Short, Gloria Vanderbilt, Jackie O.—the whole fuckin’ New York glitterati. It just so happened that this was opening night, and the crème de la crème of New York society was in this room. Opal and I found a spot and sat down kind of just waiting around. Five minutes in, Sammy came out in a robe. He had got a towel around him and was pouring with sweat. He just gave the most incredible performance. His adrenaline was still pumping.

  He started saying hello to everybody, giving hugs and kisses like only Sammy could give. Then he got up to me, and, now, he had never met my Jamaican wife, Opal. He said, “Perl,” and I stand up.

  I gave him a hug and said, “Sam, I don’t think you ever met my wife.”

  He looked at my wife and then said to me, “Hey man, this is your wife? No bullshit?”

  And I said, “This is my wife, man. Mother of my children.”

  He said, “You never told me you had a secret weapon, man.” And then he went off and spent some time with Jackie O. I basically was thinking, I’m definitely not worthy. I’m getting the fuck out. I had a little salmon, a little caviar, some champagne. I hung around a little bit, but I did not want to get in Sammy’s way. Then we went back downstairs and saw Sinatra and Liza, and then the three of them got on stage, and it was just one of the most magical nights ever. And I believe that was the last time I actually saw Sammy, because right after that he got diagnosed with throat cancer. And when news started to spread that it was inoperable, all of Hollywood Royalty came out to put on a beautiful tribute show. By then his voice was gone. And then a few months later he was gone. I went to his funeral and hung out with his wife a bunch of times after that. But before I had a chance to actually know him, he was taken.

  I did, in fact, see Frank Sinatra a bunch of times after that because I got invited to the Frank Sinatra Golf Tournament in Palm Springs for a number of years. Yes, I actually started playing golf. I guess once you start making money, it’s obligatory that you learn to play golf, right? Go figure! But anyway, Frank was already married to Barbara at that point, and she was very philanthropic. So she talked him into having this Frank Sinatra Charity Golf Tournament in Palm Springs. I was at the very first one. Frank was very much alive. It was two days’ worth of golf, and then Saturday night, the night of the second day of golf, they had a huge banquet and show. Opening act: Tom Dreesen. Second opening act: either Tony Bennett or Steve and Eydie, or Liza Minnelli or Natalie Cole, or somebody, and then Frank. And it was all black tie. I went to all of the Frank Sinatra Golf Tournaments I could while he was alive, all the way up until when he died, in 1998. I saw him perform at all of those things. But I used to run into him at the banquet. He always recognized me, actually stopped whatever he was doing, shook my hand, gave me a little pinch on the cheek like from the neighborhood, and always, always, always said, “How you doin’?” But the thing was, he meant it. He really wanted to know. He wasn’t just saying, “How you doin’?”—he really wanted to know. I said, “I’m really good. How you doing?”

  He would say, “You know, I’m the luckiest guy alive. What could be better?” That’s the most I ever got out of Frank.

  Years later, long after he was gone, I saw Frank Jr. at a delicatessen. After he left, the waiter brought a note over to my table that Frank Jr. had written. It was for me, and he told me about every single movie I’d ever been in from the first one all the way to the most current, and what a fan he was of mine. I was a regular at this particular deli, so the next time I was in there and saw Frank I went up to him and said, “By the way, I never got a chance to thank you for that beautiful letter you wrote.” He invited me to sit with him, and we became friends. We exchanged phone numbers and everything like that. And a few years after that, I had a notion to do a movie that was gonna be a homage to Sinatra. But it was going to be a very small, funky kind of quirky tribute to Sinatra, like a road movie about a guy who was bipolar and who had these fantasies that involved Sinatra, and all this shit. I needed the music in order to make the movie all that it needed to be. So I gave Frank Jr. a call. Now, when Frank passed, his estate was divided up between Barbara, Nancy, Tina, and Frank Jr. And he t
houghtfully left each of them exactly what he thought would be most useful so they could carry on without him. What Frank Jr. got was the rights to all the arrangements of all the songs Frank ever sang, knowing that Jr. could carry on the legacy by touring the world with the Frank Sinatra Orchestra. And have a good life. To this day, that is what Frank Jr. does: playing the songs his dad sung, note for note, exactly how they were on the records. So he was the perfect guy to call for what I needed, ’cuz I needed to have, note for note, these iconic arrangements. So I took him to dinner and said to him, “I’m gonna tell you a little story. And when I get finished telling you this story, you’re either going to give me a hug, or you’re going to punch me right in the fucking mouth.”

  “All right, that sounds fair.”

  I said, “Let’s order first, because when I get punched, I like it to be on a full stomach.” So we ordered some food and wine. And before I described the movie to him, I said, “I gotta do this movie because I have to thank the two men who made me everything I am right now. That’s my old man and your old man.”

  He asked, “Well, how does my old man figure into it?”

  So I told him. I told him what his old man meant to me and how he saved my life countless times when I was suicidal in fucking Moscow making a shitty movie. I put Sinatra on, and all of a sudden I was whole again, home again. My old man handed all of that down to me, and although Frank had a lot of devoted fans, none more so than my dad. So I told him my idea for the story. He got up and said, “Stand up. Take it like a man.” Okay, I guess I got this comin’, right? He gave me a hug and said, “I’m in. Whatever you need, you got it. You want every arrangement, you got it. I’m in. I love this.”

  So we sat down and finished our dinner, and he said to me, “Do you know my dad never missed Beauty and the Beast?”

  “What?!” I said.

  “We had strict orders to tape that show wherever he was. And the minute he was free and got home, he watched every single episode. And one day he and I had a long talk about you. I said, ‘You don’t know this guy, he’s not just from the show.’ Then I showed him Quest for Fire, and Name of the Rose, and you became one of his favorite actors.” As he was telling me this, I’m going over this tape in my head: every time Sinatra saw me, when he said, “How you doin’?” he kinda knew who I was, but he never said anything except “How you doin’?” And I didn’t realize it until it was way too late to do anything about it. But if Frank was here now, now that I’ve resolved all of my “I’m not worthy” issues . . . well, coulda, woulda, shoulda. All I’m sayin’ is I wish I had those moments with Frank again so we could really talk! Really hang out together. But hey, I shook the hands of a man who shook the world!

  You would think that I should’ve been booming with confidence when Beast ended after rubbing elbows with such icons and heroes. You’d think all of the circumstances, like the Sinatra thing, would have cured me of whatever it was that ailed me. But I’m here to tell you that it doesn’t come from how you’re doin’ on the outside; it comes when you’re determined to work on yourself, exorcise demons, and really, really get rid of shit. Not just give it lip service, not just read a book and say, “Okay, I’m good now,” not just buy your way into happiness. Money will only take you so far—and it’ll take you pretty fucking far, trust me. It’s pretty important, and I fucking love it. I love making money. But it will only take you so far. And there are certain things you need to do the hard way, from inside out. I mean, you take yourself with you, whatever your circumstance, wherever you go. You can be in a palace or in a shack; you can be handed an award or waitin’ in the cold for an open audition call. But you’ve still got to take yourself with you. It would take some time to figure this out—two and a half years or more of nothing before I even began to see things this way.

  So the show got canceled in January 1990, and my son, Brandon, came in March of 1990. The timing was a little weird, but there was nothing we could really do about sending back the kid. And then there was this big, beautiful expensive house I had just closed on. Hey, I chucked a few Hail Marys into the wind and said if there’s a God in heaven and he means for me to keep all this, then fuck, I’m good! But I’m certainly not pulling out now. This time I’m battle-tested and brimming with self-confidence. I mean, for sure, the fact of being on a prime time show for two and a half years and getting these fuckin’ awards, accolades, magazine covers, and all this incredible love that’s come my way—something hadda give. Am I right?

  I was never more wrong in my fucking life.

  (CHAPTER 16)

  Not So Good . . . Until

  If Frankie woulda asked anytime during the next two years, “How you doin’?” I would’ve said, “Don’t ask.” I mean, yeah, now that I have the luxury of perspective, looking at what represented one of the most painful, confusing times I can remember from thirty thousand feet, when I’m no longer in the middle of it, I see the shape of it. And the rhyme and reason of it. I came to the conclusion that for those who are dreamers and are animated by first having a dream and then putting together a road map to go about achieving at least some version of it to the best degree that they can, there is merit in that, in and of itself. Even though most of the time you fall short of it, every once in a while you exceed it. But very rarely does it come in the form you imagined it. When Beast was canned I did not know that and only hoped more roles would come, and fast.

  But then reality came a-callin’, and once again the phone flat-out didn’t ring, just as it had been at the end of all the other great gigs I had completed. After a couple of months I saw that the Beast was yet another one-off, so unique in his very nature that the role turned out to be a road map to nothing. No new prime time series that featured a beast was in the works anytime soon. It’s like almost starting out at the beginning again, just like every other time. That’s what it felt like. Even though that was probably an overstatement in the big scheme of things, that’s what it felt like for me.

  Eventually the quietude evolved into a malaise; the energy that had surged through me for the three years of Beast was slowly seeping out of me. All directions seemed to melt together into no direction at all. I didn’t know it at the time, but the symptoms I was feeling were classical in nature, clearly precipitated by events of dramatic proportion. Because at forty years of age the cancellation of Beauty and the Beast coincidentally coincided with the ending of the first half of my life. This was a midlife crisis of a supersized, soul-searching order, made more pronounced by how close I had flown to the sun, because clearly the higher you go, the further you fall.

  So what had been a period of intense displays of highly energized events quickly turned into one of complete inertia, in which stagnation replaced energy. And it wasn’t as if the world around me stopped; this was a self-inflicted self-removal. For even when the phone was ringing, I had no interest in answering it. The fire had gone out. Days on end were spent in pajamas on the couch, listlessly half-watching bad television. My normal range of emotion and mood swing just flat-lined.

  There was a part of me that suspected, even then, that when the wheels come off, it isn’t a random event; it wasn’t a mistake that the axle broke. They were always eventually gonna come off, because what you’re driving is, fundamentally, a lemon. But the unease emanated out of me, way more than it was circumstantial. All this time I had fooled myself into thinking that if I just got successful enough, wealthy enough, respected enough, it would mean that I finally was worthy. I finally was the man I always longed to be. I finally could coast along on Easy Street, where troubles are bubbles and everything ends happily. The hoopla that accompanies the brief moment of career success made me forget what I had already learned: that I never learned a fucking thing while I was succeeding. All of my learning, and I mean all, had come when I was struggling, failing. All of my growth came when things were at their worst. All of the character that I had, if, indeed, I had any at all, came from the really, really challenging times when I was anonymous,
when I couldn’t get arrested, when nothing was going right, when it seemed God had abandoned me. This is a conversation I will get back to later on, but suffice it to say, there was no abandonment on God’s part; in fact, it was just the opposite. He was surrounding me, lovingly seasoning me, showing me that the house that needed to be put in order was my own, that there were to be no easy answers from the outside to make everything inside right with me.

  Despite all of this, there was an unequivocal shining star around which to rally: the birth of my son, Brandon, in March of 1990. I suspected he was the Golden Child the moment I laid eyes on him. Turns out I was right. I have to believe that the circumstances surrounding the birth of both my children were, as difficult as it seemed at the time, surely the result of a greater plan than I could ever have devised. For in both cases, and not because I planned it that way, I was out of work for the first two years of their lives, meaning there was nothing to prevent me from being with them from the first bottle in the morning to their last bedtime story at night, and pretty much everything in between. If you asked me back then would I rather have been working, the answer probably would have been a resounding yes. But as I look back, what a blessing this dad got to have what so many others miss out on—the profound presence in their kids’ lives in their first and most important years. That is palpable and forever. And I would like to believe the uncommon closeness we enjoy to this day has something to do with that. So from where I am currently perched, if that doesn’t seem like part of God’s plan . . . well, I’m just sayin’.