I Only Know Who I Am When I Am Somebody Else

by Danny Aiello

  Denzel was interviewed after the show and asked if he had thought beforehand that he was going to win. “I thought Danny Aiello would win,” he told the reporter.

  I thought Danny Aiello would win. Strange as it seems, that statement by Denzel made my entire Oscar experience worthwhile. Denzel thought I was a winner! Me, a winner!

  While Sandy and I were leaving the theater, reporters stopped me, too, and asked how it felt to lose.

  “What do you mean, ‘lose’?” I asked them right back. I had worked out the math in my head. “This is the sixty-second annual Academy Awards. Five actors get nominated in this category, every year for sixty-two years. That’s three hundred ten actors in total, pal. And I was one of the three hundred ten! Would you call that being a loser? I wouldn’t.”

  The big winner that night was my wife, Sandy. All her friends back in New Jersey watched her on television, being interviewed and looking beautiful. I went home thinking the same thing I did when Sandy and I first learned that I had been nominated for an Academy Award.

  Wouldn’t it be great if our mothers had been here to see us?

  Chapter Nineteen

  The Shutout

  Everyone’s star rises after an Oscar nomination. I was the same actor before I got nominated for Do the Right Thing as I was afterward. But somehow people who had never given me a second thought were now scrambling to get my agent on the phone.

  I had a lot more respect for foreign directors, who always seemed to value me for what I really was instead of what some critic or awards committee said I was. A case in point was Lasse Hallström. Working with him on Once Around proved to be a learning experience, and a very good one.

  In the course of the film, he gave me the opportunity to sing three songs, “Fly Me to the Moon,” “The Glory of Love”—both of which made it onto the movie’s soundtrack album—and “Mama.” What was strange was that Lasse never told me before hand that I would sing in the movie or even asked me if I could carry a tune.

  Lasse was an extremely charming and intelligent guy. Like all the European directors whom I have worked with, he was very good behind the camera. In his movie I play Joe Bella, the father in a family that includes daughter Renata Bella, played by Holly Hunter. Richard Dreyfuss is Renata’s new boyfriend, the fast-talking salesman Sam Sharpe, a character who at times could be a gigantic pain in the ass.

  In one scene, Sam’s limo driver sleeps on a small couch in the hallway outside of Renata’s room. It’s the middle of the night. Renata and Sam Sharpe are making a lot of noise downstairs. Gena Rowlands plays my wife, and she and I are in our bedroom, listening to our daughter frolic with a man we barely know.

  Now, if the same situation were happening in the Aiello household, I would react by throwing the guy out on his ass. Getting mad and losing my temper was my initial interpretation of the scene as an actor. Lasse and I had a powwow. We spoke for a few moments about what was going on in this scene and my reaction to it.

  “Maybe you don’t be so angry,” Lasse suggested. “Maybe you’re not reacting the way you usually do.”

  Never let it be said I can’t take direction. Lasse softened my approach. He gave me a whole new handle on the scene.

  In character as Joe Bella, I announce that I’m going to put a stop to whatever is going on between Sam and Renata. My wife tells me not to go. I go anyway, finding the noisy couple fully clothed, hugging and kissing and being very playful with each other.

  “Your mother can’t sleep,” I say. “For chrissakes, it’s three o’clock in the morning.”

  The manner in which I pronounce those lines is miles away from anything Danny Aiello would have said. Then I added an action to help shine a light on Joe Bella’s personality. After I wish the couple good night and head back to my own room, I see the limousine driver sleeping on the couch in the hallway. I get a blanket and cover him.

  That one bit of business—seeing to the comfort of the chauffeur—served as a small character note that told the audience what kind of guy Joe Bella really was. The scene would’ve been quite different if I played it the way I would have in real life. Lasse is Swedish, and maybe that’s how they react in Sweden if a daughter is having a hell of a time at three a.m. with a guy the parents have never met.

  The studio made an Oscar push for Once Around, initiated by producer and leading man Richard Dreyfuss. Ads were placed in the Hollywood Reporter and Variety, asking for Academy Award consideration. Two of the categories listed were best actor and best supporting actor. Much to my surprise there was a campaign for me, not Richard Dreyfuss, who had done a superb job as Sam Sharpe and who I felt was more deserving.

  * * *

  The greatest disappointment in my acting career was never being cast in a Martin Scorsese film. As a director, he was making great movies about people I knew well, people I had grown up with. We share a lot of the same background. I’m a New York City guy and so is he.

  At a press conference for one of my movies, a reporter asked why I never worked with Scorsese.

  “Maybe you should ask him,” I said.

  “I did,” the reporter responded. “He told me you weren’t right for what he was doing.”

  “Are you kidding? I’m the only Italian in America who hasn’t been in any of his movies,” I said, making a joke out of it.

  The single interview I had with Scorsese regarded the nonspeaking part in Raging Bull. Robert De Niro set up that meeting because of my early involvement in the development of that film. I found the role Scorsese put forward to be unacceptable. I’ve always felt he made me an offer that he knew I would refuse. It was the closest I came to working with him.

  During the early years of my film career, agents submitted my name to Scorsese for roles in movie after movie, but we never received a response. We kept trying because the projects he was mounting were just too enticing to pass up: Taxi Driver; New York, New York; The King of Comedy; After Hours; Goodfellas; and Casino, to list just a few. It is hard for me to believe I was not right for any of these films.

  Why had Scorsese not seen fit to work with me? Was it because he thought I was a terrible actor? Maybe it was something I had done or something I said over the years. In press stories, journalists have written about my street past, the fighting, the stealing, the rough-and-tumble neighborhoods in which I grew up, my hatred for drug use.

  Maybe Marty thought I was a potentially violent person. I’m sure I’ve lost many parts as a result of my own actions, and I have to live with that. But I don’t have to forgive the man for not giving me the chance to excel in his films.

  During Scorsese’s most prolific period in the eighties and nineties, I was white-hot on Broadway and in Hollywood, working with some of the greatest American and foreign directors.

  I had my name on the marquee for such plays as Knockout, The Floating Light Bulb, House of Blue Leaves, and Hurlyburly. I appeared in Fort Apache, the Bronx; Once Upon a Time in America; The Purple Rose of Cairo; Do the Right Thing; Harlem Nights—as with Marty’s list, I’m mentioning just a few. And I had been well honored for my work, receiving an Obie, a Theatre World Award, multiple Emmys, and an Oscar nomination, again, to name only a few.

  If Scorsese didn’t cast me because he thought I was a terrible actor, I have to be the most successful one who has ever lived.

  There’s a kicker to all this. In the spring of 1991, the year after my Do the Right Thing nomination, I was invited to be part of the ceremonies at the sixty-third Academy Awards. I stepped out onto the stage of the Shrine Civic Auditorium in Los Angeles to introduce a clip of one of that year’s best-picture nominees, Goodfellas, yet another Martin Scorsese film this Italian-American wasn’t in.

  * * *

  As I’ve said, foreign directors always seemed to “get” my approach to acting more than some of their American counterparts. Beginning with the British director Mike Newell and 1983’s Blood Feud and continuing through Italy’s Sergio Leone and Once Upon a Time in America, France’s Élie Ch
ouraqui and 1987’s Man on Fire, and Spain’s Fernando Trueba and 1995’s Two Much, I did a string of projects with directors who had been nominated for and/or won Oscars, Césars, BAFTAs, or Golden Bears.

  I worked with the English director Adrian Lyne on the supernatural thriller Jacob’s Ladder, a film that starred Tim Robbins and has gone on to achieve a sort of cult status among fans. When I made the movie with him, the Englishman Lyne was coming off three huge hits, Flashdance, 91/2 Weeks, and Fatal Attraction.

  Filmmaking with Lyne (whose last name is pronounced in the British manner, like the word “line”) was quite an experience. He is unique in film, almost a hippie type, and was very much into the post-Vietnam theme of Jacob’s Ladder. His wife, Samantha, was a sweetheart. I recall her hair being dyed a shade of purple. She gave off the same hippie vibe as her husband.

  But the couple’s outer appearance shouldn’t fool anyone. They were two perfectly normal human beings, very much in love with each other. They didn’t have to display their affection for everyone on set to know the depth of their relationship. We just knew from the way they treated each other.

  Screenwriter Bruce Joel Rubin, who had written the blockbuster Ghost, created a whole hellish world in Jacob’s Ladder. The result had to be one of the spookiest films I have ever seen. The critics were blown away by the movie and by Adrian’s directing. He was a specialist in the macabre, and paired with Rubin, he had created a strange afterlife world of dark, depressing effects.

  Just about every character in Jacob’s Ladder turns out to be a demonic creature, with one notable exception. That would be yours truly, playing Louis the chiropractor. I had never been to a chiropractor. I didn’t know what their procedures entailed. An hour before we were to begin shooting the scene where I adjust Tim Robbins’s back, Adrian introduced me to a chiropractor consultant he had brought in to teach me the tricks of the trade.

  Needless to say, I was a rookie spine manipulator. It’s not as easy as it looks. I was trying to do multiple things at once. Try tapping your head with your right hand while creating little circles on your stomach with your left hand, all the time quoting Nietzsche, and you’ll get some idea of the kind of physical juggling act that’s involved. Not a very easy task.

  Tim Robbins somehow survived my bending and stretching him. Of all the scenes that I had in the film, this was my favorite.

  After the movie came out in theaters, chiropractors started coming up to me on the street. They’d tell me how much I advanced the profession as a result of my bedside manner and my “knowing how to manipulate the spine.” One of them told me I was an answer on a multiple-choice quiz for a test in chiropractic school.

  My son Danny III doubled Tim Robbins in the action scenes (though not on Louis’s spine-manipulating table!). The whole experience of Jacob’s Ladder was a complete joy. My only regret is that so far I have never had the opportunity to work with this great, quirky director again.

  * * *

  It may sound as if I am always working, but the truth is I normally have plenty of time to hang out. New York is the greatest hangout city in the world. Being in a busy restaurant with friends, with the noise of their conversation and laughter ringing in my ears, that’s what public life is for me. There’s creativity, possibilities, energy to plug into.

  It’s not as though I glad-hand my way through these places. Far from it. I hang out not to be seen but to see. When I walk into a crowded room at a party, I generally head for the nearest empty corner and take a seat there. At a restaurant I will never approach another table. If someone approaches mine and speaks to me, I’ll respond. I enjoy being with a few friends, listening and observing the scene going on around me but not necessarily participating in any of it.

  While working on the Broadway stage, I frequented a lot of popular Theater District restaurants, Charley’s on West Forty-Fifth Street, Joe Allen’s on West Forty-Sixth Street, Jimmy Ray’s on Eighth Avenue and Forty-Sixth, Sardi’s on West Forty-Fourth Street. Because I had shows to perform, I went to these joints mainly to eat.

  Charley’s was one of my favorites. I still dream about London broil with brown sauce and mashed potatoes, sort of a throwback to my youth, when I ate mashed potatoes and brown gravy every afternoon at Jack’s Restaurant in the Bronx. Only now I could afford the steak to go along with it. The waiters and waitresses at Charley’s were some of the most talented people I have ever met. The joint has an old-fashioned jukebox, and the servers break out in song and perform dances at the drop of a hat. You might see a few of the same faces the next year in a Broadway chorus line.

  I always loved Sardi’s. Like his father, the original owner of Sardi’s, Vincent Sardi Jr. knew how to treat his clientele. He was especially kind to out-of-work actors. He created what was well-known as an actor’s menu, for those performers who might be “between jobs,” as they say, and unable to pay the regular menu price. Vincent might run a tab, too, to be paid when the down-and-outers got back on their feet. If that never happened, he would tear up the tab. That was Mr. Sardi, who was loved by everyone who had the pleasure of meeting him.

  To this day I hit Sardi’s as often as I can. Once in a while I might check to see if my caricature is still hanging on the wall. It was first placed there after my run in Lamppost Reunion. The restaurant continues to be run in the same gracious manner as it was back when I first started my stage career.

  The man responsible for that continuity is Max Klimavicius, a young dynamo of Lithuanian heritage who was actually born in Colombia. Max had a minor job at the restaurant when he started, but Vincent Sardi recognized his dedication to the business. He became one of the owners and a trusted friend of mine and of every other actor who came in contact with him. Incidentally, I love the food at Sardi’s, a fact that sometimes gets lost in all the showbiz publicity about the place.

  Jimmy Ray’s was also a Theater District place that served good food, but it was mostly a watering hole for actors. Being that I don’t drink, I wasn’t there often, but just about every other actor I knew was. During my Lamppost Reunion days, we used Jimmy Ray’s as an informal rehearsal space for a few days, just before we went to Broadway with the play.

  Like Sardi’s and Jimmy Ray’s, Joe Allen’s restaurant was always filled with theater people, from producers to stagehands, choreographers, dancers, set decorators, writers, and everyone else connected to Broadway. The food was good at Joe Allen’s and the ambience perfect if I ever wanted to decompress after a show. This was often a very real need, because I usually had a hyper feeling after coming off a performance. A good dinner helped calm me down.

  Another place I hit every once in a while was very familiar to me: the Improvisation. When I left the club after becoming an actor, I continued to stop by to see Budd, as well as catch up with all the regulars who helped me along the way with friendship or career advice.

  During my days as an Improv bouncer, when celebrities came in, Budd used to announce their presence from the stage. I always wondered how that felt. Now I would be the one sitting there, eating at a table at the club and hearing my own name being announced.

  “The only actor who began his career while working at the Improvisation—Danny Aiello!”

  The restaurants I came to frequent were different kinds of places, more in the nature of hangouts than the Theater District joints.

  From the late seventies through the eighties and into the nineties, there were a couple West Side restaurants actors frequented. One was Café Central on Amsterdam Avenue in the West Seventies, which later moved to Columbus Avenue, in the same neighborhood under the same ownership. The second was the king of the hill and top of the heap for quite some time, Columbus Café on Sixty-Ninth Street and Columbus Avenue. We dropped the word “café” and simply called it “Columbus.” Some notable actors had small ownership stakes in the place, which was run by Paul Herman and his brother Charlie. Paul knew everyone and understood everything that was going on in New York. Anything you wanted to know, he could help y
ou with.

  We hung out at Columbus day and night. It was the place to be. At any given time the biggest celebrities in the world might be there. The drug scene was raging in every other restaurant in the city, but somehow it seemed to have bypassed Columbus Café. Maybe that’s because detectives and federal agents frequented the joint. Or maybe the actors were too busy eyeing the ballet dancers who flocked there. The dancers didn’t come only because Columbus Café was right across the street from Lincoln Center, but also because Misha Baryshnikov owned a percentage of the restaurant.

  Taken as a whole, the clientele at Columbus was an odd, world-class mix. Opposites attracted. Gangsters were busy trying to rub shoulders with actors. FBI agents and DEA agents were busy watching the gangsters. Chuck Rose, a federal prosecutor friend of mine, once let me in on a little secret.

  “I’m probably not the only guy in here carrying a gun tonight,” he said. I laughed, but I don’t think he meant it as a joke.

  Warren Beatty, Jack Nicholson, and I were sitting at a table at Columbus having dinner one night when a note was delivered to me by a waitress.

  “This came from over at the bar,” the waitress said.

  The note read: “Danny, I can’t take my eyes off of you! Can we meet later?” I eyeballed the lineup of incredible beauties at the bar, models and ballerinas and actresses, each one more gorgeous than the next. Here I was, sitting with two of the top swordsmen in the world, and the flirtatious message had come not to Jack, not to Warren, but to me!

  I read the note out loud. Beatty and Nicholson started laughing their asses off. I immediately guessed the truth.

  “Which one of you guys wrote this?” I asked, starting to laugh myself. Warren finally admitted it.