Tiffani was daddy’s little girl, just on the periphery of blooming into full-blown womanhood, and her family, who were all sweethearts, were no match for her party-girl ways. It’s hard enough for any parent to rein in their teenage daughter or have any influence on her personal decisions. It’s damn near impossible when that teenage girl makes fists full of her own money, can buy whatever she wants, has a red carpet rolled out in front of her wherever she goes, flies and stays everywhere first class, and enters every room to a delirious chorus of “I love you.”
A.C. MAKES THE LADIES SCREAM
For television hunks, the lucky ones shuttle around from gig to gig for decades. Remember those “Milk, It Does a Body Good” commercials? In one of them, there’s a little Latino kid who looks into the camera and says, “Hey, Mr. Moo, whadya say?” He tosses a basketball over his shoulder, and it swishes through the hoop. “Fresh moo juice makes my day.” That’s Mario Lopez.
The first time I met my new cast mates for SBTB was when we were all ushered into a small, bare, windowless room at NBC Studios containing a single table. Mark-Paul, Lark, Dennis, and I sat on one side, and Tiffani, Elizabeth, and Mario sat on the other. It was a typical, first-day-of-school kind of moment for all of us. Sort of a non moment, actually, though I do recall staring in rapt wonderment at the permed mullet of the swarthy Latino in the neon, sleeveless tank.
Mario was a man-whore. I mean, so was I eventually, hell, so are most guys at some point in their lives if they can get away with it. But Mario’s vain sexcapades during his years on SBTB culminated in a weird, twisted scandal that ended with a team of NBC attorneys quietly paying off one of his numerous sexual conquests.
Mario was a womanizer from day one. He made it blatantly obvious that he was on an eternal quest for fresh tang. He got a lot of mileage out of those dimples and that winning smile. Even before he would go out in front of the audience for opening bows—for all the underage girls to scream and cheer for him (which sounds pretty amazing, but don’t forget, this was concurrent with New Kids on the Block, so really, what the fuck do little girls know, anyway?)—Mario would be on the floor backstage doing pushups to juice his arms and pecs, summoning a patina of perspiration to accentuate his chiseled physique beneath those big, 20K studio lights. Dude? Dude? Do my arms look bigger? Yes, Mario was that guy. The funniest part about that is that Mario started working out waaay too early in life—when he was twelve. So, as he aged, he developed these weird, saggy, old man boobs that looked like Ziploc bags half-filled with water. It started in the area beneath his pecs, like the muscle was starting to tear free. I don’t know how exactly to describe it. I would glance over while we changed between scenes and say, “You getting a little boobage there, buddy?” That pissed him off. He was clearly aware and self-conscious about it. He said, “Leave me alone, man.” I don’t know if he had plastic surgery for it but I do recall him going away for a while, and when he returned, his man boob conundrum had improved dramatically.
Other than a fierce interest in the ladies, about the only thing Mario and I had in common was a head of thick, curly hair. There’s not much you can do with curly hair. For each of the original cast members on SBTB, their hair on the set wasn’t much different from the way they wore it in real life. Everybody looks back at previous hair styles (the 1980s, for instance), and we say to ourselves, “God Almighty, what was I thinking?” My hair today is shorter, but relatively the same as it always was. I also have facial hair today, and always wanted to grow it years ago, but that was a major no-no while playing Screech. (Too bad we never did an episode where Screech holes up in a cabin deep in the woods, writing his manifesto.) I did let my beard grow during our off-weeks and hiatuses, but would promptly shave it before arriving back on set. The girls wore their hair in bangs, except for Elizabeth, who couldn’t really pull it off (once again, that unruly challenge of naturally curly hair). Well, maybe not bangs in her hair, but later, when Showgirls was released, we learned she could certainly pull off the bang lifestyle—on screen, at least. But nobody’s hairstyles went through more changes than those of the phony, pretentious Hollywood-douche-squad duo of Mark-Paul and, in particular, Mario.
Mark-Paul sported that golden, feathered mop jutting out like the deck of an aircraft carrier. But Mario, he took first prize with that Menudo-inspired permed mullet. I should thank Mario for allowing me to experience such enjoyment: viewing that hairstyle every day provided me with greatly satisfying laughter for many years. I kind of hope that Mario loses his hair up top but grows it out long again in the back as he ages. A skullet would be the only way he could top his SBTB hairstyle.
Despite his unfortunate styling, Mario was a bully. On the other hand, his parents were the salt of the earth—truly cool, sweet people. He grew up in Chula Vista near San Diego, where there was a lot of gang activity in the neighborhoods near his home. Some of his buddies from those neighborhoods were bangers, and when we would appear at events in Oceanside or on the outskirts of San Diego, friends of Mario’s would show up, and he would get plenty brave in numbers. Mind you, Mario was a state wrestling champion, so he was comfortable getting in some dude’s face if the dude mouthed off at him—or even if he hadn’t. Mario did enjoy making his snide comments, and if you objected, he got right up in your face. What? What’d you say? Say it again, I dare you. That sort of shit. The writers even started working some of that real-life aggression into episodes of SBTB. Better to go with the flow of a hard-charging river than try swimming against the current, I guess.
All Mario’s aggression and anger issues made me think, “Man, you’re a TV star, you can’t be going around getting into fist fights. One of these days you’re gonna get jammed up. You’re gonna lose your cool and punch some dude who was mouthing off, pushing you over the line, just so he could sue the shit out of you.” Or, I thought, Mario might punch the wrong dude, get his ass handed to him, and lose his cushy TV job as a result. I think St. Peter would have frowned upon Slater missing all his front teeth. Hell, this was L.A.; he could even have wound up stabbed fifty times in an alley or shot in the face on the freeway. But Mario was always confident that there was no trouble too big for him to handle. He was sure he could manage anything that came his way. Until, of course, he was accused of rape.
Mario used to hit on every co-star, every extra, every production assistant, and every fan he found himself standing next to. It was a game of averages, but the truth is that most of these girls were so dumb they would hook up with him without much effort on his part. Mostly this was because they were expecting to get somewhere in their “acting” careers, but that was a very silly notion indeed. You could always tell when Mario had finally banged the chick he was after because it was like flipping a switch. He wouldn’t have anything else to do with her. Just like on TV when the girl finally gives in, allowing the school stud to deflower her, only to have him stroll right past her in the hall the next day while she stands at her locker, humiliated.
We had a lot of guest stars over the years that went on to bigger work. Hot chicks like model Kathy Ireland (who, after she was cast as a nurse, didn’t work out at the Monday table read, so the producers replaced her the next day) and Bridgette Wilson, who played Ginger for five episodes in the original SBTB’s senior-year season then went on to star in Last Action Hero, Billy Madison, Mortal Kombat, and many other feature films before settling down with tennis legend Pete Sampras. Mario usually took a run at all these-type chicks, and often he succeeded.
Denise Richards, of Bond-girl and Charlie Sheen ex-wife fame, appeared in one of the beach episodes where A.C. Slater saves her from drowning. Mario’s lip-locking resuscitation technique also extended back to his trailer after taping. Just another notch on Mario’s bedpost. These girls kept cycling through Mario’s revolving dressing room door, and after a while you just had to feel bad for them. Another one lured in by Mario? How can they not see through his cheesy game?
In his heyday, Mario even had the balls to bang one of the fe
male executives from Rysher Entertainment, the company that distributed SBTB in syndication. She used to show up at the set all smiles and touchy-feely. Obviously their relationship was supposed to be a secret, but we always knew who was banging whom. That bootie call was an angle Mario worked for a long time, weaseling his way into solo invites to all kinds of cool events through the distributor. In 1994, I think Mario landed the role as host of the Family Channel’s Masters of the Maze as a direct result of his relationship with that Rysher exec. Sometimes that’s just how Hollywood works: you calculate who you can schmooze in bed to get your next job. People will refuse to admit it, they’ll deny it up and down, but that’s the way it works. It’s the underbelly of the industry. It often comes down to, not how talented you are or even who you know, but who you bone. Sex greases the machine. Tiffani starts to date Brian Austin Green, and BAM! … she’s on 90210. (And she didn’t get the TV show Fast Lane for her awesome acting ability, either.) It’s especially difficult for the girls (or easy, depending on your perspective). As the story goes, as soon as Marilyn Monroe inked her first big studio contract, she turned and announced, “Well, I’ll never have to suck another cock again!”
Learning from Mario the Master, this Machiavellian approach to the business bang later took root in my own sex-addled brain during The College Years, when I started hooking up with a girl in our production office at Sunset-Gower Studios. She handled the checks for all the talent and staff, so I was able to learn what everyone else was making for salary. Very interesting.
But if you’re playing a game of averages, it’s just a matter of time before you get burned. For Mario, that day arrived in the form of a girl who claimed she was lured back to his pad, which was not really his pad but a guest house in the yard behind his parents’ house, and was forced to have sex against her will. She claimed she screamed no, and Mario wouldn’t stop. She claimed she had the marks and bruises to prove her allegations. She also claimed she’d had a vaginal clock exam administered. That’s a test that measures whether or not vaginal muscles have been forcibly damaged by penetration. The name derives from the clinical stance that mild bruising at the ten o’clock and two o’clock positions tends to indicate consensual sex, while bruising at the seven o’clock and five o’clock positions is more consistent with rape. No bones about it, the tune she was singing was full-on, “Mario raped me.”
Everyone was shocked that Mario had been accused of such behavior. I was like, “Huh? Excuse me, this dude is the ultimate poon hound.” Mario often made it known through his physical intimidation that he was ultimately going to get what he wanted. He didn’t take no for an answer. Had no one been paying any attention to how he was spending his leisure hours?
Like an army of red ants, NBC’s lawyers materialized out of every corner and crevice. NBC quickly decided it had to protect its interest, which was Mario. The image NBC wanted portrayed was one of glitz and glamour, and this bit of squalid behavior definitely did not fit with that. So when the girl threatened to file formal charges and go to the press, the lawyers at NBC decided to settle with her fast, in cash and out of court. Essentially, they paid her off to keep her mouth shut. And my understanding is that it wasn’t a boatload of cash, either: somewhere in the neighborhood of fifty grand. Not a very big payday for such strong allegations against a famous television star. But at least one person was very happy. That stiff, westerly breeze you may have felt in the early ’90s was most likely Mario Lopez’s giant sigh of relief.
So the matter was hushed up successfully and completely. Even in 2002, when the E! Entertainment Network’s E! True Hollywood Story episode on SBTB came out, they never mentioned Mario’s rape accuser or the cash payoff that kept her quiet.
THE SHOWGIRL
Elizabeth Berkley played the gawky, nerdy chick Jessie Spano, and today she’s most remembered for two things: (a) going from SBTB to showing her tits in Showgirls and (b) her landmark acting performance in the episode “Jessie’s Song.”
That episode was another example of SBTB taking on the hardhitting issues of the day. In that case, it was the rampant epidemic of teen addiction to caffeine pills. Remember the congressional hearings back in 1990? I sure do. The episode resulted in the most quoted line in SBTB history, delivered by a twitching Elizabeth Berkley: “I’m so excited, I’m so excited … I’m so scared.” How ridiculous was that scene? I was on set saying, “Okay, lemme get this straight … she’s had the equivalent of three Mountain Dews, and we’re carting her off to the Betty Ford Clinic?” I may have been laughing, but Elizabeth, and everyone else on set, was deadly serious.
Elizabeth Berkley’s performance in that caffeine-addiction episode is completely without irony or insincerity. She did not secretly believe that the plot or the dialogue she had to deliver was corny or unrealistic. She truly put her all into the severity and gravitas of that moment when Zack held, then shook her, on her aggressively pink bedroom set. It was Elizabeth’s full-court press for a daytime Emmy nomination. The firm consensus afterward was that she had nailed it and that she was a fine actress indeed.
Am I shitting you? My friend, I shit you not.
Acting aside, Elizabeth, like everyone else, was extremely sweet in the beginning, but the Hollywood bug soon bit her, too. That’s not to say we didn’t have our share of fun times together. Like the time I showed her my humongous dong.
Mark-Paul, Mario, Elizabeth, and I were hanging out on-set one day, joking around with each other. The guys were saying things to Elizabeth like, “You couldn’t handle my junk, it’s in 3-D” and “One day they’ll build statues honoring our man bags.” Stupid teen stuff like that. Elizabeth laughed it off and made a dismissive comment, something like, “Well, I’ll be holding auditions later. Just forward me your ‘head’ shots and resumes.” That was all Mark-Paul needed to hear. He promised her we’d take pictures of our tackle and deliver them to her by the end of the business day. She laughed us off, assuming we were full of shit.
The three of us huddled up and decided to each take a Polaroid of our dick and slide it under Elizabeth’s door. We convulsed in hysterics, convinced this was the greatest plan ever hatched. Mark-Paul snatched a camera, and we handed it off to one another, retreating to our private, yet well-lit, areas to snap a shot of our one-eyed goblins. Then, one-by-one, we slid our photos under Elizabeth’s dressing room door. Except that, afterward, Mark-Paul and Mario informed me that they were just fucking with me. They didn’t actually do it. Holy Fuck!
Imagine reconstructing poor Elizabeth’s thought process when it began to dawn on her that little (well, as it turns out, not-so-little) Dustin Diamond—Screech—had slid a Polaroid of his angry flesh baton under her door for no apparent reason. How’s that for a calling card? Um, Elizabeth, will you be my Valentine?
Elizabeth (eventually) threw away the photo, strategically tossing it on top of the garbage in the trash bin of the communal rest room. It wasn’t long before everyone backstage had gotten a good look at Dustin Jr. Afterward, Mark-Paul and Mario—through tears of laughter—were happy to fill in the details for anyone who would listen. Around the set, it became a big running joke. I guess if I’d been a smaller man I would have been mortified. But I felt comforted that Elizabeth spent those crucial first moments puzzling over why she was staring at a photo of a naked man with three legs.
I found out later from a girl I knew that, while she was on an audition with Elizabeth, she had recounted that whole penis Polaroid episode in veiny detail. In fact, I learned from various sources that it was a story she enjoyed telling her girl friends. Glad to make such a big impression.
Showgirls was released in 1995. We all went to see it and were eager to support Elizabeth, but there was no getting around the fact the film sucked. After its immediate thrashing by the critics, no one had the heart to point out that people were only paying to see the tits and crotch of that tall, “feminist” chick from SBTB. Including us. To put this in its proper generational context, if today the Olsen twins were to
pose together nude in Playboy, it would be the best selling issue ever. I kid you not.
Weirdly, Striptease, starring Demi Moore, was released the following year and was almost as—perhaps even more—horrific. How could Hollywood spend a combined $100 million on two films packed with beautiful naked chicks and turn them into turkeys? If Showgirls was Elizabeth’s Armageddon, then Striptease was Demi’s Deep Impact. Same shit, different actress.
But us guys on the cast saw the girls naked all the time—it was the theater. Technically, we weren’t supposed to be able to see anything, and the girls and everyone in wardrobe tried their darnedest to hide them from us, but when you’re walking backstage between scenes, and the girls are doing quick changes, you can only do your best to respect their privacy. But sometimes your best just isn’t good enough. There was a black curtain to shield quick costume changes, but after years of constant familiarity with the same people, such Puritan decorum eventually breaks down. So no, for me it wasn’t that big a deal; Showgirls was not the first time I’d seen Elizabeth naked. For the crew, network suits and staff though—especially St. Peter—I’m sure it was a much different viewing experience. For her part, Elizabeth became much more comfortable with her body after Showgirls. She talked about having to be naked in front of dozens of people all day on the set of the film. She definitely never tried to hide her figure on the set or behind the scenes of SBTB after her first big movie-making experience. She wasn’t walking around with her tits hanging out, but her demeanor and her attire had definitely changed. She had become a woman.
Dustin Diamond Page 4