by Alec Baldwin
The scheduling for me to work onstage has been tricky, and I’ve had to pick and choose those engagements carefully. Telling people in film and television that you are either unavailable or unwilling to come at their call is never easy. The guiding principle seemed to be to pick plays and playwrights whose words I would never tire of saying (that means a strong reliance on revivals), and to accept the risk that I might never get it right. Each night that we did Equus, in 2010, my goal was to embrace the nougaty text of Shaffer’s play, line by line, in an effort to understand Dysart, the psychiatrist, and the anesthetization of his own sexuality. I literally never said all of Shaffer’s lines properly. During the Sunday afternoon matinee that was our final performance, I transposed two lines and crashed my final run at a perfect show, in terms of the text. But what a mountain to ski down!
Other choices were made purely based on the hope of having fun. When I performed Twentieth Century with Anne Heche, it was an opportunity to enjoy Hecht and MacArthur’s great comedy, which required as much energy, timing, and focus as anything I’ve ever done. Audiences loved the show. And what a cast. So many great veteran actors, for whom Hecht and MacArthur were a staple, came to see the show and visited backstage afterward to say the kindest things to me. They included Mel Brooks and Anne Bancroft, Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward, and Chris Plummer. When Shirley MacLaine materialized at my dressing room door, my castmate Stephen DeRosa practically hyperventilated.
I’ve always had a special love for Joe Orton’s writing. Ever since I dreamed of filling in for Maxwell Caulfield in the 1981 production of Entertaining Mr. Sloane, I couldn’t wait to get onstage and shake hands with Orton’s brand of anarchic wit. When the chance came to do Sloane at the Laura Pels for the Roundabout, twenty-five years after Max’s run at the Cherry Lane, I was elated. The production had its ups and downs. And judging from the fact that some of my favorite Orton lines elicited a quieter response than I had anticipated, I think the New York audience for this playwright may have waned a bit. But what other playwright has a character, in the course of admonishing a young man to steer clear of his sister, say the line, “Give me your word that you’re not vaginalatrous!”?
I haven’t been onstage as often as I would have liked, but my fondest memories live there. And the importance of the theater and the people I’ve worked with there always seems to lead back to the very beginning, to Tuck and to the cast of The Doctors and what they passed on to me. Learning to act while in the spotlight is difficult. The theater is where you learn. (At times, I tell myself the theater is all one needs to counterbalance a five-year run of a campaign advertising a credit card.) What a gift to work with directors like Max Stafford-Clark (Serious Money), Tony Walton (Equus), Steve Hamilton (Gross Points, All My Sons), Greg Mosher (Streetcar), Walter Bobbie (Twentieth Century), and Scott Ellis (Entertaining Mr. Sloane), and with actors like Michael Wincott, Julie Halston, Jennifer Van Dyke, Laurie Metcalf, and Richard Easton.
In light of some of the highly dubious commercial endeavors I’ve undertaken, either to fund my charitable foundation or keep the lights on or both, I’ve subsequently yearned to embrace projects that, like the theater, are good for the soul. Renewal doesn’t have to mean an escape from the business altogether. It can mean simply trying something different. I’ve sung a duet with Barbra Streisand, hosted a radio podcast, worn a coconut bra playing Luther Billis in a concert performance of South Pacific at Carnegie Hall. I’ve produced webisodes in which I gave romantic advice to strangers in the backseat of a car. I’ve hosted a game show. But the most rewarding of all of those excursions may be my job as the radio announcer for the New York Philharmonic.
In 2009, I attended a concert at Carnegie Hall featuring Christoph Eschenbach and the Philadelphia Orchestra. Seated in the box next to me were Matías Tarnopolsky, the vice president of artistic planning for the New York Philharmonic, and the one and only Zarin Mehta, president and executive director of the Phil, brother of Zubin Mehta, and gentleman without equal. “What are you doing here?” Tarnopolsky blurted out. After I explained that years of being trapped in a car in another life had made me a classical music fan, Matías and Zarin exchanged a look; then Zarin said, “Come see me.” Soon after that, I was hired as the announcer for the New York Philharmonic’s weekly radio broadcast. What a great honor, education, and joy that has been.
In the ’80s, I would drive around LA, listening to KUSC, KFAC, and other, now lost FM classical stations. As I’d approach the gates of Warner or Paramount to head into an appointment, the symphony on my radio was still unfolding. I’d call the stations’ programming directors, whose numbers I kept on speed dial on my Motorola car phone (yes, you’d dial and they would pick up the phone), to find out all of the details of the piece: composer, ensemble, conductor, recording label. Then I’d hustle over to Tower Classical on Sunset and order the discs. There was no ArkivMusic back then, no Amazon, so I would have to drive back to West Hollywood to pick up the order two weeks later. But it was so worthwhile. Before the advent of digital downloads, I collected a lot of music. I concentrated on that battery between conductor and ensemble that produced much of the more acclaimed classical recordings, back when many of the majors were recording more frequently: Charles Dutoit with the Montreal Symphony, Leonard Slatkin with the St. Louis, George Szell with the Cleveland, Georg Solti with the Chicago, Bernstein with the New York Phil, Levine in Boston, Previn in London, Zubin Mehta in Los Angeles, Eschenbach, Barenboim, Gergiev, Dudamel, Tilson Thomas, Maazel, Haitink, Masur, Salonen, Dohnányi, Abbado, Boulez, von Karajan, van Zweden, Boult, Muti.
Classical music renewed me. Like painting and literature, it put me in a grounded place of peace. So much so that if I did it all over again, I’d learn to play the piano and become a conductor. Oh, God, would I ever. Go online and watch Charlie Dutoit conduct. Dutoit, the most elegant of them all. What I wouldn’t give to be him for a year. These men (and a few women, like Marin Alsop) float on a cloud made of God-given genius and intense hard work. In the audience, I have been disappointed countless times at the movies, less often at the theater, but never at the symphony, where the orchestra brings to bear the remarkable talents of men and women who exist in their own aerie atop the performing arts. With all my heart, I urge you to visit the symphony in your town or nearby. Afterward, you just might be renewed.
My taste runs toward the lush, the romantic, the sonorous. I’ve been compiling the list of the recordings I want played at my funeral for some time:
Mahler’s Ninth Symphony, fourth movement, Lorin Maazel conducting the New York Philharmonic.
Chopin’s Nocturne in B-flat Minor, op. 9, no. 1, performed by Yundi Li.
Mahler’s Fourth Symphony, third movement, George Szell conducting the Cleveland Orchestra.
Ravel’s Ma Mère l’Oye (the Mother Goose Suite), Charles Dutoit conducting the Montreal Symphony Orchestra.
Rachmaninov’s Symphony no. 2 in E Minor, third movement, André Previn conducting the London Symphony Orchestra.
Chopin’s Nocturne in D-flat Major, op. 27, no. 2, performed by Lang Lang.
Ralph Vaughan Williams’s Serenade to Music, Sir Adrian Boult conducting the London Philharmonic Orchestra.
Tchaikovsky’s Symphony no. 6 (Pathétique), fourth movement, Valery Gergiev conducting the Orchestra of the Kirov Opera.
I know, I know. It’s a long playlist. But come to my funeral, if only for the music. For those of you who are classical fans, I know I’m laying up on the fairway here, going for par. But, hey, at that point I’ll be dead. Allow me this last indulgence.
* * *
As an actor, you are called upon to make the private public. You’re asked to say lines that express the deepest of feelings and, hopefully, imbue them with a veneer of reality. You’d think it would be easy for someone who does that for a living to express publicly how they feel about someone, but the words that come always feel inadequate. Because you handle words with such facility, manipulate emotions so freely, the real
ity of love becomes complicated. How do you even know when you’re acting?
During the period after my divorce, I only dated people who didn’t ask for much, as I didn’t have much to give. If they wanted the relationship to progress in some way, after a while it sputtered and died. There were a couple of women who saw the worst of me then, as I’d suddenly pull my car over, get out, and scream at my lawyer for fifteen minutes. I was incapable of trusting anyone and therefore also incapable of making any plans. (And who would want to make plans with me during that period?) I was getting older and resigned myself to a life of “compartmentalized intimacy.” I fantasized that I would go about my work, spend whatever time with Ireland I could get, and have a very compartmentalized love life. I joked with my friends about going on an annual “sex cruise,” where I would find someone with a similar desire to indulge herself like a camel consumes water. One long drink that carries you through, for a very long time, till the next opportunity. An honest, basic transaction. The only things missing were risk and any sense of the restless passion that I’d normally equate with love.
One day, at the lowest point of my custody battle, I lay on the floor of my house in a ball, sobbing. The loss and loneliness were simply crushing me. Everything I had done came to nothing. I never gained any ground. I was more like an uncle in the life of my daughter than a father. I swore to Almighty God that if, one day, I had another chance to meet someone and have a family, to make a home that had what was good about my childhood home while fixing what was wrong, I would give anything in return.
I met Hilaria a couple of months after I’d sworn to my closest friends that I was done looking, finished with hoping. And that time, I actually meant it more than the scores of other times I had sworn that. But when I met Hilaria, I knew there was something unique about her. Hilaria is one of those rarest of people. When you meet her, you know who she is. You don’t suspect; you know. Like her remarkable beauty, her intelligence, honesty, and decency are plain. And rather than just inventory my feelings for her, which are many and deep, let me tell you about her and why I am so lucky.
Beyond her spirit and her system of beliefs regarding health, fitness, and nutrition, Hilaria is the most emotionally mature person I’ve ever met. “Somos un buen equipo,” she had engraved inside of our wedding rings, which means, “We are a good team.” You’d be lucky to be on a team with someone like this. Grounded, tough, and always prepared to argue her position thoughtfully and effectively (that’s a good thing, right?), Hilaria is, most importantly, willing to press every ounce of her being into the service of her friends, family, and those she loves. You couldn’t have a better friend. Professionally, you couldn’t have a better coach or instructor if your goal is healthier living. Since she had to conquer her own period of unhealthy living, her advice, gained through experience, is simple and practical. When we met, I was bloated, unfit, and careening toward a diagnosis of diabetes. I believe that Hilaria saw me for what I once was and, with her help and example, could be again. To live with someone that fit and healthy, in both mind and body, can be frustrating. At my age, I wondered how much change, how much progress, I could honestly be expected to make. But Hilaria, more patient and kind than any ten people I’ve ever met, leads by example only. This woman has never uttered an unkind or derogatory word toward me, ever. Not once. (Can you imagine being able to hold your tongue in that way?) She suggests. She recommends. She offers materials to read about nutrition and exercise. And then, the rest is up to you. I have not hit some of my goals these past few years, but I can only imagine where I’d be today if I had not met her. In terms of marrying a real partner in this life, I am the luckiest man on earth.
When I met Hilaria, I was nearly fifty-three and she was twenty-seven, a quarter of a century difference in age (as some on the Internet are eager to remind me every day). Hilaria was raised between Boston and Spain, and aside from our difference in age and upbringing (I’ve always found it interesting to meet, let alone fall in love with, someone who doesn’t know Ed Sullivan, subway tokens, or Howard Johnson’s restaurants), Hilaria has had to make some serious adjustments in order to make our life together. The glare of the kind of attention we deal with can be unnerving. Of course, she deals with it better than I do. After we married, we proceeded to have three children in slightly over three years. That plan has offered its own form of renewal. (As I’m rounding the corner toward sixty with three children aged three and under, some days a cruise, any kind of cruise, but especially a sleep cruise, doesn’t sound so bad.) But my home is everything I expected and wanted it to be. Hilaria and I do talk about some things other than our children. We also disagree about some things. Thankfully, those are minor. But this is what we both wanted. I wanted Hilaria. I wanted the life we have together. I could never have met anyone, in five hundred lifetimes, who is a better mother. My children are the luckiest children on Earth.
My other child is twenty-one now. It must be odd for Ireland to look at the other children, in diapers or toddling around our home, either in person or on FaceTime, and say to herself that these are her siblings. But Carmen is so aware of Ireland, often pointing to an airplane in the sky and asking, “Is that Ireland coming?” Ireland, in spite of it all, is loving and funny. God, Ireland is funny. If she wants an acting career, she has more of the necessary elements, perhaps, than anyone in my family. Yes, she is clever and beautiful. She’s eclectic and funny. But most important of all, she is in no hurry for you to know her. Which compels you to come to her. In acting, that may be the most important quality of all.
It’s easy for two people to lose each other while fulfilling their obligations to their children. (We now have three: Carmen, Rafael, and Leonardo.) There were times I watched my own parents move around our house as if the other person weren’t there. I remember when it was just the two of us, when I had Hilaria, this remarkable woman, all to myself. As a mother, she has limitless room in her heart for her children, and even a little bit more to spare. I will take what I can get. I try to remember that my job is to care for her as she cares for our family, to support her in whatever way I can. To deliver whatever stability and certainty I can. When I think of my wife, I’m reminded of Hamlet:
Doubt thou the stars are fire;
Doubt that the sun doth move;
Doubt truth to be a liar;
But never doubt I love.
A few moments before our wedding ceremony, which took place on a warm and beautiful day, Hilaria’s friend Yoel came to me bearing a wrapped package, inside of which was a small decorative box in antique silver. I opened it to find a piece of paper on which Hilaria had written the most beautiful and meaningful words ever meant for me. That box sits next to my bed, and from time to time, I take out the piece of paper to remind myself of who this woman is and how lucky I truly am. In return, I say, “Te quiero, mi vida. Te quiero con todo mi corazón.”
17
Nevertheless
There are so many stories and anecdotes that I have left to tell. There’s so much advice I’ve received that’s worth passing on. But this book is what I thought represented the best cross-section of what I’ve seen, what I’ve learned, and who I am.
While we were shooting Path to War with John Frankenheimer, the great Michael Gambon told me my favorite joke of all time. Be forewarned that is does contain an ugly misogynistic epithet that the Brits tend to throw around in a less gendered way. I’ll probably mangle this. But here’s my version:
Lord So-and-So, an English tragedian in the mold of Donald Wolfit, upon whom Ronald Harwood based the character of Sir in his play The Dresser, is touring the provinces, performing Antony and Cleopatra. One evening, he takes the stage to make an announcement.
ENTER SO-AND-SO (to applause).
SO-AND-SO (quieting the audience):
“I regret to inform you that tonight the role of Cleopatra shall not be portrayed by Lady Margaret Thornbush (a murmur in the crowd), but instead shall be assayed by my wife, Emily Treadwell.”
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SPECTATOR (from the back of the house and shrill):
“Your wife’s a fucking cunt!”
SO-AND-SO (after a pause):
“Nevertheless.”
* * *
I used to discount any observations about surviving in show business. Or any business, for that matter. That was, of course, when I was young. (Am I getting ready to play Shelley Levene? Willy Loman? King Lear!!) It feels like it’s harder than ever to survive in the entertainment business. God knows, I have made many mistakes in my career. Nevertheless, I have more work than I can handle.
I made my share of mistakes raising my daughter Ireland. Nevertheless, I love Ireland with all my soul and I believe she knows that. And that she loves me, too.
It has taken me a lot longer than I thought it would to get my life in order so that someone might want to share it with me. Nevertheless, my wife and our kids are un sueño hecho realidad.
I have talked and talked and talked about politics and public policy, and some of it has been effective and worthwhile. Some of it, not so much. Nevertheless, my passion for justice is still easily stirred and my desire to comfort the afflicted is undiminished, regardless of the cost. Even in these almost incomprehensibly cynical times, I still have hope that our country can find its way to liberty and justice . . . for all.