“What do you mean, we? Unless you’re planning to take off work and run around Manhattan to auditions, there’s no we here.”
“What are you starting, Linda? Every time I talk to you, it’s a fight. I’m encouraging you to do this. It could be good money.”
“Well it wouldn’t be your money—or my money, for that matter; it would be the kids’ money.”
He was right. I was angry. I figured he was having dreams of reducing his child support from a pittance to a penny, but, before we hung up, I agreed to consider it.
We were poor. The kids were on the free lunch program at school. The money situation was tough, but I was happier than I had been for the twelve years Howard and I had been together. When we moved to East Brunswick, New Jersey, I started at Rutgers University, and, when Howard announced that he’d met a lovely young girl and was leaving the marriage, I said “Thank you, God,” and asked if I could help him pack.
Now Howard was presenting me with a moral dilemma. I didn’t want to exploit my kids, but I also wanted to send them to summer camp and put money away for their future. Howard was pushing me to get a job, as if taking care of three little kids on my own was a paid vacation. I had no skills, and minimum wage jobs did not pay for childcare, and now that I had gotten myself to college, I was determined to stay in school.
Every other weekend when Howard came to pick up the kids, he brought up Delores.
“She wants to know what you’ve decided.”
I’d been dating George for about a year. He was tall with gray hair and a gray mustache and beautiful hands. He looked like Omar Sharif and I immediately thought of my great movie escape to see Dr. Zhivago perhaps because I was madly in love and eager to please his opinion carried a lot of weight. When we met, he was playing Milos Glorioso in a community theatre production of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, where he got to strut around the stage and make loud proclamations. I couldn’t tell if it was the acting he loved or the throng of New Jersey housewives, dressed in skimpy Grecian garb, fawning all over him. He was strongly encouraging me to go with it. George had a presence and a paternal authority—he shared my father’s name and also spoke with the confidence of someone who “knows.” Nevertheless, I was resistant to trust the opinion of a frustrated thespian. I would go round and round in my head.
What effect would this have on the kids? Would they still be able to have normal childhoods, or would the auditions and the shoots become all-consuming? What would happen to their little egos? If they were successful, would they become stars instead of kids? And how would they feel if they have no success—all the time and energy put into the project with no payoff? What would happen to their egos then? And what about me? Would I turn into one of those stage mothers drawn to the glamour? I’d always been a movie nut—wouldn’t it be amazing to have your kids in film? Yes, but you know what happens to kid stars, most of them end up on the analyst’s couch. Well, that could happen anyway. At least they’d have the money to pay for it.
I tortured myself for a month, and then I finally said yes.
I sat the kids down and tried to explain what it was we were about to do. David, my nine-year-old, got excited. He’d been star struck since he was three, and he saw this as his chance to make it big. Jonathan, my seven-year-old, not liking his current teacher, asked hopefully if he’d get to miss school, and Robbie, only four, took his cue from his older brother and jumped up and down with feigned excitement.
“Don’t get too excited,” I said. “I don’t know if this is going to work, but here are the rules of the game—everything is going to be shared. I don’t know which of you will have success, but given that you’re all going to be inconvenienced, it seems only fair that the earnings be equally divided. And, if you have an important play date, soccer game, or for that matter, anything else you really want to do, we will forgo the audition. And,” I went on, “I promise that your mother will not turn into a pushy stage mother.”
When we went up for auditions, I could always spot the stage mothers. They would sit, waiting their next, primping and preening their kid, going over and over the script, gossiping about who got what part for which commercial. They would talk about the idiocy of the casting director for not casting Suzie or Ethan or whomever their little horse-in-the-race happened to be. They sucked up to the mothers whose kids were cast most often, comparing agents and talent managers. I sat there reading Freud’s Psychopathology of Everyday Life for my psychology class, trying not to engage in conversation. I got a reputation for being aloof, but I didn’t care. I didn’t want to get caught up in the fervor and, to my credit, I did try to hold the line. This was not easy, as every time Delores Reed called, she would dangle fame and fortune and beg me to bring them into the city.
“It’s a callback,” she’d say.
“I’m sorry, but we can’t come in.”
“Come on, Linda, it’s Fruit Loops. It could end up being three commercials. It could end up being a whole campaign. You don’t turn down a callback.” I would start to hear panic in her voice. “You’ll get day rates, and then every time it shows, you’ll get residuals. You’re looking at big bucks, and you know that cereals run. Every show for kids has a cereal spot.”
Callbacks were certainly better than no-backs, but there was still no guarantee. All it usually meant was that they had narrowed the field from thirty kids to ten. Everything seemed to hinge on the whim of the director, his need to please the account, and his vision for the spot. It was great that my children were getting callbacks, but it was far from a guarantee that they would get the commercial.
Delores collected 10 percent on every gig the kids got. My telling her that I was sorry but Jonathan had been invited to his friend Rodney Yap’s birthday party affected her bottom line.
“It’s a big deal invitation,” I explained. “Only three kids got invited. His mother cooks authentic Chinese food, and, besides, Jonathan’s already been to the city this week.”
“Jonathan cares that there’s Chinese food? You’re kidding me. He’s seven years old and he’s a gourmet? And what’s with this Rodney—he only has three friends?”
“Jonathan loves Mrs. Yap’s cooking,” I embellished. “I’m not going to tell him that he can’t go to his best friend’s birthday party, and that’s that.”
“This is no way to run a business,” she said.
“My children aren’t a business,” I countered. “They are kids who happen to have red hair, and a single mother who’s broke, going to college herself, and needing to find a way to save up so that when the time comes she can send them to college, because there is no way their father is ever going to do it. You may forget, but I won’t, that they are children first and actors second, and I will not compromise their childhood for this business, as you call it!”
Delores would back off. I would hang up and then the doubts would rise up and threaten my resolve. What is the point of doing this whole business if I’m going to do it half-assed? And Delores is right, Fruit Loops are a big deal and Jonathan wants to go to Rodney’s birthday party today, but he may not even care tomorrow, and, for all I know, Mrs. Yap is doing takeout.
I struggled most when Delores called with movie auditions.
“I have an audition tomorrow for Rob,” Delores said. “It’s big. Spielberg is directing it.”
“What is it?”
“It’s called Jaws.”
“Is it a monster movie? I don’t want my kids in monster movies.”
“It’s not a monster movie. It’s about a shark. All I can tell you it that it’s a big deal movie. It’s got a big budget and they are looking to cast a bunch of kids. He’s an extra so it’s day rates, but you never know, with a kid as cute as Robbie, he could get upgraded to a principal in a minute, and then you are looking at big bucks.”
I didn’t say anything.
“Are you going to give me a hard time?” she asked.
“I’m thinking.”
“What’s to thi
nk? It’s a major motion picture. These opportunities don’t come along every day.” She sighed. “Linda, if you don’t want the call, I’ve got another kid who will take it in a minute.”
“Let me ask you one question—does he get eaten?”
“What do you mean, does he get eaten?”
“I mean does he get eaten by the shark? I don’t want my kid eaten, and I don’t want him to be in a movie that would be too frightening to take him to see. Would you take your kid to a movie where he’s going to see himself get eaten?”
“I don’t know if he gets eaten,” she said.
“Find out and call me back.”
Fifteen minutes later the phone rang.
“He gets eaten,” she whispered.
“What?”
“He gets eaten,” she said again.
“Then forget it.” I hung up.
While David was the most excited and hopeful of the three kids, it soon became apparent that Jonathan, who couldn’t have cared less, was getting most of the calls. David, to compensate for his disappointment and frustration with me for my less-than-wholehearted devotion to the family biz, as he liked to call it, apprenticed himself to Delores. They would talk, and, when I was reluctant to go into the city yet again, he’d argue her case. He was good at it and often convinced me to schlep in, particularly and understandably, if the call was for him.
Jonathan provided the entertainment for the trips back and forth to the city. He had made up a cast of characters—each had their own accent, personality, and story to tell. There was Lazy Luba, the ninety-year-old tennis instructor; Timmy the trash can; and Buzzy the bee, who taught brail to blind bumblebees. We’d be sitting in traffic, and, to relieve the tension, one of us would ask Jon to check in on Lazy or Buzzy and see what they were up to. Jon would spin a yarn, but leave the conclusion for the next trip into the city. And when we went up for auditions, we were never quite sure what he was going to pull. For example, once we were on our way up to an audition at a prominent ad agency. There was a very fat man behind us in the elevator. When the elevator door opened, Jonathan turned around, put his arms around the man, kissed him on the belly, looked up at his face, and, deadpan, said, “I think I’ll call you Seymour,” turned around, and walked out of the elevator.
Jonathan got the part of Spanky in the Our Gang promotion for Marx Toys. This was a big break. It was a series of commercials with the same cast of kids. The money started to roll in, and I was able to send the three kids to summer camp, attend all three summer sessions at school, and make up the twelve credits I’d been unable to take during fall and spring semesters.
We had been in the biz for two years when Jonathan got a call to audition to play little Alvy Singer in Annie Hall. We’d been calling him “little Woody Allen” since he was a baby.
When he was born with ABO blood incompatibility and had to have all of his blood replaced one cc at a time with O positive donor blood, we often wondered if it was this traumatic beginning that made him such a funny, irreverent, and neurotic kid or if they’d simply given him Woody Allen’s blood. Add to that the red hair and horn-rimmed glasses, and there was no doubt that Jon would get the part.
The first day on the Annie Hall set, he walked behind Allen, mimicking his gait and gestures. He was so good at it that some of the crew thought he was Allen’s son. Had they talked to Jonathan, they would have been further convinced, because Jonathan, like Allen, was by nature a fatalist and a hypochondriac. He was nine years old, but already convinced he had Alzheimer’s because he couldn’t remember the name of the head of the PLO. So when they shot the first scene in the movie where little Alvy Singer is sitting in the doctor’s office and asking what the point is in doing his homework because the universe is expanding, no script was necessary. Jonathan could easily have improvised the scene.
Jonathan at nine was a working actor. He was on the set every day. I was going crazy trying to balance the shoot, the three kids, and studying for finals. I wished I could have gone to the shoot every day, but there was no way I could manage it. It was no trouble finding friends and family to take him in, as everybody wanted the opportunity to be on the set, but no one more than I. David was dying to go in—one day I allowed him to cut school so he could go and watch. It was exciting, but also hard for him to see his brother so laissez-faire when he would have turned cartwheels for the opportunity to be in the film. Robbie didn’t seem to mind as long as I got him to his soccer games. He had just made goalie, and, as far as he was concerned, he already was a star.
It didn’t take long for Woody Allen to realize that he’d cast a gem in Jonathan. He began writing new scenes for him, some of which ended up in the movie and some on the cutting room floor.
There was the Coney Island bumper car ride: Jonathan was strapped into his car and Woody Allen, infamous for not directing his actors, just told Jonathan to have fun. Jonathan had never been on the bumper car ride, but he was a natural for the scene. The buzzer went off, and he went nowhere. He frantically turned the wheel but he couldn’t get any traction. He just sat there getting bumped from all sides. They shot the scene in one take and it was included in the film.
The Brooke Shields scene took a lot longer and ended up on the cutting room floor. Few people know that Brooke was ever in Annie Hall, but Jonathan would never forget—he couldn’t take his eyes off her.
The scene was set up in an old Brooklyn schoolhouse with chipped plaster walls and a funky smell. A Thanksgiving play was arranged on the wooden stage. Children, dressed as Pilgrims, milled around a town square. Little Alvy Singer, head pushed forward and arms dangling, was in the stockade. In sight was a beautiful young girl in a white dress—Brooke Shields. Jonathan was entranced. There was no acting necessary. Later, on the ride home he told me that she was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen and that he was in love.
The scene took forever to set—getting the lighting just right, angling the cameras, instructing each child as to their position on the stage and their role in the play. Jonathan, stuck in the stockade, didn’t mind the wait. His eyes followed Brooke around the room.
Brooke was on the set with her mother, Teri, who it was later said, “controlled her career with an iron fist.” Teri and I sat together and watched the shoot. When she heard I was studying psychology, she wanted my opinion on the part that Brooke was up for in a Louis Malle movie, Pretty Baby.
“She plays the role of a young prostitute in a bordello. She has a nude scene. Everybody is making such a fuss. Like, I shouldn’t be letting my kid play a part like this, but she’s not going to grow up to be a prostitute, so I don’t know what they’re yakking about. You see my point. You agree, right?” Teri asked.
I didn’t know what to say. She was asking the wrong person. I wouldn’t let my kid get eaten by a mechanical shark, so I certainly wouldn’t have let him get naked.
“It’s a tough spot to be in,” I said.
“Not really,” she answered. “It isn’t tough for me. It’s a Louis Malle movie. Louis Malle is a very respected French film director. You don’t turn down a Louis Malle movie.”
She was sounding more and more like Delores.
“Would you mind giving us a ride to Penn Station?” Teri asked, “I didn’t bring my car.”
“Happy to do it,” I lied, knowing that going from Brooklyn to Manhattan and then out to Jersey was going to get us stuck in traffic. However, I figured if they ended the shoot by four, we might still get out before rush hour—they did, but we didn’t. The trip was further delayed by a pit stop at a Ninth Avenue bar.
“I’m very thirsty,” she said. “You know how it is after a long day.” She cocked her head and smiled at me as if I knew.
“Why don’t you join me?” she asked.
Teri was a former model and still very beautiful, but all the charm in the world was not going to get me to bring two kids into a sleazy bar. I gestured to the kids in the back seat.
“Oh,” she said, “They won’t be a problem. Br
ooke comes with me all the time.”
I shook my head. “You go ahead. We’ll wait, but I’d like to get out of the city before the rush hour.”
I had no idea how I’d gotten myself into the position of sitting in a car waiting for this lady to get out of a bar. Meanwhile, Brooke and Jon had formed a friendship that was good enough to get Jon invited to Brooke’s thirteenth birthday party. Unfortunately, it was a pool party, and Jon, who couldn’t swim, spent the whole party sitting on the side of the pool like little Alvy Singer in the stockade. He looked longingly at his love, while Brooke and her friends swam around. Had Woody Allen shot the pool party instead of the Thanksgiving play, Brooke might still be in the movie.
We didn’t make it home until seven that night. We were exhausted, and Jon had to be back on the set by eight thirty the next morning. They were shooting a scene under the boardwalk in Coney Island. I had had a brief look at the script. It was something about sailors, a pretty girl, and little Alvy Singer taking a condom out of his wallet and watching as it turned to dust. I thought of the scene and began to wonder if I was compromising my kid. Maybe, when it came down to it, I wasn’t much better than Teri Shields.
Woody Allen, to his credit, was considerate and respectful of Jonathan’s age. Allen walked over to me, explained the scene and asked, “Are you okay with that?”
“Yes, it’s fine.”
“What shall I tell him it is?” Allen asked.
“Tell him it’s an old balloon,” I said.
Satisfied. Allen went back on the set and they shot the scene. Jonathan didn’t ask any questions.
It was easy to explain the condom to Jon, but I’d no idea how Malle and Teri were going to explain child prostitution to Brooke.
Jonathan finished shooting Annie Hall three weeks later than we’d been promised. It took chutzpah, but I pulled him off the set so that he could start his new summer camp with the rest of the kids. I’d told the assistant producer from the beginning that Jon would be leaving on June 21, but they’d ignored me and kept writing scenes. I was stuck in one of those dilemmas where I was trying to be true to my kid, but also not wanting to screw up the movie. We found a compromise. I agreed to let them fly Jon back after two weeks, figuring by then he would have settled into camp. Jonathan said he didn’t care, because the kids were jerks and he missed his friends on the set. I feared that I had alienated everybody affiliated with the film. I must not have screwed up too badly because they later cast Robert in Stardust Memories. They may not have liked me, but they did like my kids.
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