While at the Playhouse, I was interviewed by the head of the drama department of Duquesne University, a man by the name of Richard Scanga. He signed me up to be an apprentice at the Rabbit Run Summer Theater in Madison, Ohio, where we worked sixteen hours a day and paid them fifteen dollars a week!
The good news is sometimes we would be given little parts in plays. Once I played one of four leads in a play, and once I was given a song to sing in a musical revue.
One evening after rehearsal I heard someone from another garage (we had bunks in garages) singing my song, “At the Drop of a Hat.” Naively, I thought, “Must be a catchy song.” The next day the director called me over and said, “Let’s have Jimmy Reilly sing ‘At the Drop of a Hat.’” I said, “Jimmy Reilly?” He said, “Yes.” I wisely chose not to pursue the conversation.
That was my first experience with being fired in show business, but I don’t remember it bothering me. I didn’t aspire to be a singer. Later, when I was fired for the one and only time as an actor—well, that was the one exception to the rule regarding how I handled rejection. More about that to come.
The next year they called and asked if I’d like to come back and play a part in a play. They would pay me forty dollars. When I got there, the owner, an older woman, told me the theater had gone union, and she would have to pay me seventy-five dollars, but as they couldn’t afford it, she would pay me the seventy-five and I would return thirty-five dollars to her. I was already in rehearsal for the play, and while it felt wrong, I didn’t fully comprehend how inappropriate it was.
I was nineteen, and I made a mistake by going along with her. That was in 1954 and I’m writing this in 2008, fifty-four years later, and it still bothers me. I’ve been told I have a “too scrupulous conscience.”
All I can say is since 1954, I’ve never done anything I considered inappropriate at the time. That doesn’t mean that I’ve never done anything inappropriate. That means my future malfeasance took me years to realize, but I do now.
As I’ve said, my biggest regret in life is not doing better by my dad as a teenager. I believe the second most serious mistake I’ve made is also irrevocable. It was in the sixties. There were plenty of girls interested in romance and sex. As I pursued that path, often sleeping with a girl once, sometimes a few days or weeks or even months and moving on, the upset I could be causing never occurred to me. None of these young women told me I had caused them pain, but I now know I did.
Only once did a girl openly express her feelings about my “moving on,” and I hadn’t even kissed her, held her hand, or asked her out. It was just an easy chat around a summer stock theater in Pennsylvania. This was in the fifties. I told her I was heading to Hollywood. She said, somewhat shocked, “Just like that?” She meant I was abandoning what she saw as our future relationship.
Who knows what another person goes through? That’s the main reason I’ve always been nice to everyone. I see all of us as more or less on the ropes. I want people who meet me to have a positive experience, but I now realize I hurt many women in a way I’m truly sorry about.
On the other hand, I’ve shared these thoughts with current close woman friends, and they basically said I’m being too hard on myself, because the women know what’s going on. I appreciate hearing that, but I still think I was wrong in a serious way.
Often a man will break up with a woman or a woman will break up with a man not because they prefer someone else but because of loyalty and guilt over a prior relationship. I think it’s a good idea not to get involved with someone who already has a strong involvement, even if they’re not presently seeing that person.