Julie and I then auditioned for the legendary acting teacher Uta Hagen and were accepted. I had studied acting for two years, as had Julie—at least. Nevertheless, we were invited to join Uta’s beginner’s class. I later realized that, generally speaking, acting teachers, like dentists, don’t have a high regard for each other. I remember throwing Uta a kiss as we left. I had no way of knowing that would be our last happy exchange for several decades.
Among the things we were asked to do in class was to carry an imaginary suitcase across a room and open an imaginary window. I asked Uta what the purpose of that was. She deeply resented that I would question anything she said and let me know it.
Nevertheless, I couldn’t stop myself from asking the question again. This time Uta threatened to throw me out of the class. What made it worse was when I wrote my first book and again said I saw no point in all that imaginary suitcase carrying and window opening.
But I do credit Uta with something she said to me that was very helpful. I was doing a scene in class from the novel The Catcher in the Rye. When the scene was over, Uta said there was a “pure acting moment” in the scene and asked me if I knew what it was. I had no idea. At one point the actor playing my teacher started to hand me an essay I had written. I reached for it, but he took it back to look at it again. Uta identified that moment as the “pure acting moment,” because, as she put it, it was a moment when I didn’t know what was happening. That state of not knowing what’s coming next is a state good actors aspire to. It’s called “living in the moment” and not anticipating what’s coming. Learning that concept was very helpful as I tried to unfold what at the time felt like the mystery of acting.
Decades later, Uta was a guest on my cable talk show to promote a book she had written. Even though she had long since dropped those exercises, before the taping began she let me know she still really didn’t appreciate my writing about the exercises in a book. I even once spoke at her school and again questioned those exercises, but I don’t think Uta heard about it.
It did seem her feelings toward me were somewhat mixed, because she also said that every time her acting studio asked me for a donation, I sent one. I particularly wanted to do that, because she had charged only three dollars a class.
As I’ve said, because of all my experience in being kicked out of things, Uta threatening to kick me out of class for asking those questions didn’t affect me that much. After three years she did say about me, “He questions everything, which is the way it should be.”
I saw Uta one more time at a party about a year before she passed away. She was sitting on a sofa next to a man we both knew, and as I came over to her, she said to the man, “He came into my acting class and acted as though he knew everything.” I said, “That certainly wasn’t what I was feeling, and I’m really sorry that I offended you.” She took my hand and kissed it.
That observation about me acting as though I knew everything came several decades after Uta acknowledged I was right to question whatever I felt was worth questioning. I believe Uta had it right that time. It’s the same as in journalism: because we question things doesn’t mean we have the answers. America’s recent history tells us once again that the problem isn’t too many questions but too few.
I have a fantasy that one day I’ll be taking a class with Uta in heaven. Once again I’ll question something, and once again she’ll threaten to throw me out, but it would still be great to see her. If she asked, I’d even carry an imaginary suitcase for her. I can’t imagine a need to open an imaginary window, because my fantasy of heaven is that we’re outside.