In my second Broadway show I again played an unusual character, the nerdy Wharton Business School graduate with glasses and bad posture, and the same thing happened as in my first Broadway play. People assumed that was what I was like.
Joe Schoenfeld, who was cohead of the William Morris Agency’s movie department, came backstage to say hello to me after the show, and when I opened the dressing room door, he saw someone without the glasses and the bad posture and said, “I’m looking for Charles Grodin.” That moment began an important relationship with Joe, who I believe was about thirty years older than I was. He became a real promoter of mine.
My biggest promoter was Harry Ufland, who had asked Joe to go backstage to meet me. From the time Harry became my agent in the early sixties, he never stopped telling everyone, “Charles Grodin is as good as it gets no matter what he does.” Harry’s in my will.
Joe Schoenfeld was second only to Harry. I once went to his office to ask if he had any advice for me. I was a guest star on television shows about a half-dozen times a year, which grossed me six thousand dollars—a thousand a show. This was 1966.
Even though I was considered a successful and highly regarded young actor, I had gone from making $7,000 a year on Broadway in 1962 to $6,000 a year on television in 1967. (A lot of big movie stars of the forties and fifties died broke.) Again, I had a wife and child. I asked Joe if he had any thoughts. As he pondered my question, his phone rang. A picture shooting in Yugoslavia called Castle Keep with Burt Lancaster and others was having some problems. Joe represented a number of the principals involved. Millions of dollars were at stake.
After the call, I said to Joe, “I see you have much bigger issues to deal with. I’ll come by on another day.” He said, “Not at all, Chuck, this happens all the time. Please go on.”
There are not a lot of people I will always cherish, but Joe Schoenfeld, who has been deceased for years, remains in my thoughts.
Another time, the legendary Abe Lastfogel joined Joe and me for a drink in Joe’s office at the end of the day. At some point, Abe said, “Why don’t we go into my office and have our drink under Johnny’s picture.” Johnny was Johnny Hyde, who was Abe’s partner when William Morris really became William Morris, around 1930.
I have no point to make in the following two stories about two other William Morris agents I knew in the sixties, one in California and the other in New York, but I think they’re worth telling.
Cy Marsh was a flamboyant Hollywood agent who actually stood on his desk as he talked to me. I was asking if he could help get me considered for bigger television shows.
He proclaimed, while standing on his desk, “I represent Rod Steiger.” Compared to Rod Steiger of On the Waterfront fame, I was relatively unknown. Cy said, “How am I, who represents Rod Steiger, going to look if I ask, ‘Anything for Charles Grodin?’ ” I found him hilarious, even though I don’t think he ever asked, “Anything for Charles Grodin?”
Rod Steiger was a guest on my cable show in the nineties about thirty years after Cy talked to me standing on his desk, which I assume looking back must be some kind of power move. It wasn’t obvious at the time. The power move I do find obvious is when people in positions of authority speak in something slightly above a whisper in a private office. I have some hearing loss. But not that much. They speak in something slightly above a whisper.
Anyway, Rod Steiger was on my show thirty years later. I was doing a program on depression, and he was one of three or four guests who battled that terrible scourge. My mother and my brother have both suffered from depression, so I obviously don’t mean to be funny, but Rod Steiger was so depressed on the show that even though he wasn’t with me in the studio but was on the satellite, I started to get depressed.
The agent for William Morris in New York who was Harry Ufland’s boss when he and I first connected observed of me, “He’s probably going to be another Eli Wallach, but who’s got the time?”
This agent was widely known for reaching for any male’s scrotum that came within his reach. He never made that move on me—something about my attitude, I guess. On the few occasions when he called me, I felt I better take a pill of some kind, because his energy was so high. He died young. Call me crazy; I liked him, too. Characters! I’ve often said sometimes the agents should be the performers!