When I was making the movie Catch-22, in 1969 and 1970, I became good friends with Anthony Perkins, who was a good friend of Orson Welles, who was also in the cast. Tony introduced me to Orson as someone he would enjoy knowing. Something in the way Tony described me suggested I was a good storyteller, the last thing Orson was interested in having around, because Orson was the storyteller. Orson looked at me like I was a lamp whose light he would like to turn off.
He also chose to tell Mike Nichols what to do with the cameras whenever he was in a scene, and wasn’t a bit self-conscious about it.
At some point, a friend from New York who was coproducing a play called to discuss suggestions I might have for directors. I knew Tony Perkins was interested in directing, and even though he had never directed, I thought he could because he was so bright and gifted, so I suggested him. He ended up getting the job.
The play was Steambath by Bruce Jay Friedman, a brilliant comedy playwright and novelist. The star was comedian Dick Shawn. During rehearsals, Dick was fired, and Rip Torn took over. Not too long after that, still in rehearsal, Rip was fired, and they asked me to take over. By that time rehearsals had gone on so long, Tony was in Hollywood keeping a prior movie commitment. A director named Jacques Levy took over. After a couple of weeks, preview audiences started to come, and the play and I were being received extremely well. Then they fired me.
The reasoning was the play was working well, but to recoup all the long rehearsal expenses, it would be good to get a name, and they did—Tony Perkins.
Tony came in. The play opened and wasn’t successful. The feeling was Tony was miscast. The immediate ramification of this for me was it ended my relationship with Tony. You don’t replace a friend in something where he suggested you as the director.
I wasn’t aware of the impact this firing had on me until I started having dreams about being replaced. This was a first—being fired at the thing I was the best at.
True to my rebounding nature, a short time later I wrote a play about someone fearing he’s going to be fired as the director. Alan Arkin starred in it in 1971 in Nyack, New York. One of the All-Time Greats opened off-Broadway in 1992, got an excellent review from the Times, and had a successful run.
The paths of Bruce J. Friedman, the writer of Steambath, and mine crossed years later, after I became known in the movies. He told me that his sons had told him not to fire me, because I was the reason the play was suddenly working. It always had the brilliant Hector Elizondo in it, but my role was the lead, the protagonist.
About a year after I was fired, Bruce went to the office of my friend, who was Steambath’s coproducer, and said, “Guess who’s playing the lead in The Heartbreak Kid?” My friend said, “I know.”
Ironically, the short story on which The Heartbreak Kid is based was written by Bruce J. Friedman.