In 1974, I was asked to do a two-character play on Broadway called Same Time, Next Year. The female lead was to be played by Ellen Burstyn. We had never met, so the producer felt it was essential we get together just to make sure we got along.
Ellen drove into New York from her house in Snedens Landing, picked me up, and drove us back to her place. I noticed she wore little or no makeup and was beautiful.
We spent several hours at her house talking about the play and from the very beginning liked each other very much.
I had arranged for a car to come get me and take me back to the city. As I got up to leave, Ellen said, “I have to tell you something. I have an ex-husband, Neil, who overdosed on LSD. It’s had a permanent effect on him. At one point he called himself Neil Nephew. He’s confined in an institution, but he periodically manages to escape and seeks me out as well as any man I have anything to do with personally or professionally. I’m terribly sorry to lay this on you.”
For a moment, I was speechless, then managed to say as casually as I could, “Oh, I wouldn’t worry about that.”
Of course, just the opposite was true. Of all the things I’ve ever done, acting requires by far the greatest concentration as well as relaxation, and the idea that my costar’s ex-husband might escape from an institution and appear at any time and do God knows what wasn’t exactly what I had in mind as an aid for my concentration or relaxation.
Nevertheless, I continued to reassure Ellen not to worry one moment about it.
As soon as I got back to my apartment I called the producer who, if memory serves, already knew about this. I asked that a meeting be called to discuss how to deal with the situation. I asked Herb Gardner to be my representative at the meeting, as I was going to try to think about this as little as possible. It was decided that there would be guards at the theater to keep an eye out and a photo of Neil discreetly placed in the box office.
I guess no one thought much about the rehearsal period, because a week in, Ellen looked past me and said, “Oh, it’s Neil.” I turned and saw an average-looking fella staring at us. Ellen walked over to him. I went over, sat down in a chair, and looked the other way. I don’t remember if we resumed rehearsals that day, but soon we moved on as though it hadn’t happened. I asked no questions, and no one spoke about it to me.
Sometime a few weeks into rehearsal the extremely experienced director said that the new-to-Broadway playwright told him he would just as soon not open the play out of town in Boston if this was what it was going to look like. In other words, he was suggesting we consider closing the play in rehearsal. I said, “This isn’t what we’re going to do in front of an audience. We’re figuring out the roles.” Ellen Bursytn and I had to play our characters five years older in each of the six scenes—not a job for your boy or girl next door.
The play was a smash in Boston. There was an unusual moment during the run there. One day, from across the large lobby of the hotel where we were staying, the late Van Johnson, a great movie star, called out to me, “You work so hard.” My dad would have been proud.
Same Time, Next Year was a standing room only hit in New York, with lines around the block. Lucille Ball came backstage to say hello to me, sat down at the makeup table, freshened up her makeup, and without turning around said to me, “We should work together sometime.” When Bob Hope came, they could only find a seat for him in the balcony. I had an earlier experience with Bob Hope.
One time early in my experience with Johnny Carson, I evidently went so far that the executive producer, Fred De Cordova, said to my friend the talent coordinator, “We won’t be seeing Mr. Grodin for a while.” After Johnny’s monologue hadn’t been received as it normally was, I had come out as the first guest and said, “Rather than me trying to be funny in this atmosphere, why don’t we run a clip from an earlier appearance where I was.” Before they banned me, they received an appreciative call from Bob Hope wanting to know, “Who is that kid?”
Ellen won a Tony Award for her performance in Same Time, Next Year, and we both won an Outer Critics Circle Award.
This naïveté that was expressed by the playwright of Same Time, Next Year when he suggested we should possibly close the play in rehearsal manifested itself from when the producer Ray Stark called me after the first reading of Seems Like Old Times with Goldie Hawn, Chevy Chase, and me to ask, “What are we going to do about Chevy?” I said, “What do you mean?” He said, “He’s ad-libbing all over the place.” I said, “Ask him not to.” They did, so he didn’t, and was incredibly charming in the role.
It happened again after the first reading of The Heartbreak Kid when they discussed replacing me, because I had begun “working on the part” instead of performing it as I’d done in the screen test. Elaine May reminded them they’d already seen me perform it.
My point in saying all this is it’s shocking how many people in positions of real authority, right up to the president, of course, sometimes absolutely don’t know what they’re talking about. That’s why all the rejection I’ve dealt with never affected me in the way you might think. I don’t accept that the rejecter knows what he or she is talking about.
For example, when one of my plays is rejected, that’s meaningless to me as far as its value is concerned, because someone who’s reading it rejected it, but I’ve already seen it performed in front of a highly appreciative audience. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have sent it to anyone.
Recently, I gave a Broadway producer a play of mine that has four stars committed to playing the four roles. I explained I’d seen it read several times to large audiences and that it had received an outstanding response. The producer read it and was completely dismissive of it. It didn’t get me down because I felt I was dealing with a fool. Gene Wilder said, “With you writing it and those names connected to it… ,” and then he just shook his head.
Over the years, especially in movies, I’ve offered a lot of ideas—script changes and so forth. There are exceptions, of course. Neil Simon’s Seems Like Old Times quickly comes to mind. Not only would someone come over to you if you left a “the” out, but once in a scene where Robert Guillaume was playing the piano I was standing behind him tapping my fingers on his shoulders and was told to please don’t do that. I’ve never experienced the control that was exercised over that movie. In fairness, it was a big hit, but I believe you limit me and others with that strong a controlling hand over my hand’s tapping. I mean, c’mon…
On many films, I let the director know that I may offer a lot of ideas, and I quickly add that if they aren’t embraced, my disposition will be the same as if they were. As a producer, director, or writer, I would welcome any actor’s suggestions with the understanding that if they weren’t accepted, “no sulking allowed.” I never sulk or pout as I’ve seen others do when they don’t get their way; it can put a dark cloud over everything.
I had a lot of thoughts about Same Time, Next Year that I shared with the playwright and the director, and they were used. As I’ve said, if they weren’t I would have gone right ahead in good spirits with the script that I signed on to do.
It wasn’t evident to me how much the playwright’s wife, and I assume the playwright, resented all of this, since my ideas were accepted without any discord, and the play was a smash. That’s why I was very surprised at what happened at a party after I had left the play—which, by the way, angered the producer, even though I had fulfilled my contract of staying with it for seven months after the Broadway opening. The producer assumed I had a big money offer to do a movie, but I didn’t. I just felt that with rehearsal and the out of town tryout and previews, it had been almost ten months, and it was enough. To make matters worse from the producer’s point of view, when I chose to leave, Ellen Burstyn did as well.
Anyway, the playwright’s wife was at this party, and I asked if her husband would be joining us. She stared at me and said he was meeting with someone he hoped to get to play my part in the movie. The play had been sold to the movies for a million dollars. That was how I heard I wouldn’t be asked to play the role. The playwright’s wife seemed to thoroughly enjoy giving me the news. Not wanting to give her any satisfaction, I casually asked, “Oh, who’s directing?” And she, to rub it in, said, “Oh, if we get this actor, anyone would direct it.”
The director of the play, the brilliant Gene Saks, wasn’t asked to direct the movie, even though he had directed several hit movies, so maybe they had a beef with Gene and me, which is really ironic, because the play of Same Time, Next Year was the hit of the writer’s life in the theater.
Ellen Burstyn, who played her role in the movie, has always given me a lot of credit for the success of the play, but evidently the playwright and his wife saw it differently. In fairness, I’m sure their feelings are as genuine as mine, but I wish that the playwright had at least made me aware of them when we were working together.
I was recently telling my friend John Gabriel, as insightful a man as I’ve ever met, the story about the playwright and his wife, and he said something quite startling to me, which I now believe. He said, “They weren’t upset with you about your input. How could they be upset with you for helping hand them their biggest hit?”
He said that, like the producer, they were upset with me because I was leaving their standing room only hit, no doubt shortening the run and costing them money. It ran a total of three years, but I guess they felt if Ellen Burstyn and I had stayed longer, it might have run five years. I don’t believe they were angry at Ellen, because they knew she left only because I did.
That never occurred to me, but John is probably right, because the producer was so angry we were leaving he refused to throw a party for Ellen and me, so we threw it and invited him. He came, too, and had a good time!
Until John Gabriel said that to me, it had never occurred to me in more than thirty years, even though there was a pretty obvious clue in the producer’s attitude. What I take from that is even though you’re positive you understand something, you may be dead wrong! Politicians, beware! Of course, if John is right, then the playwright’s wife’s hostile behavior toward me seems moreoffensive.
A few performances before the opening night of Same Time, Next Year, in the middle of a scene, a voice called out from the balcony to me saying, “I like your robe.” Security guards removed Ellen’s former husband Neil from the theater. Needless to say, the rest of that performance was not up to our usual level.
I later learned that Neil committed suicide by jumping out of a window. So many people tragically have no idea what drugs can do to them, even though it’s in the news every day that people are dying from drug abuse.
The year after the play I did the movie Heaven Can Wait, which I believe is as good a movie as I’ve ever been involved with, mostly because of the stunning performances of Warren Beatty and Julie Christie.
My first connection to Julie Christie was when I overheard her talking on the phone in the Palo Alto, California, mansion we were filming in. I heard her say some nice things about me, and since I was available, as evidently she was, that was enough for me to ask her out. She had gone with Warren years earlier. Julie Christie and I sat in a restaurant, and she said, “I have no idea what I’m doing here with you, I have all these houseguests.” I honestly can’t remember what I said to that, but at least she didn’t walk out on dinner. A few days later she invited me to a pool party at the house she had taken for the filming. I was the only male there, and Julie and all the women were walking around bare-breasted. At one point, Julie came over to me and said, “Don’t be bothered by this.” I said, “I’m not bothered.” Frankly, the writer in me was trying to figure out why they invited me. I wasn’t able to—still can’t.
That’s all I remember about Julie on location. After the picture I was sitting with Warren in some club on the Sunset Strip and Julie came by and suggested we join her and a friend to go somewhere, but we stayed where we were.
In my experience, Warren Beatty is one of the sweetest, most appealing, and most gifted people I’ve ever met. My closest female friend of almost forty years, Ria Berkus, and I once followed Warren in his car as he took us to the Playboy mansion, where we’d never been. Warren went to the call box and seemed to be waiting a little longer than you would expect for the gates to open. Ria, who is the single funniest woman I’ve ever met, said, as though she were speaking from the mansion to the call box, “Sorry, Warren, you’ve had your share of girls for the month.”
Warren’s legendary success with women leads me to believe he knew how to talk to girls while the rest of us were still being toilet trained. I believe Warren realized before most of us, if we ever did, that some women are as interested in sex as we men are. That neveroccurred to me.