I'm Not Dead... Yet! (13 page)

My behavior was the perfect example of denial. Looking back, I was totally irresponsible for not getting myself to a doctor. I thought I could
control
time and space—which is what any good filmmaker is taught to do; we create false realities that are very real to us. I naively believed my own fiction, living within my own reality, my movie star ‘celluloid aspect ratio.’

Not one person knew the hell I was going through
, so no one ever questioned my health. I needed help and was too proud, macho and
scared
to get it. Even when the warning signs were obvious, I foolishly believed I could control my own destiny.

I was fine. Mission accomplished.
Denial. Soft? Kiss my ass.

Tribute
should have been
a wonderful film. Academy Award-winning actor Jack Lemmon was reprising his Tony-nominated role in Bernard Slade’s play, and the cast included Lee Remick, Colleen Dewhurst and my old friend John Marley. Instead…

We shot the film in Toronto in the dead of winter. I worked out every single day at the local YMCA. The night before principal photography began I broke my ankle playing basketball. (Yup.) I tried to limp back to the hotel in the below zero weather. Not a single taxi cab would pick me up—hobbling, it looked like I was delirious and on drugs. I then had to crawl for more than a half a mile. I finally got a cab at my hotel to take me to the emergency room. Before my call-time for the first day of shooting (6:30 a.m.) I was leaving the hospital with the thinest cast that I could beg the doctor to put on my foot.

I went through the entire filming of
Tribute
with a broken ankle, no pain meds (still didn’t believe in them), and only one person knew: the wardrobe mistress who modified my pants and shoes.

I was playing Jack Lemmon’s estranged son—a very unsympathetic character with many affectations. And I did something foolish; I played the entire movie aiming at the one scene where you can ‘see and understand’ why this young man behaved so prudishly. It was a risk, but this pivotal scene would reveal my character’s true feelings. When we shot that scene, I felt it was the best work I had ever done.

When I got back to Los Angeles, I received a phone call from Sherry Lansing, the President of 20th Century Fox, telling me she was overwhelmed with my performance and to expect an Oscar nomination.

What neither Ms. Lansing nor I expected was Jack Lemmon demanding my scene be dropped from the film. Without it my performance was… inexplicable.

To his credit, Mr. Lemmon called me and said that he owed me an apology. He explained that he had to take the scene out because it made my character more sympathetic than his, and undermined his performance.

He told me, “One day, when you’ve been around the block as many times as I have kiddo, you’ll understand.”

Funny thing—I understood immediately. But I can’t watch the movie to this day. I understand, but I can’t watch. It’s a heartbreaker.

Valuable Life Lesson:
Never believe the hype. And make sure they spell your name correctly. (“Robby,” not “Robbie.”) Another day, another indignity...

The Chosen
, Chaim Potok’s perceptive novel
about two young friends, one Hasidic, the other a secular Jew, set in Brooklyn just after World War II, was my next film project.

The producers, Edie and Ely Landau, and director Jeremy Kagan offered me the part of Reuven, but I turned it down. I wanted the challenge of playing Daniel, the ultra-Orthodox boy brought up ‘in silence.’ The creative team agreed, and I finally got to work with Rod Steiger (healthy since his open-heart surgery three years earlier), who would play my father. Rod Steiger. Yes!

During filming, Mr. Steiger confided to me how the industry treated him after his open-heart surgery. “Death, kiddo. Death. I couldn’t get arrested. Never tell anyone if you’ve got heart problems, kid. Never.”

This resonated with me more than ever, now. I was really having ...symptoms.

Working on
The Chosen
became a challenge. A very talented but majestically selfish actor, Barry Miller, was supposed to be my best friend in the film. But Barry overwhelmed the set—he was so needy that nothing happened unless Barry was ‘okay with it.’
This isn’t an exaggeration. The crew had a pool going—odds were set for ‘Who would be the first person to punch Barry Miller in the face?’ I was 2-1. Rod Steiger was even money. Even the great Maximilian Schell was 3-1. As fate would have it, Barry was taken down by a female Teamster who won over 500 dollars.

I did my final close-ups in the film, where I’m going off to college, to a piece of tape on the wall, rather than to his face. Not an unusual situation on a film, but a sad and avoidable one in this case.

Fortunately, the magic of celluloid only showed us as the closest of friends.

Early one stifling New York summer morning, I was wearing heavy flannel Hasidic garb.
As I sat in the make-up chair, ‘picking my spots’ when to gasp for that primal, fulfilling gulp of oxygen—which at best, would only be partially satisfying—trying to conceal my physical discomfort, the make-up man questioned me.