I'm Not Dead... Yet! (9 page)

Fortunately, the watermelon seed didn’t alter the business plan of the theater owner. People came to see our movie in droves. My father and I had done it. We beat the Hollywood odds! The bar was set… my career was about to jump to another level.

Could I?

Valuable Life Lesson:
Always turn your head when you sneeze. Who knows what projectile might come firing out of your nostril! And, even if I never did anything else in my life, I had accomplished something special and had shared it with my father.

And one lesson I learned like wardrobe that never comes off, never celebrate for more than ten minutes. Smile, but then get back to work, no matter what the triumph. In this business, do not believe your own press, good or bad. It’s not real and it can be very painful. Stick to the work, the art and the passion to do it ‘right’—the best you possibly can. It’s the only way to survive.

It’s the work that counts—not the pontification that follows.

The Audition and the Reality Check

The rebound from
One On One
was so fast
it became a life lesson for me: I was now a true star in the business, but that also meant that some people might not want their film to become a “Robby Benson Movie.” Case in point:
The King of the Gypsies
.

In February of 1977, New York City was hit with a wild, gorgeous and powerful snowstorm. I woke up to a city that had been completely shut down.

The only problem was that in a few hours, I had a huge audition for the lead in
King of the Gypsies
. The role had come down to two actors: me, and a young Eric Roberts. They were looking for someone ‘authentic,’ someone who understood the life of a gypsy—someone who had experienced, as they put it, ‘a lot of shit in their lives.’ The word was, I was too ‘soft’—an adjective I would deal with for my entire acting career. (Another: I was ‘squeaky clean.’ Well, at least I didn’t smell… even though I did stink in a few films.)

This was the very first time a studio executive said “We just don’t want it to be another Robby Benson Movie.”

There was nothing I could do about being Robby Benson. But the perception of me as soft was completely wrong. I was tougher than anyone I knew—I just… had passion and was a romantic, too. Did I go out drinking with the boys after the game? No. I got ready and stronger for the next game. Was I intensively competitive? Yes. I was the boy next door, but
not
the boy next door who took heroin.
I’d have to prove them wrong.

According to my agent, who I woke up in LA, the audition was still on even though the city was a frozen ghost town. There were no taxis, no buses, no subways running—nothing. Just new snow everywhere.

The audition was being held in a hotel on 60th street near Broadway where the director was staying, along with his co-producers. I had to make it there by noon and I’d have to walk from 70th and West End Avenue. They told my agent they didn’t think I could make it. I looked down upon the city from my parents’ living room windows; it was desolate and oh-so beautiful. But I had to toughen up—forget the beauty, I thought, and get into ‘the gypsy.’ (What the hell does that mean?)

I called my agent back and told him, “I’ll be there. Nothing can stop me. Certainly not a little snowstorm.” Now that was gypsy-like, dammit!

“But Robby, the city is shut down. No one is expecting you to be there. It’s impossible.”

“Impossible?” I laughed with a deep, Beastly set of macho-balls, “I’ll get there
early
!” and hung up. Who did they think I was?

I dressed in a tacky ‘gypsy-like’ faux silk shirt with most of the buttons undone to show my macho, gypsy hairless chest. As I was leaving the apartment my mom, an actress, just looked at me and shook her head, “Are you sure you don’t want a jacket? You could always take it off in the lobby of the hotel before you go upstairs to the director’s room.” I looked at her with a Scorsese
Mean Streets
affectation and said, “They don’t think I can get there. Ha! Fuck ’em! Um… no offense mom. I didn’t mean to curse.”

And off I went, out into the wild, white gypsy yonder. There were drifts that covered an entire #104 bus. The snow was magnificent. I tried to tell myself it wasn’t beautiful: ‘Beautiful’ couldn’t be in my gypsy vocabulary. Fuck the snow! I was a tough guy! A gypsy! (Actually, it was hypnotic, otherworldly—absolutely the most beautiful and awesome sight) Fuck it! Shut-up! I had to be in character. A gypsy, dammit.

What a bunch of shit. A few lousy snowflakes and these pussies don’t think I can get there? (I hate the word ‘pussy.’ I hope it’s not in the script.) Wait—are they actually challenging my testosterone? (Man, it’s gorgeous…) Thinking I can’t make it ten lousy blocks? And
I’m
soft? They’re probably ordering room service and eating poached eggs while I walk like a gypsy with an open shirt and no jacket to their hotel. They want macho? I’ll give ’em macho… (Man, this snow is incredible… I can’t allow myself to forget what this looks like! I’ll take a picture in my mind. It probably only happens once in a lifetime!) Fuckin’ shut-up!

I made it to the hotel. It impressed them that I arrived early. But I was shaking and some thought I had frostbite. “Frostbite? Fuck it. Let’s audition.”

As I walked home, which was much less romantic because the city was beginning to come to life and some of the pure white snow already was layered with a blackish-gray New York City soot, I wished I had a jacket. The charade was over and now I wasn’t so gypsy-like. I was an actor who didn’t want to freeze to death, and what the hell—I
like
beauty. (Don’t tell anyone, but I’m glad I’m not a heroin addict.)

As soon as I got back to the apartment, my freezing gypsy-macho self was sipping hot chocolate with mini-marshmallows.
It was impossible for me not to notice that my heart was racing. I could barely speak because each word was interrupted with a fluttering heartbeat. I stealthily put my hand to the pulse on my neck and realized, doing the math, my heart was pounding over 200 beats per minute. (Take your pulse for 10 seconds; take that number and multiply it by 6 and you’ll get your standing heart rate.)

My mom asked me what was wrong, and I was honest about one thing, “I don’t think I’m authentic enough for this part. I’m not… gypsy-like. I heard Eric Roberts told them to ‘go screw themselves’ and didn’t even bother to come to the audition. That’s the attitude they’re looking for… I’d never do that. It’s unprofessional.”

It only took a few hours for Los Angeles to get the news and relay it back to me: “The part’s going to Eric Roberts. He’s had a tough life. Family, drugs. You’re just too
soft
, Robby.”

“But I went to the audition—he didn’t!”

“Exactly.” (Huh?)

My heart raced at 200 beats per minute for six hours before it finally decided (like an on/off switch) to go back to 50 beats a minute.
Too soft? Let’s see Eric Roberts’ heart beat at 200 beats per minute and give a performance that wouldn’t frighten the people he loved.

I had to calm down. I needed to ‘see’ beautiful things.

My heart was becoming a very real issue in everything I did. How long could I hide it from everyone? How long could I follow the advice of old pros like John Marley who warned, “If you ever have a problem with your heart, don’t let these show biz bastards know—or you’ll
never
work again.”

music & photography for all slideshows by the author

George Schaefer, with whom I had a wonderful experience
on
The Last of Mrs. Lincoln
, wanted to shoot the definitive version of Thornton Wilder’s
Our Town
for television.

The cast would feature some terrific stage actors, including Sada Thompson and the great Hal Holbrook (who I later directed in
Evening Shade
). And it was another chance to work with Glynnis O’Connor. Maybe now we could be more than ‘just friends’...

In a letter that Mr. Schaefer sent to the cast, he told us that we were to show up on day one having memorized the version of
Our Town
that Thornton Wilder was most proud. We all did.