Master of Ceremonies: A Memoir (14 page)

Dad asked me to join
Borscht Capades
simply because he knew I would enhance the show, and he loved for us to be together, which made my decision not to do it even more difficult. Hal Zeiger, however, was a little less forgiving, calling me an “ungrateful little shit.”

Hal’s comment stung, because of course I felt like an ungrateful little shit. What kind of son was I to hold out on the father who had come to my rescue and shown me unconditional love when I was at my lowest moment, after the cantor? Not to mention that he’d launched my career by having given me a part in his show. Eddie Cantor, William Morris: none of that would have happened without
Borscht Capades
. The guilt only worsened when the show struggled as soon as it arrived on Broadway. Finally, it became too much, and I agreed to come in for a few weeks to help. But it was too late;
Borscht Capades
closed less than three months after it opened.

Dad lost $35,000 and returned to Los Angeles to start all over again. When a bill for an additional $5,000 from the IRS arrived, he had to sell the house on Malcolm Avenue to pay it. Witnessing my father with nothing, after he’d experienced the biggest success of his life with his brilliant comedy records and live show, made me worry about the career to which I was committing myself. But when William Morris called with the next job, another stint at El Rancho, I took it. And when I received that much-needed paycheck, I happily sent Dad a thousand dollars.

“The only suggestion of the appeal,” the
New York Times
critic wrote, “lies in the galvanized miming of a pint-sized newcomer named
Joel Grey
.”

CHAPTER SIX

I was seated in my dressing room in my underwear and still-damp tuxedo shirt after the second show of my act, which I was doing at the Mocambo—the so-of-the-moment nightclub on Sunset Boulevard where the stars (Ava Gardner, Betty Grable, Artie Shaw, and Frank Sinatra) gamboled—when the owner, Charlie Morrison, stuck his head in and announced, “Miss Lana Turner would love for you to join her at her table.”

Smiling at my dumbstruck expression, he added, “So get dressed quickly, young star, and follow me.”

Of course, I knew Lana Turner was in the audience; I saw her ringside the minute I stepped onstage for the late show. I nearly forgot the first lines of my opening song, “The More I See You.”

The more I see you, the more I want you.

Somehow this feeling, just grows and grows

Next to Rita Hayworth, who was so unbelievably sexy in
Gilda
, Miss Turner was my absolute favorite movie star. Her historic ascent to stardom from sipping a soda at the fountain of Schwab’s Pharmacy nearby on Sunset Boulevard was big-time LA lore (she was actually at the Top Hat Malt Shop—but what did that matter?). To my astonishment, she was even more beautiful in person. Luckily, by my third number I was able to restore my professionalism and do one of my better shows, but I remained nervous the entire time.

Now with Mr. Morrison staring at me in my underwear, I realized I had to get moving—towel-off quickly, remove what was left of the pancake, and, oh, yes.… put on some pants!

“You were just wonderful,” Miss Turner, up close and personal, said to me. Not only was the actress beautiful, but she smelled amazing, too. “Where do you get all that energy? And so late at night?”

Gulp

“I dedicated my show to you.”

I hardly noticed that she was sitting with a woman friend until Miss Turner introduced us, adding, “We’re going to my place just up the hill for a nightcap. Would you like to join us?”

Oh, Mommy, would I?

I struggled to get the words out: “That sounds very nice.”

That sounds so lame, Joel
.

Her limo was parked outside, and it was agreed that I’d follow them up the hill in my little VW to her house, which, I’d read in
House & Garden,
was one of the best examples of classic California architecture. Out the big windows overlooking Los Angeles, the city lights seemed to shine all the way west to the Pacific Ocean.

Her butler greeted us with a tray of three glass flutes, but the excellent pink champagne didn’t relax me any. Miss Turner, rumored to have many lovers, particularly favored powerful men, not only in show business—but also, reportedly, in the mob. Seated in her living room, I kept picturing some ruthless gangster storming in to find me sipping champagne with his moll at this unwholesome hour.

After finishing my drink, I looked at my watch (as if I didn’t already know the time) and began apologizing for the hour. “I had no idea how late it was,” I said. “Excuse me; I have two shows tomorrow night. This was so nice of you. You have a wonderful place. Thank you for coming to my show.” I was talking very, very fast and was out the door even faster. I’ll never know where that evening with Miss Tuner could have gone, but driving home I got to thinking that Glenn Ford was unbelievably sexy in
Gilda,
too.

As it turned out, on the same night that Lana Turner had come to the Mocambo, a table of producers and casting agents from Warner Bros. also were checking me out—and would later offer me my first movie role.

About Face
, set in a Southern military school, centered on the lives of cadets bending and breaking the rules during their senior year. The film, a musical-comedy remake of
Brother Rat
, starred Gordon MacRae, Eddie Bracken, and Dick Wesson as the hotshot cadets—and I was cast as the lowly plebe Bender. “Finn out, Bender!” they were always barking at my pathetic character. I might have been playing a twerp, but I was going to be in the movies! I had never even auditioned for a film role before, and this one was offered to me without so much as a screen test. Ever since I had moved to Los Angeles, the movies had always been a fantasy. I felt important with a sticker on my car window that granted me access into the Warner Bros. lot, where I had stood as a kid with my autograph book. My favorite part of the job was the commissary, where I ate lunch right next to the Warner Bros. film players, a who’s who of Hollywood.

There was no doubt that
About Face
was a good break. It was an amusing role, but I was the only cast member with no song, let alone dance number. All of the songs were written for the upperclassmen and their visiting girlfriends. My first movie musical and no music? I wondered,
What would Mickey Rooney do?

I came up with my own number. Approaching the choreographer, LeRoy Prinz, I said, “What would happen if in the scene where Bender’s told, ‘Just remember, you’re nobody’ by one of the cadets, he replies, ‘I’m nobody…’” I then launched into a comedic soliloquy of low self-esteem with a few Jerry Lewis imitations for good measure. (Everyone wanted to be Jerry Lewis back then.)

Mr. Prinz liked the idea a lot. He and I wrote and rehearsed “I’m Nobody” and then went to the head of the studio, who gave us a green light to go ahead and add it to
About Face
. Even though the movie was poorly received when it opened, in the spring of 1952 (the
New York Times
described it as “overstuffed with inane dialogue and feeble gags”), my performance got noticed. “The only suggestion of the appeal,” the
Times
critic wrote, “lies in the galvanized miming of a pint-sized newcomer named Joel Grey … Mr. Grey rates a snappy salute in an entertainment package that deserves nothing more than an overripe raspberry.”

Naturally, I was happy to be noticed in the
Times
, but generally the rule I’ve experienced through my career is that when a movie bombs, you might as well not be good in it. My cameo in
About Face
led to a few television parts, but I still couldn’t seem to get hired in the theater, the only place I really wanted to be.

I spent a lot of time in the office of my splendid agent, Charlie Baker, head of the theater department at William Morris, being upset about parts I didn’t get. And he always tried to cheer me up and on.

“There’s no reason to beat yourself up,” he said sympathetically. “They simply went a whole other way. C’mon, let’s go to the Oak Room. I need a martini.”

Charlie, whose clients included Angela Lansbury, Jack Lemmon, Walter Matthau, and Barbara Cook, was a true gentleman in an often sleazy business. The Harvard-educated World War II Navy lieutenant, well versed in the history of the theater, was elegant and effete to the point of being aristocratic. With his perfect martinis, clothes from J. Press, and country home in Sneden’s Landing, Charlie was known for his taste. He also became a passionate advocate of mine. It was a coup and an honor having him believe in me. However, he seemed to be the only one certain I’d succeed.

My disappointments were many. I had desperately wanted to be in
No Time for Sergeants
, a play about a rube from the sticks and his misadventures as he’s drafted into the Army during World War II. But they wouldn’t see me. I went up for the part of Rolf, the young Nazi who is in love with Liesl in Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein’s
The Sound of Music
. My rendition of “Sixteen Going on Seventeen” didn’t make Mr. Rodgers’s ears perk up any. Even when John Kander—a talented composer and close friend who was at the beginning of his career, accompanied me on the piano for my audition for a show called
Irma la Douce
—I still didn’t get the part.

I had a couple of strikes against me when it came to getting work in the theater. First there was my nightclub act. Having a variety performer in your legitimate show could easily be perceived as déclassé. The other issue was anti-Semitism.

Charlie took me to a party, a seated dinner held at a swell address on the Upper East Side, where blue-blooded theater types engaged in intellectual exchanges about the latest shows. So I was stunned to hear “kike,” the clipped sound of that ugly word, coming forcefully from the mouth of our prominent host. Even more surprising was my response: nothing. I said nothing. After I left the dinner and long after that, I continued beating myself up for not having said
something
.

Hiding or at least not announcing being Jewish was evidence of a deep conflict within me (although I was the son of the most Jewish performer in the business, theater people had no idea who Mickey Katz was). Denying yet another part of myself activated those feelings from childhood that there was something inherently wrong with me. It also finally persuaded me to listen to my agents’ conviction that plastic surgery on my nose would lead to a broader variety of parts. I had fought the idea for a long time. It felt crummy that I had to change such a fundamental part of myself in order to be acceptable. Why was a turned-up Aryan nose better? The answer was a difficult one to face; the pressure to change my nose was about anti-Semitism, and I rightfully hated that idea. Yet I so wanted and needed to work that I went ahead with the surgery.

Of course, Mother was all for it, particularly since she had already had her nose done. In Los Angeles, where plastic surgery was beginning to flourish right along with the palm trees, Mother was one of the first to do it. (Just like with fashion or food, she was always one of the first.) Aunt Jeannie followed by a month, then Aunt Helen, Aunt Fritzi, Aunt Esther, and oh, yes, the baby, Beverly—all of them except Estelle. (Hmm, what did she know?!) They all had plastic surgery for the same reason they had followed us out to California—they didn’t want Grace to have anything that they didn’t. The whole family even went to the same surgeon!

So when I eventually gave in, Mother herself took me to her wonderful Dr. Jessie Fuchs. My entire face was swollen and bandaged after the operation, but Dr. Fuchs assured me that I would be pleased with his work when the swelling went down. It took a good six months for my nose to reveal an ordinary and perfectly generic shape, but in the end I did think it looked fine. More important, I hoped that my new, less ethnic nose could help my career.

Thinking back, I’m certain without the surgery I never would have got the plum part of Jack in NBC’s 1956 telecast of an original musical version of
Jack and the Beanstalk
. With my hair bleached so blond that it was nearly white and my slightly swollen pug nose, I looked like the perfect non-ethnic fairy-tale character. Written by Helen Deutsch, hot after the success of the film
Lili,
starring Leslie Caron,
Jack and the Beanstalk
was an expensive, high-quality production.

The tension on the set right before we went live was high, and all the pressure fell on my shoulders. I was in every scene, singing and dancing. It didn’t help that my understudy had clearly watched
All About Eve
one too many times. All during rehearsals, he kept looking for me to break my leg. I saw out of the corner of my eye, moments before going on air, his face with an incredulous expression that read,
How could you do this to me?

No matter: All went off without a hitch, and it was a giant step. I got good notices. The William Morris crew thought
Jack and the Beanstalk
was going to jettison me into the big time. It didn’t. It brought more television opportunities. The following year, I had a three-episode arc in
December Bride
as the fresh-faced, showbiz-crazy nephew of the sitcom’s star Spring Byington, who was like an older Lucille Ball. Also in 1957, I played a teenage killer who beats up a woman and is on the verge of killing her child in a realistic and violent episode of Bell Telephone’s
Telephone Time
drama series. With my face covered in mud and blood, it was exciting to work against type and play an aggressor, and I got to recover some of my acting chops. Much less enthusiastically, I took a role in the low-budget movie musical
Calypso Heat Wave,
in which I recycled dance steps I had made up for
About Face
. The only memorable thing about the movie was a cameo by Maya Angelou, then a little-known singer who had released a calypso album.