Serving Celebrities: The Complete Collection (2 page)

On this afternoon, it is just her and me as lunch was winding down. I noticed Joni entering the smoking section of the patio; she waved to me and took her favorite table. Ditzy waitress went over got her coffee order and I went about my business. One part of the job of being the day bartender is that you have to inventory and stock the bar every day for the night bartenders. I had done my list and headed upstairs to get whatever booze we needed to replace. As I passed the ditzy waitress, who was talking to Joni, something caught my attention. I was half way up the stairs to the office when I realized, “She wasn’t telling Joni Mitchell she shouldn’t smoke, was she?” When I came back down from the office with my bottles of liquor Joni was sitting alone, still smoking, but seeming cold.

It bugged me and finally I called the ditzy waitress over to the bar. I said, “Ditzy waitress (actually, I used her name) I didn’t just hear you telling a customer who is sitting in the smoking section that they shouldn’t smoke -- especially if that customer is a pop music legend?” She looked at me, the little birds that I imagined were buzzing around her head began chirping and she said “No, Bill. I would never say that.” I stared at her until the birds stopped chirping and said, “You know that it’s none of our business as long as she’s in the smoking area.” Ditzy waitress who would at times sit with me at lunch telling me how unhealthy my lunch was and how soon it was going to clog up my veins and stop my heart said, “I would never do something like that, Bill.” Pretending to be reassured I said, “Good. We want Ms. Mitchell to keep coming back.”

Joni never came back after that. When the restaurant eventually went out of business the big question in the last few days was who gets the Joni Mitchell pictures? I’m pretty sure they were divided up between the owners and I hope they still have them. Me, I still have the fond memories of that dirt-bag’s, trash-picking, puke-incrusted hand, hitting my cheek. The more I write about this, the more I want to name the ditzy waitress -- don’t ever say I’m without self-control.

Bill Murray Running Wild

O
nce when I was driving a cab in New York City, I picked up a guy who looked just like Bill Murray. As we made our way uptown, I kept looking back at him in the backseat. Probably getting annoyed; he leaned forward to look at my hack license and exclaimed, “You’re Bill -- I’m Bill, too.” “I know who you are,” I answered, “You’re Bill Murray.” The guy leaned back in his seat and replied, “No, I’m not.” My catchy comeback was, “Yes, you are.” He hit me with another, “No, I’m not.” We continued this way for about twenty blocks before he said, “You know how I can prove I’m not Bill Murray?” “How?” I asked. He said, “It’s easy, Bill Murray can’t dance and I’m a really good dancer.” What do you say to that? “Okaaay…” I stopped and let him off where he wanted to go. After he paid me, he danced to the front door of the building -- it was Bill Murray.

Years later, when I was working at the Sunset Marquis, I would run into him again. This time, he was a guest at the hotel. As part of working room service, I had to deliver amenities, small gifts, from the hotel to the guests. When I first started at the hotel; the amenities were two bottles of wine (one red, one white) and a good size box of Sees chocolates -- by this point the amenities had become two small bottles of Volvic water and a box of six Sees chocolates. It was pretty embarrassing to deliver these measly gifts so we would try to deliver them in the early afternoon, before the guests had checked into their rooms.

Unfortunately, Bill checked into his room before I could drop them off. As a security guard (who was there to let me in the rooms) and I approached the door to Murray’s room, I hid the bottles of wine that were being delivered to guests who were friends of the management or sales team in the bottom of the room service cart, so that he couldn’t see what stingy bastards we really were.

My knock on the door was answered with a loud shout of, “WHAT IS IT NOW!” I yelled back through the door, “It’s room service. I have some amenities for you.” Suddenly, the door swung open and there stood Bill, smiling happily. “Amenities -- for me?” he exclaimed and took the embarrassingly small bottles of water and chocolates from me. There were six other people in the room who were his audience. “Aw, Bill -- you shouldn’t have,” he said, reading my name tag. He reached over, gave me a big hug and then hugged Gustavo, the security guard. “I love you guys.” He took our piteously cheap gifts into the room and displayed them to all his guests, telling them, “Don’t ask me for some -- they’re gifts from Bill and the hotel.” After everyone took a good look at the water and chocolates, Murray asked, “Hey Bill, can you get us some liquor?”

Now this was a gift to me. “Sure,” I said, “What would you like?” “How about a bottle of Absolut and a bottle of Jack Daniels?” he answered, still dancing around the room, entertaining his friends. I looked to Gustavo, a man in his forties, who had just emigrated from Guatemala a few years before. Gustavo had a look of amusement that said, “Crazy gringos -- I love this country.” I told Bill Murray that I would be right back with the liquor.

A note on ordering liquor from room service, most hotels charge you by the shot when you order a bottle of liquor. So rather than paying for a bottle of Absolut, you’re actually paying for twenty-three shots of premium vodka, tax, room service charge and a twenty percent gratuity (that automatically goes to me)… and hopefully another tip on top of that. For me, a bottle of liquor from room service was about the same tip as on a dinner for two in the restaurant, with a lot less work… and two bottles -- I think you can see where I’m going.

I went immediately from Bill Murray’s room to the bar… to the storage room… to the butler’s pantry… and back to room service... to call Bill Murray and tell him that this was the only hotel in Los Angeles that didn’t have a full bottle of either Absolut or Jack Daniels. But I did offer to go out and get them for him. “Nah” he said, “It would probably be cheaper if I just bought them somewhere else.” My greedy little heart broke. “I’m sorry” …and I was truly, deeply sorry. He hung up. I could tell from the guest list that he was only staying one night -- I figured it was the last I would hear from him…

I was wrong. It was a very busy night for room service; I was in and out the kitchen. At one point, as I was returning to the kitchen, I noticed Bill entertaining some of the guests in the hotel’s small bar (this was before the Whiskey Bar opened in the hotel). Bill was telling a story and a group of young, hot, model-types were laughing, hysterically.

When you are doing room service; the key is to drop off an order to a room and on the way back pick up any discarded trays off the floor of the hall so that you don’t fall too far behind. Later, as I was returning with a bunch of dirty trays on my shoulder, I walked into a hallway where Bill was about to start a foot race down the hall.

Just as I came around the corner, Bill waved a dinner napkin and yelled, “They’re off!” Four very hot and attractive young women, all in little black dresses and fuck me pumps, dashed down the hall towards me. “Watch out for Bill,” Bill Murray yelled. I ducked into the alcove of a guest room, as the herd of clumping models rumbled past. “Oh, Monica pulls it out.” Bill Murray exclaimed, as I past him, heading back to the kitchen. “I was sure Brittany would do better -- look at those haunches,” announced Bill.

Later, while delivering a room service order, I spotted Bill and two of the models standing on the side of the pool. The models at this point had lost a lot of their hotness since they were all sweaty and obviously drunk. Passing them, I could overhear Bill saying, “No, it will be fun -- no one will see.” I walked briskly to the room to deliver the dinner, I was carrying on my shoulder.

I was never a big fan of this job, but one of the perks was, as a representative of the hotel, part of my job was to inform naked models that they couldn’t us the pool at night since there was no life guard on duty. I then had to stand at the side of the pool as they got out, gathered their clothes and got dressed -- to make sure they didn’t drown. I’m not sure where it was in the employee handbook but I’m sure it was there somewhere. When guys were caught skinny-dipping, I usually sped by and shouted “Get out of the pool before I call security,” and kept going.

After dropping off the order, I made my way back to the pool where Bill was now standing in just his pants and the two models were down to the bras and panties. All three of them had their eyes closed. As I came approached, I could hear Bill say, “All right, we’ll all take off our clothes on the count of three and jump in.” He gave a quick “One, two, three,” count and the two women undid their bras, stepped out their underwear and jumped into the pool.

Bill opened his eyes and smiled at me, caught. He bent down and quickly gathered up his clothes saying, “I can’t be doing this… I’m married,” then rushed back into the hotel. The two models emerged from under the water, looking around for Bill Murray. They looked at each other, standing naked in the shallow end of the pool. I leaned down, with a few used trays balanced on my shoulder and said, “You’re going to have to get out of the pool. There’s no life guard on duty.”

As the two incredibly hot models climbed out of the pool and got back into their clothes, I wondered which would have been better, the tip for the liquor or the reverse strip-tease I was getting. Of course, if the dumb-ass bartender had his shit together, I could have had both.

When my shift was over, I passed the bar where Bill was leading everyone in a chorus of the “Day-o” song. The next day, I was told that, besides the singing, Murray had people knocking on doors and running away, carrying on with other disruptive behavior, that the general manager was trying to decide if the hotel should bar him from coming back again. This was a big deal because I’d seen some guests do some wild shit and not get eighty-sixed. The only celebrity I knew who was banned from the Sunset Marquis was Rodney Dangerfield, coincidentally, also over swimming naked -- during a busy brunch. Myself, I had no problem with Bill Murray… though he’s not much of a dancer.

Al Pacino is My Co-pilot

T
he first time I saw Al Pacino in the flesh was in a performance of David Mamet’s “American Buffalo,” at the quaint, Circle in the Square Theatre, in the Village. If you were lucky enough to see that performance, you probably would never forget Pacino’s entrance - so relaxed, so big, as he gave his “Fuckin’ Ruthie -- Fuckin’ Ruthie,” introduction - pure Pacino, pure Mamet. Al not only blew me away with his entrance; but I swear, he spit on everyone in the first ten rows of the audience, trying to project his voice.

Later, when I was cast in a production of
Waiting for Lefty
, I found out that spitting was one of the things some actors did during long runs, to keep themselves interested when they were getting bored by their performances (though, I’m not claiming this was what Al was doing). Of course, no acting school would condone this behavior but it does happen. I’ve been in performances where guys would point out the cleavage of women in the audience or would ‘accidentally’ grope the leading lady or just screw with the other actors (hiding their props, intentionally stepping on someone else’s lines, looking bored, making faces when hidden from the audience).

The messing with the other actors is usually a red flag that the production is about to close. I was once in a production where I had a quick change and needed an actress to help me change my pants, while I did up a bowtie. Starting in dress rehearsals, I began wearing stranger and stranger underwear. It started with underwear containing many holes, went to a jockstrap, a French-cut bathing suit and finally to a pair of passion-red satin ladies underpants. She got the last laugh; she didn’t do up my fly with the red panties. After the performance, everyone wanted to know what I was wearing under there.

I digress... back to Al and American Buffalo. A few years later, I was driving a checker cab for a living. One night, I was driving past the Booth Theatre on Broadway, where American Buffalo had moved, when this big guy steps out into the street, his arms raised in the air, trying to stop me. The first thing I noticed about this guy, was the shoulder-holster under his jacket. Driving the hack, I was constantly on the alert for weapons, since I didn’t carry one, but this guy was standing directly in front of me, so I had to stop.

The gunman came around to my window quickly and asked, “Do ya wanna take Al Pacino?” Okay, that explains the gun. “Sure,” I said. The guy turned to the front doors of the theater and waved. Six more people rushed out of the theater and proceeded to climb into my cab. Because there were so many people getting in, I had to gather my paper work and change-holder, so that the big guy and someone else could jump in up front with me.

When everyone was in the cab, the big guy gave me an address in the Village and I started out towards Broadway. It was pretty quiet in the car; some of the people in the back were quietly talking. As I drove, I kept glancing into the back seat to see where Al was sitting. After a few blocks, I realized that Al wasn’t in the backseat at all. Once more, the dumb guy from Massachusetts is taken in by some big guy who will make up any story to get home… and to top it off, this guy was strapping heat. Great -- at least I knew the address he gave me was in a pretty safe neighborhood and that it was well lit. Disappointed and upset at myself for getting into this situation, I turned to my right to see what the big guy was doing and if he had any intentions of going for his gun. When I looked over; I was surprised to find Al sitting beside me, in between me and the big guy, probably his bodyguard.

When I recognized Al, he gave me a small nod, “hi.” I said, “hi,” back and told I him I had seen the production at the Circle in the Square and how much I liked it. He was very nice and thanked me. I decided not to go into the spitting and asked him how the Broadway production was going. He said fine, they were getting good houses and everyone seemed happy about it. I knew the reviews were very positive and it was the talk of the theater world. I finally got them to where they were going and the big guy paid me. Al shook my hand and thanked me for the ride, as he got out of the cab.

When I got home that night, I told one of my roommates, who was such a big Pacino fan, that when he acted in acting class he would try to imitate Al’s mannerisms. Every guy in my acting school pretty much imitated some famous actor. I used to brood like De Niro but fortunately no one knew what the hell I was doing, so they just thought it was my own bad acting. He had also seen “American Buffalo” four times. My roommate was thrilled by my story so I had to add that Al spit all over me when giving directions and that the spitting in the show may not have been just to project his voice but that he had some weird saliva problem.

The next day, during a scene in acting class from
All My Sons
, my roommate showered me in spit. Later, I noticed that many of my fellow actors had also taken up the letting-the-spit-fly technique. It got pretty slippery on that stage after a few monologues.