Stories I Only Tell My Friends: An Autobiography (26 page)

I realize it is Lucille Ball. I go and sit with her and she takes my hand and holds it tightly. She says nothing now, but doesn’t let go, and together we watch the broadcast play out on a monitor. After a while she lets go of my hand and asks if I can find her some aspirin.

“My goddamned head is killing me, sweetheart.”

I get Lucy some Tylenol and she kisses me on the cheek. I watch as she goes on to receive her Lifetime Achievement Award to a standing ovation. Within weeks she will pass away.

Every year people debate what’s wrong with the Academy Awards; why are they always so long, so boring, or just plain terrible? Why are viewers so uninterested? I have my theories, but of these two things I am certain. First: Don’t ever try to take the piss out of the Oscars. The ceremony is not merely escapist fare for the average American; it is of cancer-curing importance, an evening of the highest seriousness, to be revered at all costs. I hadn’t realized that. As my teenage sons would say, “My bad.” And second: When Lucille Ball likes what you do, it’s hard to give a shit about anyone else.

*   *   *

I have just finished remodeling my new house in the Hollywood Hills. It’s a quintessential Rat Pack–era bachelor’s pad, chosen by me for its view, privacy, and proximity to the Hard Rock Cafe, the latter criterion most revealing of my current state of mind.

I’m becoming increasingly isolated. I rarely see my family, and I don’t know how to deal with my mother’s unraveling marriage or her deteriorating health. I can’t escape into work, as my Oscar disaster hasn’t done my career momentum any favors. So in this period of malaise, I look to boost my spirits where I can.

I now am on a feel-good treadmill. Long weekends of adventure and imbibing, weekly
Monday Night Football
get-togethers with the boys, which inevitably lead to Tuesday morning sunrises. Romantically, I am all over the map; I date a group of girls who are beautiful and fun-loving and whom I promise nothing. If they would like more of a commitment from me, they aren’t letting me know.

That said, I’m also capable of pushing the boundaries of dating technology. I’ve taken to using MTV as a sort of home-shopping network, and it’s not beneath me to call up to get the contacts on the sexy dancer in the latest Sting video. I find C-SPAN to be useful in this regard as well. Seeing Oliver North’s secretary, Fawn Hall, being sworn in during Iran-Contra, I make a note to track her down. Later I will take her to Jack Lemmon’s Lifetime Achievement Award dinner at the American Film Institute. Future costar Sally Field will give me a Barry Levinsonesque “Whaaaat the fuuuuck” as I breeze by her table with the striking blue-eyed strawberry blonde from the Pentagon.

Like for Warren Beatty in
Shampoo
, whose active love life made him feel “like [he] was going to live forever,” spinning the many plates of my relationships makes me feel engaged and alive. New infatuations give me a rush that my career can no longer provide. I even live up on Mulholland, where Beatty’s character lives at the end of the movie, when he finds himself with nothing to show for his years of skirt chasing.

And, indeed, as my twenty-fifth birthday approaches, I am feeling pretty empty. Sitting with family and friends at the back room at Mateo’s, I feel like I’m turning thirty, or even forty. Not one part of me feels like someone in his midtwenties; I’ve been grinding so long and have traveled so far and seen so much that I’ve doubled the standard emotional mileage. I’m way past warranty.

But if one or two drinks make me feel better, then clearly three or four will
really
do the trick, so I take my medicine well. And why not? Last time I checked it’s still the ’80’s, right?

*   *   *

Finally, a great script comes my way.
Bad Influence
was submitted to producer Steve Tisch by a new young writer as a writing sample. Tisch, showing the kind of wherewithal that would one day make him the only man with both an Oscar and a Super Bowl trophy, says let’s make
this
script. We bring on newcomer Curtis Hanson to direct, and, like Ed Zwick before him, he is launched to the A list and films like
L.A. Confidential
and
8 Mile
.

Bad Influence
is a Faustian story of a meek, regular Joe seduced by a charismatic and possibly dangerous stranger into a life of excitement and sex. Way ahead of its time, David Koepp’s screenplay is a marvel of tension, erotic atmosphere, dark humor, and vengeance fulfillment. I originally want to play the more traditional role of the average Joe, but Koepp takes me to lunch and begs me to play the dark and charming sociopath Alex. (Koepp is smart and the movie’s artistic success will also supercharge his career. He will write
Carlito’s Way
for Al Pacino and a little movie called
Jurassic Park
as his next projects.) By the time coffee arrives, I’ve switched parts and James Spader will eventually play the other.

Curtis Hanson is also a fantastic writer and one of his best additions to the script is the use of a videotape to “bring down” my character. Personal video recorders are the new big thing and entire movies are being made about the phenomenon. In fact, we cast Spader after seeing a rough cut of
Sex, Lies, and Videotape
. During the hilarious and harrowing set piece in the middle of
Bad Influence
, Spader tells my character that his greatest wish is to get out of his impending engagement. So my character, Alex, secretly videotapes him having sex with a girl he provides and shows it as a “special presentation” at his fiancée’s holiday party. Wish granted.

Personal videotaping had rarely been employed as a “gotcha” device in movies, and
Bad Influence
used it perfectly. I related to it as well, since I had been videotaping almost anything that seemed even remotely interesting to me.

Rehearsals are held in a big church just off Highland Avenue in the heart of Hollywood. Just before lunch one day, I’m asked to meet and approve my makeup artist for the film. A production assistant brings her in.

I can’t believe what I’m seeing. Striding toward me on outrageously long legs is a sexy and big-spirited blonde girl, with whom I’d had a blind date years before. It had ended in a sort of confused muddle; both of us were dealing with breakups, and although we hit it off like gangbusters, neither was in any position to make more of a go of it. I vaguely remember her telling me that she was a makeup artist and not taking her seriously. She was far too cute, young, and fun; she hardly fit the middle-aged, union crew members mold I had grown used to.

“Hi, Sheryl,” I say, surprised.

“Hey, Rob, good to see you again,” she says, and I’m struck once again by her big, blue eyes. We make small talk. We’ve both seen each other around the circuit we travel in, and we have many people in common. Eventually, we sit at a long foldout table in the middle of the old church meeting hall to talk about the job at hand.

“What do you want to do with this character?” she asks. “How do you want him to look? ’Cause I have a couple of thoughts.”

At this point in my life I’ve done countless movies and many hours of television, and have worked with many makeup artists, some the best in the business. But not once has one asked me how my character should look. I sit in their chair and they do whatever they do and that is that. I have a thought: This girl
sees
me differently.

And she is different, too. Different from all the other girls in my orbit. As we work together I realize that she is an artist of the face. Later, when she becomes the first choice of every big leading man, including Al Pacino, Alec Baldwin, and Harrison Ford, I will know why. Not only is she great to be around (and let’s face it, beautiful) but she knows her shit
cold.
Go look at Al Pacino in
Glengarry Glen Ross
and you’ll see what she’s capable of.

My character in the film is extremely debauched. He has no boundaries and knows no responsibilities or consequences. I’m digging deep into this world, living this character almost constantly in my own, much less malignant version. And I’m rewarded at every turn, because the performance and the movie are turning out so well.

But when Tom Brokaw leads the evening news with my personal videotape exploit from back in Atlanta, I know I’ve got a problem. When he’s done with me and the
second
story is Tiananmen Square, the first democratic uprising and potential revolution in the six-thousand-year history of China, I know it’s a doozy.

Sometimes being a trailblazer is overrated. If the Kim Kardashians and Colin Farrells and all the like had let their video oeuvre out into the zeitgeist before me, mine may have been met with a mere titillated shrug. But in 1989 it wasn’t yet common, or even possible, for young couples to “sext” and Skype each other with nude tapes and photos. Today, there are people who think nothing of taking a naked pic and sending it to their sweetheart. And for some, having a sex tape is something to aspire to; they are even created for the express purpose of publicity, money, or career advancement. Not so, back in the day.

As I (and a lot of people) struggled to figure out how I stupidly put myself into this videotape mess, I was approached by no less of an authority on sexual mores than Mr. Hugh Hefner. “You had to do it,” he said. “The technology existed!”

The unrelenting media scrutiny and fallout from the videotape debacle will overshadow
Bad Influence
completely. Although very well reviewed, the press coverage is mostly about what an idiot I am, and the movie suffers at the box office as a result. The director gets hot from it, James Spader gets hot from it. For me, it’s another movie that doesn’t perform. That it was released by a tiny independent studio didn’t help matters, but in the end, even a major studio probably couldn’t have overcome the unfortunate nexus of “life imitates art” that I’d created. Depressed and under siege, I stay at home and self-medicate. I make sure that the fun is always on call to keep me from thinking too hard about my bad decisions and the circumstances of my life. I welcome the support of my family and friends, and after years of work and hundreds of miles traveled for so many liberal Democratic candidates and causes, I wait to hear from my many friends in that world. The calls never come.

*   *   *

On a more positive note, to help promote the movie, I am asked to host
Saturday Night Live
for the first time.

Walking into studio 8H, I feel like I’ve conquered show business. Forget my current, stalled movie momentum and role as a public piñata. I’m hosting
Saturday
Fucking
Night Live
, a show I’ve worshipped since its first year on the air back in 1975! Even in my increasingly jaded disillusionment, this opportunity makes me giddy as a kid as I walk the halls of my heroes.

My agents and other advisors beg me not to do the show. Historically, it has been the unmasking of many a star as an unfunny stiff, so they don’t want to take any chances. But I’m a gamer, always the guy to take my shots. Sometimes it blows up in my face (Snow White) but sometimes it can lead to a whole new world.

“Do you want me to write you a ‘Wayne’s World’ sketch or a ‘Sprockets’?” asks Mike Myers, one of the few cast members who writes.

It’s about midnight on Wednesday and I’m in his tiny cubbyhole office. I choose “Sprockets.” I love his character of Dieter, the unisexual, avant-garde German talk-show host with the masturbating monkey. I have no desire to do a “Wayne’s World,” a concept I don’t get at all, although I’ve not seen many sketches.

Mike goes to work, typing underneath a giant poster for the movie
Halloween
that reads, “The Curse of Michael Myers!” This would be the beginning of my part in a number of classic projects made with the magic of Mike Myers and the
SNL
pedigree.

The show will be a huge hit. At one point I play the then massively popular talk-show host Arsenio Hall (complete with giant, fake fingers) and the next day
USA Today
writes about it. No one has seen me like this and suddenly I’m on the radar of Lorne Michaels, who has created more legends in comedy than anyone ever has or will. He is the most important and influential tastemaker and gatekeeper in the comedy universe.

As the famous
SNL
closing theme plays that night, I am elated, having gotten away with what all my advisors had thought so dangerous. I hug my cast mates: Dana Carvey, Adam Sandler, Chris Rock, David Spade, Phil Hartman, and Mike. Lorne chose them from nowhere and now they are the 1927 Yankees. Murderers row. I went to bat with them on live television and in the process discovered that I liked hitting a major-league fastball.

*   *   *

I’m asked to promote
Bad Influence
in Australia with a major press tour followed by a vacation of my choosing as compensation. I can bring one friend. This is going to be a luxurious, exotic trip of a lifetime (I’ve chosen Fiji as the vacation) and I want to bring the right companion. I run a mental checklist of my guy pals as well as some of the girls I’m seeing. Do I go with a lover or with a friend? Then I realize, I have one person in my life who is both.