Stories I Only Tell My Friends: An Autobiography (5 page)

My dad and my new stepmother, Kay, had a baby boy named Justin about a week before Chad and I returned. We all shared a room and Chad and I took turns giving him bottles. I was happy to be back with this branch of the family, but could have done without having a screaming baby as an alarm clock.

When I called the man who ran Peanut Butter and Jelly, he told me that the group wasn’t doing any performances “at the moment” and there was nothing on the horizon. It was strange. I had known this man for years and had never heard him use this kind, patient, and encouraging tone of voice with me. It would take me years of working in Hollywood to recognize this truth: When someone in the entertainment business (even in Dayton, Ohio) uses this tone with you, nine times out of ten they’re lying. And indeed he was. Peanut Butter and Jelly was playing all around Dayton. They just didn’t want me back.

After a month, Chad and I returned to Malibu, and only then did I realize that I was already beginning to prefer it to Dayton.

Malibu summers were epic. Each day was cookie-cutter consistent: eighty degrees and sunny, no thick midwestern humidity and no rain—ever. I had made some friends and we would spend endless hours exploring the mysterious overgrown gullies that ran to the ocean and bodysurfing in the crystal waves that made Malibu famous.

A ninth-grade girl had taken an interest in me, and I often rode my bike to her house to fool around with her. Like Julie the Jitterbug, she took great pleasure in teaching me the finer points of what my parents would probably call “heavy petting.” She was not, by any means, one of the girls in the popular set. In fact, I took a lot of shit for being linked with her, which seemed unfair to both her and me. We were both misfits in a way, which made us a good match. And let’s face it, when a ninth-grader is interested in a seventh-grader, it’s pretty cool.

As the summer drew to a close, I somehow got invited to the birthday party of the Queen Bee of Malibu Park Junior High “in crowd”—a stunning blonde, sometime teen model, and surf goddess. Pulling out of the driveway, I had my mom stop to check the mailbox, as was my custom since I wrote my letter to Aaron Spelling. It had been well over six months, but I still held out hope. And today, amazingly enough, I was rewarded.

Dear Rob,

I was happy to receive your letter. You seem like a very nice young man and I would welcome you to visit me at the studio anytime, providing it is fine with your parents. Please call ahead though.

Sincerely,

Aaron Spelling

P.S. I have a funny feeling you might have my job one day!

I was floored. It was on 20th Century Fox stationery! It was better than a letter from President Ford, as at the moment, Spelling was probably more powerful and popular than Ford.

At the party no one cared. The cool kids of the seventh and eighth grades were much more focused on the top-secret gift the birthday girl was sharing with everyone. It was a tiny amber-colored bottle with a black lid, filled with some sort of white powder. I asked Peter the Surfer what it was. “It’s coke, you idiot.” I didn’t know what he meant but knew enough to get that it was clearly a drug of some sort. By then, I was used to seeing kids smoke pot. A number of them had brought their parents’ “water pipes” to school and often set up a rudimentary bazaar on the lawn at lunch where the devices were traded and sold. But this was different. Since I was an outsider anyway, no one invited me to join them and the amber-colored bottle in the bathroom.

*   *   *

I never told my mom or Steve what I saw at the party. Parents were rarely seen in Malibu. The kids lived
Lord of the Flies
style, running their own programs without any apparent interference from an adult—ever. And so, like any good chameleon, I began to do the same. And Mom and Steve were perfectly happy to let both my brother and me have freedoms that would be unimaginable today. Chad and I would take the bus twenty-five miles to Santa Monica alone, then catch three other connections for the additional fifteen miles through the wasteland of downtown Los Angeles to go to Dodgers games.

At one such game, a group of fans got belligerent with Chad for wearing a Yankees hat (even though we were Cincinnati Reds fans). Things were getting ugly when a guy stepped in and rescued my brother and me from the mob. Turns out he was a Yankees fan himself. We thanked him profusely and he just laughed and said, “You are cool kids. Maybe you want to come visit me at work. I’m a head puppeteer on the Muppets.”

“The Muppets! Hell, yes, we’d like to visit the Muppets,” we exclaimed. And so, a few weeks later, we did.

It was my first time on a soundstage. As Mom and Steve drove us through the guard gate, I felt a rush of adrenaline, a stirring so profound I felt almost light-headed. I was entering the inner sanctum of moviemaking. My first step into the world I wanted so much to be a part of.

On the set we watched Frank Oz perform Miss Piggy. The legendary Jim Henson himself sat on his director’s chair with Kermit the Frog on his right hand. They were shooting a beautiful, and strangely sad, music number called “The Rainbow Connection” for what was to be known as
The Muppet Movie
. Our new friend from the Dodgers game, Richard, operated Scooter.

A few weeks later we got another invitation from Richard. For the first (and, I think, only) time in the show’s history, a puppet would fill in for Johnny Carson as the host of
The Tonight Show
. Kermit the Frog would have the honors, and we were invited to be in the audience. Obviously, we went.

Backstage, after the taping of the show, there was a small party. A gregarious man with a Santalike beard greeted me. He introduced himself. “I’m Bernie Brillstein, I produce
The Muppet Show
. I hope you’ve had a good time.”

A full twenty years later, he would not only become my manager but a surrogate father as well. Bernie also represented all the cast of the hot new show
Saturday Night Live
. At the time, I repeated the entire content of each show every Sunday morning, verbatim, to my nonplussed mother. I worshipped Dan Aykroyd and Chevy Chase. I even won the Malibu Park Junior High talent show with my own version of Aykroyd’s classic sketch Bass-O-Matic that year. So the sight of John Belushi staring at me from across the party froze me in my shoes. This time there would be no going over to him and striking up a conversation. He was the biggest thing on television and I was way too intimidated. But Belushi kept staring. Was he mad that a kid was backstage at this VIP party? Did he want me kicked out? I had no idea, but was about to find out, as he began to make a beeline for me.

“Hey, kid,” he said gruffly.

“Um, yes, Mr. Belushi?”

“What’re you doin’ here?”

“We were in the audience tonight.”

“Oh,” he said. He was jittery, vibrating with a weird energy.

“What do you want to be when you grow up?” he asked, softening with a smile.

“I want to be an actor. Like you.”

He looked at me for a long-drawn-out moment and, at once, I knew I had said something wrong. His entire face fell, and his mood darkened in an instant. Then he pulled me close and whispered in my ear in a voice so thick I almost couldn’t understand him, “Stay out of the clubs.”

I should have listened. Instead, I got my first agent.

CHAPTER
5

I am standing on the roof of a run-down barn in our backyard corral. Below me, Chris Penn and my brother Chad are setting up an 8 mm camera. Chris is directing me in our mutually produced version of
The Six Million Dollar Man
. Chris has learned from his father, Leo, a noted television director, the intricacies of special effects and has concocted a plan for me (as Colonel Steve Austin) to leap two stories to the top of the barn roof. Unfortunately for me, it will require me to jump off the roof, backward. The film will then be reversed, making it appear that I have leaped up instead of down.

Chad takes pity on me and drags a moldy old beanbag chair we found in the garage and places it underneath me to break my fall. High up on my perch I can see all the way to the ocean; there is a nice breeze at my back. I look down at the beanbag and think: I betcha Leo Penn ain’t asking his stuntman to jump into any beanbag chairs! Any normal person would tell Chris Penn to come up and do it himself. Alas, I’m deeply competitive, an adrenaline junkie, and never back down from a challenge. I’m also happy he has finally included me in one of the Penn-Sheen movie epics they’ve been filming all around the neighborhood. If I were to defer, I’m sure Sean or Charlie or Emilio would get the nod for this plum role.

“And … action!” Chris yells, looking through the camera.

I glance at my brother, who turns away.
Fuck it, how bad could it be?
I think, and I spring out, off my toes, facing away, but aiming for the beanbag, trying to clear the roof’s overhang. I hit the beanbag dead center. I feel a snap in my ankle, followed by a white-hot pain. Immediately I know it’s broken.

On some level you have to be crazy to be an actor. You must have a masochistic streak to deal with the rejection in failure and the unrelenting scrutiny in success. You must be able to shut off your logical brain; the voice that reminds you “two-thirds of the Screen Actors Guild makes less than a thousand dollars a year, get a
real
job” or “don’t jump off this roof, you moron!” But if acting truly is your calling, if it’s really in your blood, you will have these tragic/heroic flaws in spades. And when you are filming a scene or a stunt, even for an eighth-grade home movie, and break an ankle, you won’t ask for a doctor; you will ask: Did you get the shot? And if the answer is yes, there will be no more pain, only euphoria.

I had just acquired an agent. Looking for advice, I cold-called a girl in my neighborhood who had played Cloris Leachman’s daughter on a TV show. She told me that no one goes anywhere in Hollywood without an agent. Fortunately my dad had an ex-client who had relocated to L.A. and was a junior agent at a small agency. I went to their office, located in a tiny building on Melrose Place (yes, there is a real Melrose Place) and met the woman who would become my first agent. Soon I was hopping on the bus after school, heading to Hollywood for my first professional auditions. Sometimes I would be on various buses for three hours (one way!) and in the audition for thirty seconds—literally. Since I was so inexperienced, the parts were really nothing more than background or “extra” opportunities or commercials. They would call your name, take a Polaroid, and send you on your way. But I didn’t care; I did my homework on the rides home, wolfed down a meal, and went straight to bed, as it was always late by the time I made my way back to Point Dume.

In spite of being on crutches after my big stunt jump, I still managed to catch my buses into Hollywood for the occasional audition. So far, there were no takers. Maybe it was due to my amateurish eight-by-ten, which in those days was called “a composite” because it had a number of different photos on it, meant to represent different sides of your personality. Mine had photos of me skateboarding, and dressed up as a magician and as a soccer player. Unfortunately, the photographer who shot me didn’t have any wardrobe or “props,” and I didn’t know to provide my own. So, as the magician, instead of from a top hat, I was shot pulling a rabbit out of a stupid-looking bucket hat like Gilligan wore, and holding a basketball, but dressed in my soccer outfit. Even then I knew my composite was a disaster, but my agent told me “no one cares about those kinds of things.” It may very well have been the first time I was encouraged to discount my instincts in favor of expedience, but it would not be the last. I wish I had known what I know now; trust your gut always. After all, it won’t be anyone but you looking like an idiot holding a basketball while dressed like Pelé.

*   *   *

At school we all began to buzz about Halloween, which was fast approaching and was a big deal on Point Dume. It was a perfect excuse for the already wild and lawless bands of kids to run amok, dousing tires with gasoline and rolling them down the streets into crowds of unsuspecting children, filling gas tanks with sugar, and egging people in the face at point-blank range. Shaving cream was used as mace. It was Christmas morning for bullies.

And, truth be told, I was not immune to the thrill of low-grade anarchy myself. I also would be appropriately armed for my own defense if needed. Stocked with a dozen eggs and a full canister of Barbasol, I met up with a group of kids to make our rounds. It was a perfect, dry, breezy, moonless night. None of us wore costumes; that was for kids, not young men on a mission. If we felt like trick-or-treating, we might pull out a twenty-cent mask, if needed.

My first stop was the Sheens’ house. Knocking on the door, I hoped I might get a glimpse of the by-now legendary Martin Sheen, who recently returned from his two-year odyssey of making
Apocalypse Now
. There were rumors that the movie had almost killed him and that he might have gone insane while shooting it in the fetid jungle of the Philippines. Although I’d spent some time with Charlie and Emilio making our amateur movies, they never discussed their father. I was even more curious about him when I learned that he, too, had begun his acting career in his hometown of Dayton, Ohio.

My friends and I waited at the door, but no one answered. So we moved on to other homes and an egg-throwing scrimmage or two. As we plotted our next move, a figure jumped out of a bush, scaring us to death.

“What ya boys doin’?” demanded a man dressed from head to toe in army fatigues and wielding a gigantic baseball bat.

“N-n-nothing, just trick-or-treating,” we answered. The man leaned in to have a closer look. In the blackness it appeared that he might have war paint on his face, but it was hard to tell.

“This is
my
neighborhood. I am on patrol tonight! There will be no monkey business on my watch! Do you understand?” He looked at my friends, who said nothing.

“Do you understand!?” he said again, this time looking at me.

“Yes, sir,” I answered, knowing that it was probably a good idea to use “sir” when confronted in the dark by a bat-swinging, army-uniformed dude with security on his mind.

“Good,” he said, and he smashed his bat on the pavement, making us jump. “I’ll be watchin’.”

And with that he turned and disappeared into the darkness. When the coast was clear, one of my friends exhaled and chuckled. “Hey, Lowe, you said you wanted to meet Martin Sheen? Well, now you have.”

*   *   *

One morning I sat on the school bus, with my crowd of kids in the “economy class” area, and talked and studied as usual. But back in the VIP area, something was up. Over the din of the radio playing “If You Leave Me Now” by Chicago, you could hear crying and frantic whispering. I craned my head to see what the commotion was, but the bus was packed and I couldn’t see. As we emptied out into the school parking lot, I saw the blonde surfer girl who’d had the birthday party with the amber bottle. She was the one who had been crying. The rest of the surf gang was skittish and ashen faced. What the hell was up?

By second period everyone knew. As usual, there was no adult or authority figure stepping up to give guidance or information, so the news spread kid to kid. Peter, the golden Surf God, was missing. There were dark rumors that he might have been in some terrible accident. By lunchtime, sheriffs were taking members of Peter’s gang to the principal’s office for questioning. By the final bell that day it was clear: Peter had disappeared and no one knew where or why.

Bad things happen to kids every day. It is the core-shaking truth. We don’t like to face it. We will do anything to avoid it, and we attempt to find comfort in the knowledge that it is, mercifully, fairly infrequent. But in the beautiful idyll of Point Dume, above the forgotten Chumash burial grounds, there was a savage undercurrent running through the lives of the boys and girls of those endless summers. Some of the blame falls to the parents, the checked-out, live-and-let-live generation who came of age at Woodstock. Some of it falls to the kids themselves—unformed, undisciplined, unsupervised, and wrestling with all the promise and angst of their tender possibilities. But some of it, and maybe a lot of it, came from environment. And Malibu, with its beautiful facade covering its complex, dangerous underbelly, was an environment with the energy field of seven supernovas. Peter was the first one to be sucked into the vortex.

They had all ditched school the day before. Surf was up, sun was out, and the party was on. At Zuma Beach they laid out their towels. I probably could have seen them out the bus window if I had been looking. Peter, his girlfriend, and the others of his group stripped off their clothes. Some of them swam. Some of them baked in the Southern California sun. There was pot. One of the kids pulled out a bottle of Quaaludes. Soon darkness was upon them.

Under questioning late the next day, the order of events became clear. They had all fallen asleep or passed out on the beach. All except Peter, who, high on Quaaludes, went for a swim. When they awoke, he was gone. They searched for hours. The kids would have to be home soon and they began to panic. Peter’s clothes were lying on his towel where he had left them. In an effort to avoid getting in trouble, they dug a hole. They collected his clothes and towel and buried them. Their plan was to deny any involvement in whatever might have happened to Peter. And the plan held together for twenty-four hours, until someone cracked.

Peter was never found. Later, they created a small park in his honor in front of the Malibu Cinema. His friends marked their loss by creating a touching and profoundly creepy ritual: The cool crowd held “Peter’s seat” empty on the bus each day, preventing anyone from sitting in his spot in back by the window. He was fourteen years old.

*   *   *

Although my mom’s health seemed to be much better, she and Steve dug into her obsession with alternative medicines and holistic treatments. She devoured medical books and self-help books and began to delve deeply into analysis, reading everything from the otherworldly (
Seth Speaks
) to the scholarly (the entire canon of Carl Jung). Our dinner-table talks were peppered with phrases like “the collective unconscious,” and Steve and my mom deconstructed their nightly dreams like another couple might rehash a good movie. Mom redoubled her journal writing and her dream diary, and began writing short stories, novels, you name it. She was now spending at least four hours a day, every day, behind closed doors, writing. If there was ever any finished project to read, we didn’t know about it or were not allowed to read it. Once, when I asked my mom why she worked so hard at writing, but (from my perspective) had nothing to show for it, she said, “I don’t write for a result. I write for the process and what it teaches me about myself.”

Meanwhile, I wasn’t acting at all (unless you count our homespun
Six Million Dollar Man
). There was no setup for local theater in Southern California. Back in Ohio, I could do summer stock and plays at the community and university theaters. But L.A. was different. (To this day the theater scene is an afterthought.) Until I cracked into “real” show business, I would have to be content to sit on the sidelines and be satisfied with chance encounters with people who were already in the game—the sort of thing that can only happen in and around Hollywood.

Steve’s brother and sister-in-law visited us from time to time and told us stories of their adventures as starving artists in the bohemian world of avant-garde filmmaking and rudimentary animation. Both graduates of the prestigious CalArts, they were among a small group of animators pioneering a new process known as rotoscope, which in 1977 was the CGI of its day. For months they bitched about their latest job, a cheap, low-budget movie that they described as a “cheesy Western” set in outer space. Regardless of their complaining, a movie’s a movie and I wanted to check it out.

On the big day, the family piles into our Volvo station wagon. (Whoever sold the American public on Volvo being the standard of safety and reliability never drove our car. It sucked!) We drive to a seedy, run-down industrial area of the San Fernando Valley, populated by Mexican “chop-shops,” porn distribution warehouses, and abandoned garages. Finally we are let into a large cinder-block building through an industrial metal sliding garage door by a guy who looks like Jerry Garcia. Inside, my stepaunt and uncle are waiting.

“
This
is where you’re shooting the movie?” I ask. The place looks more like a hideout for the Symbionese Liberation Army. Jerry Garcia explains that shooting for the movie itself is finished and this is where the special effects are being added.

“Why does it smell bad?” Chad asks.