The Acting Gig

One morning, I woke up and started to pull myself up to get ready for my next acting gig.  I dragged myself across my New York flat, sleepily trying to get around for a shoot that begins at 7 AM.  There was no one there to prod me along, and I had failed to set the alarm.  I had just enough time to drag a comb across my head, and get on my way.

My parents were not thrilled with me when I chose to go to Northwestern instead of the University of Michigan.  But it had one of the best Drama programs in the country, and I was determined to be an actor. So I went against their advice of having a backup plan, and went all in on acting.

It didn't look like it was going to pay off.  I connected better with audiences than with the professors, not getting the hang of whatever acting exercises they insist I do.  I was often criticized for over-acting, and my sense of stage directions were pretty poor.  My penchant for slapstick did not impress them.

I graduated, and there was nothing for awhile.  It looked my parents and professors were right.  But I managed to get an apprenticeship with The Second City comedy troupe in Chicago.  I worked and learned alongside John Belushi, Gilda Radner, Dan Akroyd, Bill Murray and others, and slowly became a better actor and improvisational talent.

I was part of the second wave of Second City actors to join the cast of Saturday Night Live.  I became famous for several character roles, including Senator Foghorn Leghorn, the Dungeon & Dragons nerd Maizey Adams, and Zaldar, Supreme Brother to the Supreme Ruler of the Coneheads.

It was only a few years before I got the big head, and decided I would parlay my success into a movie career.  Some of my movies did fair, but most were pretty poor.  My ability to command a movie as a lead proved to be non-existent.  The Howard the Duck fiasco, and a brief fling with Lea Thompson, proved to be a big film career ender.

I had tried drugs for a while, but what happened to my friend John Belushi straightened me out.  I went from one bad marriage to another, threatening to tie Larry King and Mickey Rooney in the number of marriages, never quite seeming to find the right person.

I went from a headliner to a character actor, where I probably belonged anyways.  I did a lot of guest roles on television, particularly crime dramas like Law and Order and Hill Street Blues.  I did have a six episode arc as a crazy judge on L.A. Law.

And now I had finally snagged a recurring role on America's number one new sitcom, I'll Take Manhattan, starring three sisters who were like younger versions of the Golden Girls, played by Taryn Spires, Marisa Williams and the funniest actress in America, superstar Chelsea Nelson.  All three competed for the attention of their rich father's attorney, played by Weston Manders.  And who played their father?  Well, not me.  I was the doorman at their apartment building.  I had basically one line that became a catch phrase - "It's a fine morning to raise hell in New York, ain't it, girls?"

Four of our leads all came from the same area of far off Georgia, near some swamp or something, as if that place was the 21st century version of Second City.  But they were all great kids, and it was an easy gig making good money.  I vaguely felt like I knew them from someplace else, but that was impossible.

That day we had a visitor on set, someone from their home swampland, someone named Alison something.  She was beautiful, and she unexpectedly took my breath away.  She had a boy with her, a fine young man in his early teens.  I had no children of my own, no permanent relationship.  The pangs of regret, that I had missed out on something important, ran through me so strongly that I kept botching my signature line, enough that the Director had to have a "talk" with me.

I worked up the nerve to ask her to dinner, but she said she had to fly back that night, back to the swampland and her husband.  Then she was gone from my life.

Until I woke up the next morning, and she was beside me.  And the handsome boy was mine and hers, and I had two other boys as well.  My career was not exciting, but I was loved and respected, and I still got onstage once in awhile.

It felt good to wake up where I belonged.