Broadway Tails (25 page)

An hour later we were in the other room. For the spot, Chico had to go to Jerry with a note attached to his collar. I gave Jerry a treat and we rolled
the camera for the first take. Chico ran to Jerry, got the treat, and Jerry took the note off his collar. As Jerry read the note, Chico gave him a look. On the second take, Chico growled as Jerry went toward his neck. I expressed my concern about a third take, but we rolled anyway. Chico growled again, but I was impressed because he didn’t bite. In one week maybe we had taught him to think before biting. We went into the other room to wait. Jerry came in again and Chico ran over to him, acting like a little puppy. He wouldn’t let Jerry pick him up, but he loved being petted by him. Jerry said, “I love this dog. He’s going to be great.” I didn’t have the heart to tell him Chico was still on my “maybe” list.

As for the bulldog, we contacted Karen Massaro, head of the Connecticut branch of the Bulldog Club of America Rescue Network. Karen was a breeder who opened her home to displaced bulldogs. We had used her bulldogs for commercials over the years, and she knew and trusted us. At the time we called, she was holding a bunch of dogs that had been seized from a cruelty case. A farm in northwestern Connecticut had been raided, and in one of the barns were five bulldogs in crates that were being used for breeding. The dogs were in bad shape, and the state police had called Karen to hold them as evidence. One dog was so bad, he had to be euthanized. She kept two of the dogs,
and her staff took the other two. The smallest was a three-year-old female named Zizi.

Like Taco, Zizi was sweet with people but had no idea what the world was. Karen thought she’d be perfect for us, so we became her foster home. Zizi took a while to get used to the furniture, but the biggest thing she had to get used to was freedom. At our house she could run and jump and sleep anywhere she wanted. It was a joy to watch her blossom.

In April of that year we were approved to adopt Taco, who we renamed Teddy. By then we’d had Chico a month, and his behavior was improving, but it was hard to tell if he would be ready by opening night in San Francisco.

Elle Woods was being played by Laura Bell Bundy. The first day of rehearsals for the workshop, she came to us with gifts for Chico—a bowl, a leash, and a collar—which we immediately put on him. It was a gesture that was only the beginning of a great relationship, and Laura was immediately added to Chico’s club. Chico, of course, went crazy when he saw Jerry Mitchell. As promised, we didn’t demand rehearsal with the actors. The dogs were happy being there, and just meeting the people and getting used to the routine was enough.

We explained Chico’s past to the company and asked that they give him space and let him approach on his own time. Chico had learned some basic commands, and in two days of running the opening scene, he was actually doing exactly what was in the script. This dog, that could be petted by only three other people besides Dorothy and me, had learned at a rate that I had never seen before. And three weeks later, he performed flawlessly in front of a room filled with fifty backers. The workshop proved so successful they went full steam ahead with the out-of-town tryout. We would rehearse in New York City, and then go to San Francisco with performances in January and February. There would be a two-week break, two weeks of rehearsal in New York, and then we’d open at the Palace Theater in April.

A photo session was set up for Laura and Chico that became the poster art for the show. In my whole career, a dog’s role was never recognized to
the point that it symbolized the show. It was quite an honor. I felt confident that if he could control his aggression, Chico was our guy.

Because it was a long prep time and a long out-of-town tryout, Dorothy decided to leave her administrative job and work with me. We would turn it into a family adventure. We would pull Jenna, now nine, out of school for six months, tutor her in San Francisco, and then enroll her in New York in the spring. With the two Chihuahuas, bulldog, and understudies, we’d need two handlers. Housing and transportation were almost as expensive as they had been on
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
, and they had not budgeted money for this. The only way to reduce our costs was to use one Chihuahua onstage instead of two and make it a one-trainer show. We’d have to compensate the single trainer for all the extra work with the bulldogs, but we could cut costs on salaries, housing, and travel. My only request was that the managers tell the creators that their artistic vision was being reduced for financial reasons as opposed to our inability to deliver the performances.

While this was going on, I got a call from Mike Nichols. We had stayed in touch and worked together a few times since he had produced
Annie
. He was getting ready to begin shooting a movie called
Charlie Wilson’s War
, staring Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts. A month before shooting, he decided Julia’s character needed dogs and Tom’s character needed cats. At a production meeting he mentioned this detail and finished by saying, “And get this guy Bill Berloni in New York. I’ve worked with him, and he’s great.” The Hollywood people couldn’t understand why, with all the great trainers in LA, he wanted me. The hierarchy in Hollywood is very different than Broadway—animal trainers rank somewhere well below the caterers in importance. But it was an opportunity I couldn’t pass up. I would do anything to work for Mike.

The shooting for
Charlie Wilson’s War
coincided with rehearsals of
Legally Blonde
in New York City, but wrapped the day before the company traveled to San Francisco. Dorothy could set up the rehearsals of
Legally
Blonde
in New York, then she and Jenna would return to the farm when the show went to San Francisco. Universal Pictures agreed to fly me back and forth to New York, first class, in between shots for
Charlie Wilson’s War
. They put me and my trainers up in Beverly Hills for the movie, and the dogs even got their own trailer when we were on location. Thanks to Mike, I was treated like royalty.

We found our second bulldog for
Legally Blonde
through Bulldog Rescue in October. Her name was Chloe. A husband got her in a divorce settlement, and she was living in his garage. He finally decided to give her up. Because she was more outgoing, we decided she would be our performer and Zizi would be the understudy. In the months since August, when the second Chihuahua was cut, we’d been looking for an understudy, since Teddy was too shy to do Chico’s role. We looked at dozens of dogs. Two days before I left for Hollywood, I was dropping off a dog at the Connecticut Humane Society. The head trainer asked if I had ever found that Chihuahua I was looking for. She said she had a dog that had come in a month ago that needed medical attention and had just hit the adoption floor. She asked if I would like to see him. I was all packed and ready to go, but out of courtesy, I said, “Sure.”

In comes this 5-pound, red Chihuahua/Pomeranian mix named Boo Boo, barking like he’s a guard dog. He was a little smaller than Chico, but fuzzy, and he had that attitude. He had no idea that he was the size of a squirrel. I played with him, picked him up, and he licked the
inside of my ears. I liked him, but I actually had a pit bull in the car and couldn’t take him at that moment. I called Dorothy and asked if she could come the next day to see him. Of course, she and Jenna fell in love with Boo Boo, and he came into our lives one week before the first rehearsal of
Legally Blonde
.

I was able to be there for the first five days of rehearsal. There had been a few cast changes—Margo, the character who played with Bruiser in the first scene, was now played by Annaleigh Ashford, a talented, loving young woman whom Chico took to right away. The hairdresser who owns the bulldog was now being played by a multitalented actress named Orfeh, who also understood animals. Her husband Andy was playing the UPS driver. Chloe instantly fell in love with both of them. The script had been cut to accommodate the one Chihuahua, but the opening cue was perfect, so it hadn’t changed.

I had hired Kirsten from
Inishmore
to assist Dorothy, and everyone saw how well two trainers worked. Two weeks before we were to leave New York to go to San Francisco, management changed their minds—they said they would pay for the second trainer. It was a little daunting, but we were able to arrange Jenna’s schooling and find a house and pet sitter at the last minute.

Thirteen days later Dorothy and Jenna flew to San Francisco with Chico and Boo Boo under their seats. Because we never fly our animals in the holds of planes, we arranged for Chloe to be driven out to San Francisco. I wrapped the film and drove to San Francisco to meet up with everyone. We spent our first Sunday morning together as a family in over two months in our San Francisco apartment. I was drinking coffee, Jenna was watching TV, Dorothy was reading the paper. Chico and Boo Boo were wrestling on the hardwood floor as they had been for the last seven weeks. Right in front of our eyes, Chico flipped Boo over and he landed with a thud. He lay there motionless, his body limp. He wasn’t breathing and his eyes were rolling back in his head. By now I had held enough dogs in their final moments to
know when they’re slipping away. Not wanting Jenna to see him die, I said, “He’s okay. I’m going to take him into the bedroom.” I turned to Dorothy and said, “Call a vet.”

As I lay his limp body on the bed, I knelt down, telling him to stay with us. I checked his lips and they were turning blue. Dorothy said, “Is he alive?” I turned to her and said, “No. We’ve lost him.” I heard her shriek in anguish. I heard Jenna start to cry. Something in my mind refused to let this happen. I picked up his little head, cupped his mouth, and began doing doggy CPR that I had only read about once. Just then, whomever Dorothy was calling picked up the phone, and through her tears, she explained that we were visiting San Francisco and our dog had just died. Just then, after five breaths, Boo Boo coughed. “Wait—he took a breath” I said.

The vet’s office was a half-mile down the road. The staff was great. By the time the doctor actually came in, Boo was starting to stand. The doctor did a quick exam as I was explaining his history. The doctor was amazed. Outside of an irregular heartbeat, Boo seemed to be okay. They would keep him for a while, giving him steroids to reduce the brain swelling and just to make sure his heart stabilized, but if all that checked out, he would be fine. The doctor said, “Good work on your part. You saved his life.” We went to bed exhausted that night to get ready to start our first day of technical rehearsals.

The last real phase of training was acclimating Chico to the set, stage, and audience. I kept hoping the courage he showed me in Newark, attacking tractor-trailers, would carry over. In New York, an hour had been set aside for us to rehearse everyone who handled the animals. While we expected the same here, the stagehand union rules prohibited it. We could
walk onstage for five minutes every one and a half hours. The first day we didn’t get to Chico’s first cue. I understood everyone was scrambling to get the sets up, so we were patient. The second day, there still was no time for us, but we did get to the cue. I carried Chico out to center stage. When he saw Annaleigh Ashford, the actress who worked with him in the first scene, he barked fine but was very nervous in the big space. By the end of that third day, there was still no rehearsal for Chico. I made my concerns known. Management said there was no time to rehearse, plus no money to pay overtime to have the crew work through dinner.