Eighty Is Not Enough: One Actor's Journey Through American Entertainment (11 page)

That was the wrong response. Now I couldn’t stop thinking about it. One night while we were upstairs in his dressing room, the doorman yelled out: “Gil Maison, telephone.” The phone was way down on the first floor. So Maison left, and there I was all alone with Herman and the dogs. I began staring at the chimpanzee. I was just fourteen years old and absolutely dying to know what could happen if I just said the words. Finally, I couldn’t contain myself, and looking right at the chimp I whispered: “Frank Buck!”

What a mistake! Herman flew off his chair, and before I could make a move he had smashed the mirror, broken the window, and grabbed Gil’s wardrobe, tearing all the clothes to pieces. Within seconds Herman had demolished the entire dressing room.

The dogs and I just stood there watching the rampage—and trying to stay the heck out of Herman’s way. Eventually, he calmed down, and I crept down the stairs, out the backstage door into the alleyway and across the street. A few days later when I gathered the courage to go back, I was told by a stagehand that I wasn’t welcome anymore.

As it turned out, Herman’s destruction of Gil’s dressing room didn’t do any damage to their act. By the time
The Skin of Our Teeth
closed in September of 1943, Herman and Gil were in such huge demand that they also performed in a new show at the Plymouth,
The Naked Genius
. Thus, Gil Maison and his monkey were, perhaps, the only act in Broadway history to perform simultaneously in two theaters across the street from each other.

But with all of the interesting things that occurred during
The Skin of Our Teeth
, I was also exposed for the first time to a darker truth about life in America. I’ve always loved traveling, and through the years I’ve had the great fortune to see so many wonderful places across this country. But in 1941, we had not yet reached a point where all of America was living up to the promises on which our country was founded. I received a stark reminder of that fact one day on a southbound train.

One of the wonderful things about growing up in New York City is its diversity. Walk a few blocks, and you can eat Italian calamari, Jewish blintz, German sausage, the black eyed peas of a soul food stand, a Dominican empanada, a Polish pierogi and pretty much anything else you want. The convergence of all those great ethnic groups, with their distinct cultures, is at the heart of the great charm of New York City, and my whole life I’ve marveled at and enjoyed these wonderfully diverse traditions.

But we know there is a dark side to the story; a side where a wholesome diversity spirals down into the terrible racism that has plagued our country since its founding. When my grandparents, Vincent and Rose Acerno, moved into Kew Gardens, Queens, there was a deep and powerful undercurrent of racism against Italians. The Germans and the Irish had already been there a long time—the Germans for hundreds of years and the Irish at least since the Potato Famine of the 1840s drove them across the Atlantic to New York City. But the Italians were newcomers. Vincent and Rose were among the millions who stopped at Ellis Island in the 1890s, and their names are etched on the wall there. Vincent’s parents would tell him about the thrill of standing on the transport ship and watching the Statue of Liberty come into view as they pulled into New York Harbor. Coming from the impoverished mountain village of Potenza, Italy, America really was the land of opportunity for my family.

Although I was aware of the ethnic tensions that persisted in my own childhood in Brooklyn and Manhattan, I never saw the truly ugly side of racism in this country until I worked on
The Skin of Our Teeth
. When we took the show on the road, the first performance was at the National Theatre in Washington, D.C. I was fourteen at the time, and I remember being excited about returning to the nation’s capital. And, in fact, I did visit the White House, the Congress, and the Lincoln Memorial. It was also a unique time to be in Washington because we were fighting in World War II. And it’s important to remember that sentiments about the war were very different than what we experienced with Vietnam or even the present wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, where the nation has been very much divided. In 1942, attitudes were different. The country was united and defeating the Nazi and Japanese war machines was something that just about everyone agreed on.

Anyway, the whole cast and crew of about forty people boarded the train at Penn Station in New York City. Everyone was there including the stars of the show, and we all sat in the same rail car. It certainly wasn’t like today where big stars fly into the set on a private jet. Fredric March, Tallulah Bankhead, and Montgomery Clift were all onboard as we headed south to Washington.

The train made some stops along the way, first at Philadelphia and Wilmington. Then we pulled into Baltimore, Maryland. In Baltimore, a conductor started passing through the cars. I still remember his exact words: “All colored in the next car. Colored people in the next car.”

We had four black actors in the show. I still remember their names: Earl Sydnor, Viola Dean, Eulabelle Moore, and Harry Clark. In fact, I had a slight crush on Viola Dean.

As soon as the Conductor made his announcement, the four of them just got up without protest and moved to a separate car. Nobody objected. Nobody said a single word. Nobody batted an eye. At fourteen, I had seen ethnic tensions in New York City, but never anything like this. It was really quite shocking, and I felt terrible for the actors who were forced to move. And the worst part, the most disturbing part, was that it all seemed perfectly natural to everyone, or at least that’s how everyone acted.

While I’m certain that some people in the play didn’t approve, nobody had the courage to express their disapproval. It makes me think of that old expression that evil triumphs when good people do nothing. On that train, nobody, including me, did anything. I wish I could say I stood up and protested or that I went to the other car to sit with those black actors, but I didn’t, nor did anyone else. It would take braver souls, heroes like Rosa Parks, who just twelve years later heard those same words from a bus driver in Birmingham and decided that enough is enough and just refused to move to the back of the bus. One person standing up to evil can spark a revolution. We could have used Rosa on that train.

My life as a student came to a crashing, and somewhat ignominious, halt not long after the close of
The Skin of Our Teeth
. In truth, it was extremely difficult for me to keep up with school assignments while working on so many different shows, both on the radio and in theater. But that’s not an excuse. I also became caught up in a world that was incompatible with the discipline of schoolwork. In fact, it was my attempt to bring that world into the classroom that was the final straw.

The kids in our class at the Professional Children’s School were required to write a composition about some subject of our choosing that had to do with how we had spent the summer. I knew a lot of the kids wrote about their families and things they did together. In fact, Pat was in the class and was ready with her essay. Since I generally cut corners on assignments, the teacher, Madame Motley, strongly suspecting this would again be the case, called me up onstage first to deliver my speech.

But Madame Motley had misjudged me—at least on that day. I actually did the assignment, and I had my composition ready and was looking forward to reading it as I walked up to the stage. It may say something about my state of mind at the time that I honestly thought I had chosen a good topic. So I proudly read the title of my essay: “How to Beat the Races.”

With that, Madame Motley went nuts, screaming: “Get him off that stage!” Within minutes I was in the Principal’s Office, and they had called my mother to the school. When she arrived, the Principal, Mrs. Nesbet, said to her: “Mrs. Van Patten, do you know what your son did today.” My mother said, “No, what?” And she told her about my composition. Now my mother had constantly been after me about spending too much time at the track. But on that day, she surprised all of us. Instead of properly expressing her mortification at her son’s behavior, she just started laughing. With that, Mrs. Nesbit let loose on her: “You’re as bad as he is!” And the next thing I knew, I’d been expelled.

But I got my degree—although not for another sixty-five years. A while ago someone from the Professional Children’s School found out I had never graduated, and they decided to give me the diploma. They had a very nice ceremony at the Beverly Hills High School, and the head of the PCS, James Dawson, made the presentation. It was a very nice event, but I’m not sure they realized that I’d been expelled from the school. Nobody ever mentioned it, and I had the impression they simply thought I quit. And I certainly wasn’t going to bring it up. Anyway, I very much appreciated their gesture, and I hope they let me keep the diploma now that they know the real story.

While I was working on
The Skin of Our Teeth
, things got bad at home with Mom and Dad. Throughout the early years of my mother pushing me and Joyce into show business, my father was proud, supportive, and enthusiastic. But in time her ambitions took over my mother’s life. All of her time was consumed with meeting people in the business, arranging tryouts, preparing us for rehearsals and always being on the hunt for the next big opportunity.

For me, that was fine. I enjoyed my life as a child actor. And, as I’ve said, I really owe everything I have to my mother and her determination. But the obsession with our careers began to take a toll on her marriage. My father began to miss his wife. He felt she was ignoring him, and no doubt he was right. When that kind of distance arises in a marriage, trouble is just around the corner.

As is often the case, it began at work. My father was selling furniture at Flint & Horner in Manhattan, where he met a young and attractive Italian girl, Eleanor Della-Gatta. They began having an affair, and my mother, completely absorbed in the theater world, was oblivious.

Then one day the girl’s mother showed up at our house. She broke the news to my mother and said she wanted it stopped. Mom was stunned. At first, she didn’t believe the woman. But that night she confronted my father, and he admitted it. A few days later, he moved out. Just like that, Mom’s life was turned upside down.

Dad took an apartment in Richmond Hill. For a while, things really fell to pieces. I’d wake up in the middle of the night and hear Mom crying in her room. One day she asked me to go talk Dad into coming back. I didn’t want to do it, but she was so distraught I couldn’t say no.

I remember walking up the steps to his apartment, while she waited down on the street. I asked him to come home. I’m sure it was difficult for him as he tried to explain to me that it was impossible. I didn’t really understand it all. I just wanted him to come back. But he wouldn’t.

In a short time, Dad enlisted in the Marines. I guess he wanted to get away from it all. Many years later, after Mom died, he wrote Joyce and me a letter trying to explain the reason for his leaving: “Once you were safely launched in the theatre,” he wrote to us, “I found the life we had imposed upon ourselves too one-dimensional. We lived, ate, [and] talked theatre. There was no room for anything else. We gradually grew apart.”

It was a tough time. I was just fourteen, and my father was gone. It was even worse for Joyce. She was only nine years old, and she adored my father. Without him around, I think Joyce felt much more alone. She and I responded very differently to the whole process of being child actors. She felt the pressure a great deal more than I did and came to resent my mother’s obsession with the entertainment world. At an early age, she had begun looking to Dad when things got tough for her.

Joyce also felt we were measured too much by our success. If we were working, we were treated one way; if we didn’t get a job, it was something different. I didn’t notice it as much, but Joyce was right; things did change depending on whether or not we were working.

Joyce rebelled. At sixteen, she left home, eloping with an older fellow, Tom King, an aspiring actor, who would later be a highly successful television executive for ABC. Joyce and Tom had a son, Casey, my nephew, who now, along with my three children, is my closest friend.

In retrospect, I think there was a parallel between Joyce and my father. Each decided at some point they’d had enough of a home where everything revolved around getting ahead in the entertainment world; where the woman who was their wife and mother was so driven along this path that she may have lost sight of more important things.

Joyce and Dad were alike in many other ways. He was a voracious reader, a sophisticated man who loved Shakespeare and reciting poetry. Joyce is much the same—highly intelligent and committed to acting as a craft, and not merely as a vehicle for advancement or gaining celebrity status. I think my sister is among the finest actors in the world, and, in many ways, what makes her so gifted is her attention to the art of acting, a quality she inherited in large part from my father.

Today we have very different views about our childhood in New York. For me, it was great; for her, it was a struggle. That’s not to say she thought it was all bad. In fact, she loved acting and was more committed to the theater at a young age than I had been.

It would also be unfair to forget the pressures on my mother. I’m not sure we all fully appreciated just how hard she was working. I recently came across a revealing interview with Mom that appeared in March of 1944 in
The Dunkirk Evening Observer
, a newspaper in upstate New York. Journalist Jack Caver focused on Mom’s unbelievably hectic schedule. “Mrs. Van Patten, a pretty brunette in her early thirties,” Caver wrote, “is kept on the jump…. As it is, she is on the go from noon until midnight.” In addition to the “usual meal, clothing and general welfare problems” of any other mother, Caver explained, Mom also had a series of other all-consuming obligations. “She spends as much time in a theater as her acting offspring,” said Caver. “She has to keep a sharp eye on their varied and sometimes complicated professional affairs. She has about as much time for herself as a restaurant owner.”