Eighty Is Not Enough: One Actor's Journey Through American Entertainment (21 page)

Rosemary came through. Later that night, Pat showed up at Rosemary’s apartment on East 55
^th
Street. It wasn’t really a party, just me, Ralph and Rosemary, and, at first, Pat thought it was all very strange and was about to leave. But Rosemary coaxed her into staying, and we ended up having a great time. At the end of the night, I finally told Pat that I wanted to start seeing her. She reminded me she was engaged, but I just ignored that and kept at her. After a while, she relented, and for a time Pat was dating both of us.

I knew that could only last for a while. Pat was working all day, then going out with Herb and afterwards heading back out again with me for a midnight show. But I had a good plan. I realized that the best way to get to Pat was through her mom, and the best way to get to Helon was to buy her ice cream. So every night while Pat was out with Herb, I’d come around the apartment plying Helon with quarts of ice cream. It worked. In short order, Helon was on my side.

*  *  *

In the meantime, things had become complicated for Pat on a professional level. Agnes DeMille, the great choreographer and niece of film giant Cecil B. DeMille, contacted her about the possibility of taking a lead dance role in a revival of
Oklahoma
as it went on the road. She would be the central ballet dancer to Florence Henderson’s beautiful singing. One of the biggest hits in Broadway history,
Oklahoma
, written by Rodgers & Hammerstein, had run from 1942 through 1948 and was now headed for the road after its revival at the City Center Theater.

At the same time, Pat had an opportunity to dance in another Rodgers and Hammerstein production,
Me and Juliet
, which was already running on Broadway. The stage manager had asked her to come see the show, so she and my mother went to a performance. She enjoyed it immensely and took the job, dancing in the chorus with a talented young dancer named Shirley MacLaine.

Shortly after Pat and I began dating, she separated with Herb. I had fallen in love with her, and for the first time in my life I began to think seriously about marriage. Still, I had enjoyed my independence for quite a number of years, and I knew that if I married her those days would end. At the same time, I realized Pat was the one for me, and by the beginning of 1954, I had made up my mind that I couldn’t live without her.

Around that time, I became close friends with Maxie Rosenbloom, a great boxer who had been the light heavyweight champion of the world in the 1930s. Maxie and I met at a place called A Bird In Hand on 51
^st
and Broadway, where all the actors and theater people would hang out after the shows. I remember Steve McQueen was there every night. He wasn’t a star yet, and I still recall that he had big bags under his eyes that distracted from his natural good looks. I’ve always thought he must have had surgery, because he was so handsome in the movies.

Maxie lived in the Piccadilly Hotel on West 45
^th
Street. He was a legend in New York City, not only as a great boxer, but as a stand-up comic. Maxie did a hilarious routine, and I’m sure that the boxing legend, Jake LaMotta, who also became famous for his comedy act, took his cue from Maxie.

Pat loved Maxie. We used to hang out together every night. I remember Maxie telling me: “You’d better marry that girl.” Pat, who really didn’t know much about boxing, was especially impressed one night when we went to see a fight at Eastern Parkway Arena, and Maxie came with us.

When we arrived, the three of us got out of the car and started walking toward the stadium. Suddenly a crowd gathered around. Within moments we were being mobbed. By the time we were about a block from the arena, there was a huge throng of people on all sides of us, chanting, “Maxie! Maxie! Maxie! Maxie!” As we entered, the fans inside went crazy as soon as they saw him. I’d been on television, radio and Broadway, but none of that even remotely compared to the adulation that these fans had for this truly unique boxing legend. It was an exciting night—and Pat still recalls her astonishment that her friend was so revered.

Like so many of the old timers from New York, Maxie’s gone now. I guess that makes it safe for me to tell another story I’m not so proud of. Maxie was a big horse player, and we often went to Belmont Park together. One afternoon, after the sixth race, Maxie had to leave. He gave me $100 and told me to bet it evenly on a horse in each of the two remaining races. I remember that the horses were numbers 4 and 7.

When he left, I looked at his choices and thought neither one had much of a chance. So I got the bright idea of pocketing the money rather than placing the bets and losing. If Maxie did get lucky on one of them, I’d just pay him. It was a terrible thing to do, but I was young and reckless, and the idea that this was a betrayal of his trust never really entered my mind.

Well, I got exactly what I deserved! Maxie’s horses won both races. Had I bet the money, he would have made $1,600. Instead, I walked out of the track with his $100 and wondering what the heck I was going to tell the former light-heavyweight champ of the world the next morning at breakfast when he’d come looking for his cash.

Desperate, I had another bright idea. It was still early enough to make a bet on a baseball game. It was particularly stupid because I didn’t know anything about baseball. Also, I didn’t have enough money to make a bet that would recoup Maxie’s losses. But there was a sports bookie I knew, Zip Russo, over on 51
^st
and Broadway who would take the bet over the phone with the understanding that I’d be good for it if I lost. So I called and bet $1,600 I didn’t have on the Yankees. It was a six to five pick-em, which meant I would get back even money, and so I had to bet a lot. If I lost, of course, I’d be in a real jam.

But someone was looking out for me that night. The Yankees won by 16 runs. I’ve never seen such a walk over. I went to the bookie, got the cash, and the next morning met and paid Maxie, acting like nothing had ever happened. But I do thank God he never knew what I did. I just congratulated him on his two great picks and never mentioned how much grief those two horses had really caused me.

The great thing about Maxie is that he really loved Pat. As I mentioned, he kept telling me: “You’ve got to marry that one, Dick.” Maxie was right. Still, I took my time and nearly lost my chance. I found out later Pat was getting tired of waiting. By the spring of 1954, she had expected me to ask her already. One day we had to go to the wedding of one of her friends, a dancer named Joan Donavan. Pat later told me if I hadn’t asked her on that very day, she was moving on. At the same time, I also realized that if I didn’t take the plunge I could lose the best girl I’d ever known. So I picked her up in my ’49 Oldsmobile convertible at her apartment on West 67
^th
Street. When she got in the car I just sat there for a moment with the car parked. I don’t know why, maybe because of the wedding, but it just suddenly came out: “Well, I was thinking that maybe we should get married.”

And just as matter of fact, Pat responded, “Oh, well, when would you want to do that?”

I was looking straight ahead in the car and so was she.

“Well, I was thinking that Easter is coming up, and I thought that April 25….” And she said: “I would like to have a family.” So I responded, “Well, I was thinking I would like to have a family.”

And that was the end of it. I turned the engine on, and we drove to the wedding without saying a single word.

But when we arrived at the reception, I just couldn’t contain myself. I told everyone, “We’re engaged!” In retrospect, it was in very bad taste, stealing a bit of the thunder from Joan’s wedding.

From that inauspicious proposal, Pat and I have enjoyed fifty-five wonderful and romantic years that just keep getting better. We were married on April 25, 1954, in a small church, Saint Malachy’s in what was appropriately called, The Actors’ Chapel. The whole cast and crew of
Mama
was there, as well as many of the June Taylor Dancers. My grandfather, Vincent, was my best man, and Pat’s best friend, Dolores Dawson, was her maid of honor. She was stunning in her white wedding dress, and it was the happiest day of my life.

Not long after our wedding, while on break from
Mama
, I took a role in a summer stock production of Edward Chodorov’s psychological comedy,
Oh Men, Oh Women
. It was an interesting play that dealt in a humorous way with the lighter side of psychoanalysis. It was especially fun because my sister, Joyce, also had a part as Myra Hagerman, an attractive young woman engaged to the psychiatrist, who was played by Richard Kendrick. On the eve of their wedding, I show up, playing a troubled neurotic named Grant Cobble, who manages to make a mess of things.

We opened at the Pocono Playhouse in East Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania on August 3, 1955. I only mention this performance because of a review written in a local paper,
The Daily Record
by Leonard Randolph, the paper’s theater critic. Every actor has their own way of dealing with the inevitable negative critiques that come crashing down on us throughout our careers. There are, of course, those once in a generation performers, like the Lunts, who routinely, and justifiably, are met with acclaim pretty much every time they perform. The rest of us take the good with the bad.

But every so often we get lucky. Who knows why, but sometimes a particular performance just happens to strikes a certain critic just the right way at just the right time and that can make it all worthwhile. Well Leonard Randolph of East Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, was that guy for me.

Randolph’s review of
Oh Men, Oh Women
, had the auspicious title of “Superior Acting By Dick Van Patten Lifts
Oh Men, Oh Women
To Enjoyable Heights.” Randolph really wasn’t crazy about the play itself, which he described as “a rather weak-minded piece of writing.” Still, he thought it “quite funny and highly enjoyable.” Why? Mr. Randolph explains in a section with the preposterous subtitle of: “Superhuman Humor.” Randolph wrote: “The principal reason for this is Dick Van Patten’s side-splitting performance…. What Van Patten does with the part of Grant Cobble is uproarious caricature which is so far superior to the role itself that it becomes very nearly superhuman in stature.” Randolph continued: “using a constricted, high-pitched voice with amazing skill, the actor lifts the play by its heels and shakes it frantically for all the humor he can rattle from it.”

Well, that one goes up on the wall! We actors are a thick-skinned lot—or at least we better be. Generally, we get critiqued a bit too harshly. But on occasion, it balances out when we get more than we deserve. And
every so often
, we just might have the perfect guy sitting out there in the crowd. I had him that night in the Poconos. While it’s been some fifty-three years, I still get a kick out of Leonard Randolph’s overly-generous review. And it reminds me of how fortunate I am to be in a profession where the greatest accomplishment is to help people forget their troubles and just have a good—even a “superhuman”—laugh.

Mama
finally wound down in the summer of 1957, and for the first time in my life, I didn’t have a job. With a wife and three young kids to support, pretty much all the money we had was gone. Worse still, for the first time in my thirty years working in New York City, the phone stopped ringing.

I thought maybe I had been typecast after eight years as Nels on
Mama
. Later we would hear about people getting typecast on television and it having terrible repercussions on their careers. George Reeves, who played Superman, was the most famous—although somewhat exaggerated. It has often been said that his role in
From Here to Eternity
, with my old friend Montgomery Clift, was reduced or removed from the film after people in the first viewing starting yelling out, “It’s Superman” in the theaters. The film’s writer and producer denied that there was any diminution of Reeves’s role. Still, Reeves’s typecasting was widely perceived, and many people believed that the depression preceding his final suicide was worsened by the fact that everyone saw him as Superman, and he couldn’t get other work.

When I first took the role of Nels on television, I was astonished at the power of instant recognition. At first I thought it was great, a real sign of success. But at the same time, the public was getting used to me as that particular character. For eight years and 500 episodes, everyone who watched television thought of Dick Van Patten and Nels Hansen as one and the same. The show had ended, but not my association with Nels in the public eye. Suddenly I realized that being so well recognized had a downside.

But there was more to my troubles than simply being typecast. The truth is that my enjoyment of the track had developed into a problem. By the fall of 1957, just months after the close of
I Remember Mama
, I was flat broke. What little money we had I was increasingly throwing away at the track in some crazy hope I could turn my bad luck around with one big win. That led to one of the most devastating mistakes of my life.

When Pat and I were married, we received a series of war bonds from my family. My grandfather gave us $2,000, and my mother and father also gave them to us. In total they would have been worth $5,000 when they matured. In October of 1957, with no money left, I started harassing Pat to cash in the bonds so I could bet them on a “sure thing” at the track. There was a marvelous horse that year named Gallant Man who had won all the big races and was now coming to Belmont Park. His jockey was none other than the great Willie Shoemaker, one of the legends of the sport.