The Truth is Bad Enough: What Became of the Happy Hustler? (16 page)

I secretly went to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, held in the fluorescent-lit basement of a church in Hollywood, where a bunch of stereotypes drank pitch-black coffee from white Styrofoam cups and prattled in platitudes.

The thought of having to return to another meeting was enough to make me sober up for a few days. I would prove I didn’t really have a problem by limiting myself to drinking only wine.

As a direct result of my work in the play, I was cast in a guest-starring role on a sitcom, playing a gay deliveryman who tossed off expressions in French, my first television gig in seven years. What had shifted during those years was the perception of me as a freak phenomenon to the concept that I was an openly gay actor with some talent. Sadly, what had not changed was my vigilant relationship with substance abuse.

Like the night after shooting
The Waltons
, I drank myself into a blackout after taping
Open All Night
at ABC Studios in front of a live audience. I remained comatose during a break-in and robbery of the house where I was living. That was a good reason to get even more wasted the next night.

Two moments led to surrendering my romance with the bottle. I had yet another car accident and, after I’d described the details to my mother over the phone, she said, in soothing tones, “Oh, darling, people have car accidents all the time.” I heard how ridiculous her remark was, both coddling and colluding.

I was appearing in a successful production of Jean Genet’s
The Maids
, gathering more positive notices. I wasn’t drunk, but I was foggy from the night before when I was sideswiped by a bus, which was probably my fault. If ever I needed a drink, it was then, even though I had a show to do that evening.

I figured I could have a few glasses of wine, take a nap and be in my maid’s costume in time for the eight p.m. curtain. I never arrived at the theater. Nor did I hear the phone ringing, the calls being made by a frantic stage manager.

That was the first time I had betrayed my love and respect for the theater; the theater that had always been good to me.

On May 26, 1982, I went to my local watering hole (and I mean hole) and began the ritual that, without fail, led to down-and-out drunkenness. Somewhere in that overdone script, I said to myself, “This is the last night of drinking. It’s over. I will go to a meeting tomorrow.”

CHAPTER 29
               

I had flirted with the idea of attending a gay meeting. It was time. I was sick and tired of being sick and tired.

I followed through and, as planned, stopped drinking the next day. It took a few days before I uttered the magic words—“My name is Michael and I am an alcoholic”—but I didn’t drink or use. That weekend, I actually attended a sober dance in celebration of Memorial Day. Dancing without the fuel of booze would have been a bit like cooking without a fire, so I observed from the sidelines. What I witnessed was a mass of hot, sexy guys who were having a good time in spite of—or maybe because of—the fact that they weren’t high. Considering my distorted perception of what it meant to be gay in the Eighties, this was some kind of miracle.

After I got sober in 1982, my career flourished. Steve Kolzak, an anomaly among casting directors for his openness as a gay man, cast me in a significant episode of
Cheers
. Clearly teasing (those who knew) with my “openly gay actor” label, I played a straight guy who was mistakenly identified as gay in the Emmy Award–winning episode titled “The Boys in the Bar,” an obvious homage to the groundbreaking play. I did not get drunk after the taping.

Other gay roles followed, including a costarring role as a Hollywood hairdresser in
The Making of a Male Model
with Joan Collins and Jon-Erik Hexum. While some of these characterizations could be classified as stereotypical, I felt that I was able to infuse them with a degree of authenticity. I never judged the gay characters I played, like so many straight actors (as well as gay actors trying to pass as straight) do.

When Brian De Palma brought me in to audition for the role of the hetero porn star in
Body Double
, it was a déjà vu moment—in more ways than one. I’d already played a straight porn star for Jon Landis (
Kentucky Fried Movie
) and I had recently become a porn “star”, albeit a gay one. Typecasting? You bet your booty. Again, art mirrored life.

When word leaked to De Palma that I had indeed been in a gay porno (courtesy of
New York Magazine
), he made an official comment, saying that he “knew I was right for the part.” I do have the biggest laugh line in the film: “I’m an actor, not a stunt cock!” God knows I had the requisite histrionic temperament.

I continued to immerse myself in the theater, creating my first solo show,
The Truth Is Bad Enough
, which chronicled my twilight zone experiences as the unhappy Happy Hustler. A few days before I was set to open, I went to Brooks Baths (across the street from CBS), a “legit” bathhouse where one could get a massage as well as some “illegit” action.

Rock Hudson was a known habitué of the place, so it was no surprise to see the still handsome actor sprawled out in the sauna, a towel barely covering his famous parts.

We fooled around, clumsily, in a nearby john. I would later refer to it, accurately albeit a bit too romantically, as “a dalliance.” It was basically an unpleasant experience; in spite of Hudson’s somewhat dilapidated charm, he seemed detached, unhappy, dark. Luxuriating in the glow of my newfound sobriety, I was not turned on by what I perceived to be a pronounced sense of desperation in the erstwhile superstar. There was an aura of despair that eclipsed every bit of his former charisma; he projected the weight of portentous doom.

I was certain of one thing: this encounter would make good material.

James Carroll Pickett had seen me in
Truth
and sent me a copy of his first play,
Bathhouse Benediction
, a breathtaking piece of theater. “I’d like to direct it,” I told Pickett during our first phone call. “I haven’t directed since I was in high school, but I love your play and I can bring it to life. Promise.” We agreed to meet for coffee.

Pickett was a big man with voluptuous facial features, a gigantic heart and an impossible-to-outdo sense of humor. We had coffee and our meeting could be described as the predictable “love at first sight,” but with a twist. It was artistic love at first sight.

Our collaboration began in 1983 and continued for the next decade, encompassing events, readings and theatrical presentations (locally, nationally and internationally), as well as the formation of two significant organizations.

We embarked on our teaming as the producers of
Bathhouse Benediction
, which also marked my L.A. directorial debut. The reviews were exuberant, attracting sold-out houses for several months.

While exploring the text of a play, rehearsing day after day, a deep intimacy manifests between the playwright and the director. I often felt as if I was taking up residence in Pickett’s soul through the richness of his words.

Although
Bathhouse Benediction
wasn’t an AIDS play, it eerily foreshadowed many of the themes that would become familiar as dramatists began to capture the plague on the stage: the isolation that accompanies insurmountable loss.

Pickett and I had grander plans; in fact, the formation of Kearns & Pickett (sounding a bit vaudevillian) would endeavor to produce a series of readings at A Different Light Bookstore, L.A.’s sanctuary for literary experiments. On the same bill with the first public reading of Ray Stricklyn’s one-man Tennessee Williams show,
Confessions of a Nightingale
, was
Hallie
, a one-woman monologue written by my partner.

Dale Raoul remembers, “I think I read about the audition in
Drama-Logue
and since I was new to Los Angeles, I thought it would be good to read for it. The audition was in some very weird part of Silver Lake. My boyfriend (now my husband) Ray drove me there in his ‘67 Volkswagen bus, and I remember him saying about the location, ‘This can’t be right; I’ll wait right outside the door in case it turns out to be dangerous.’

“So in I go and there are Michael and Jim, both tall and handsome. I remember they sat behind a table and Michael seemed quite kind and in retrospect, somewhat shy. As I did my audition, I could see Ray lurking outside the door. Obviously, nothing weird was going on and happily, I got the part.

“We never did the play for some reason,” Dale says, “but that was the beginning of a friendship that has lasted for over thirty years.”

Those of us who were gay and/or in the theater had begun hearing about guys I knew peripherally who were coming down with this mysterious malady. “Gay cancer” was the first term that I heard applied to an acquaintance I knew who assumed that he had the flu, went to the hospital on Friday, and was dead by Monday. I heard about two or three other cases. A week or two later, there were five or six more. The numbers kept escalating along with the community’s anxiety. What the fuck was going on?

The far-fetched explanations for contagion ran from using poppers to engaging in sadomasochism. I remember hearing those initial judgments from within our ranks. Anything to separate us from them, beginning the lines of demarcation that continue to plague our divisive community. Although it’s futile, judging a person’s disease seems commonplace, as if the ailing person deserves to be ill. No one deserved/deserves to die of AIDS. End of sentence.

Hollywood’s response to AIDS was fear based. The homophobia that had existed since the first roll of film went into a camera was now even more pronounced. Anyone assumed to be gay was assumed to have AIDS. And in terms of tackling the illness on-screen, Hollywood would be silent for years, while members of the industry began dying, shrouded in shame, at an alarming rate.

Sean Foreman was not someone I knew well, but I appreciated his impenetrable sweetness and his abundant musical talents. Sean composed a score for Frederick Combs’
The Children’s Hour
, a play that I had produced. Sean was the first person who had AIDS that I knew well enough to visit.

He was several pounds thinner than I’d remembered and his face had a grayish tinge to it. An unkempt double bed, situated in the middle of the room, dominated his studio apartment. Several posters trumpeting appearances of the local Gay Men’s Chorus lined the walls. Sean was a member.

On that particular day, he wasn’t singing; he was weeping. Tears mixed with his sweat, the fluids pouring out of him so profusely that they created a spray as he jerkily paced around the bed. It was as if he was encircling the enemy, possibly the location of contraction. “What am I going to do?” he cried. “Am I going to die?”

Continuing his breakneck trek around the bed, he repeated those two questions, over and over, as he seemed to be in danger of drowning in his own pool of sweat and tears. I’d seen similar behavior before, but I couldn’t immediately call up the memory.

“What am I going to do? Am I going to die?”

I had no answers. I remember hugging Sean’s body, soaked with hot tears and sweat. “I love you, Sean,” I managed to say, even though it seemed too intimate, too invasive. I was at a loss for words. Imagine that.

I wanted to drink.

CHAPTER 30
               

I didn’t drink.

To this day, every time I drive by my friend’s former dwelling, which is almost daily when I’m in L.A., the entire scene plays out in my head. I will never forget Sean’s fear.

My philosophy has been that we are often are faced with two options: paralysis or action. More often than not, I choose to act (sometimes literally).

The purpose of Artists Confronting AIDS was initially twofold. Pickett and I wanted to provide artists with AIDS an outlet to capture the disease’s elevated emotionalism while also nurturing the work of artists who were affected by, but not infected by, the disease’s inherent dramatics. As the organization evolved over the next ten years, it would also provide an artistic outlet for voiceless individuals who chose art as a means of expressing themselves.

AIDS/US
was created as a response to what wasn’t being illuminated by the news media’s myopic (and often insidiously homophobic) reporting. We gathered a cross-section of people who were either infected or directly affected and provided them with a forum to tell their stories. The docudrama was written by Pickett from hours of tape-recorded interviews, and I directed the cast of mostly nonactors. Remember, this was the mid-Eighties, when audience members, calling to make a reservation, asked if they would possibly “catch it” from the storytellers.

AIDS/US
was an emotionally purifying event for all who participated—the creative team (including producer Gary Grossman of the Katselas Theatre Company), the onstage performers and the audiences, who were transfixed by the authenticity of the work. This was the first time (but not the last) that I experienced theater as a sacred experience. Theaters became churches and churches became theaters. The show—and, believe me, it was showbiz—was performed on college campuses and on the floor of the Senate in Sacramento.

Although neither Pickett nor I had even tested positive, we were consumed by everything AIDS. “Every day is dramatic,” Pickett would say. It became the mantra of Kearns & Pickett, the official name of our merger as artists with a cause.

Pickett and I spent hours on end at Silver Lake’s Crest Coffee House, one of those hangouts that attracted boys and men who liked being served by waitresses who were mommy substitutes. Brainstorming was what Pickett and I would do, downing cup after cup of bad coffee. And dishing, of course: dishing the dirt about the restaurant’s dandy denizens.

While sitting at the Crest, bouncing ideas back and forth, Pickett and I created the Southland Theater Artists Goodwill Event (STAGE): a theatrical fund-raising event to serve the newfound APLA (AIDS Project L.A.). We deliberately didn’t identify the disease by name, assuming that AIDS would be over imminently and we’d identify another deserving beneficiary. STAGE has earned its reputation as “the longest running AIDS benefit in history.”