When I Stop Talking You (21 page)

Once upon a time, I went to school to be an actor, another borough boy just home from the service. Through this window, you see me on a stage, trading punches with James Caan. Through that window, you see me running out of Capezio empty- handed, the vision of me in tights hot in my mind. I thought my career in front of the cameras had come to an end before it started, but I would eventually appear in several movies, acting work becoming a subgenre in my career. I have played myself in various films, some of my own (Vegas Vacation, Ocean's Eleven, Twelve, Thirteen), some made by friends (Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, Full Frontal). I learned to act only when I learned how to be myself, which is, of course, another kind of character. In short, I learned how to act-and I am not saying I'm a good actor, only that I'm comfortable in front of a camera-after I learned how to stop acting. When Martha Graham told me to walk across the floor, I was aware that I was a kid acting like he was crossing the floor. Now that I am an old man, I can simply cross the goddamn floor without thinking too much about it.

I appeared in my first film in 1991, at the insistence of Sydney Pollack, an old friend, who was directing The Firm, a legal thriller based on a novel by John Grisham. (Sydney was one of the great directors, the maker of, among others, Out of Africa, Tootsie, The Electric Horseman, and Absence of Malice.) He wanted me to play Sonny Capps, a mobbed up client of the firm who, in a key scene, spars with Tom Cruise and Gene Hackman. The part seemed like a perfect fit for Sydney himself, who had done terrific turns in several films, including Tootsie and Eyes Wide Shut.

I said, "Look, Sydney, you do it. You'd be great."

"You'd be greater," he said. "Jerry, you are Sonny Capps."

"Why don't you be me being Sonny Capps," I said. "You'd be better at me being Sonny that I'd be myself. You were my teacher at the Neighborhood School. You know I'm not an actor."

Sydney laughed. He was a great friend-he died two years ago, and not a day goes by when I do not think about him. He had one of the great infectious laughs. It started in his chest and rose through his body, filling his lungs and eyes, warming everyone around him. He said, "No, Jerry, this part is written for you."

I said, "No."

He said, "Yes."

After much discussion, I finally agreed to do it. He could be persistent.

The scene was being shot in the Caribbean. I started worrying about my performance on the flight down. I mean, what the hell do I know about acting? What's worse, I was to play the scene with Gene Hackman and Tom Cruise, two of the biggest stars in the world. How was I going to do this? I was tight. I was scared. Self-confidence and pride, those were the only things getting me through.

I went to the set in a new suit, with my hair done up and makeup on. Sydney looked over. "All right," he said. "You look good. Are you ready?"

"Hell yes, I'm ready."

He sat me in front of the cameras with Cruise and Hackman. It was a change, going in front of the cameras. It was unnerving. I felt like a soldier caught in the sights of his own army's guns. You get fame and notoriety in front of the camera, but lose everything else.

In my scene, which comes halfway through the film, I grow increasingly irritated as Hackman and Cruise, lawyers at the firm, try to sell me on a course of action. I finally snap at Cruise, who, in his response, demonstrates his mettle. We rehearsed it, then filmed it, then filmed it again and again and again. Sydney was a perfectionist. He did not want to quit until he got it just right. Sitting there, I could not help but think like a producer: How much footage have we gone through, how much money have we burned up? It was endless, and I was frustrated. These shots, one after another, all seemingly the same-it was like repeating the same word over and over. The whole thing turned into gibberish.

We finally stopped for lunch. I asked Sydney, "Well, how's it going?"

"We got a little more to do," he said.

"We can't," I told him. "I'm exhausted."

He said, "Look, Jerry, you are not a producer here. You're an actor. We go till we get it right."

I sat back down. I was tired, spent, at the end of me. Then, finally, after the who-knows-what take, Tom Cruise turned to me and said, "You know, you've got some nerve!"

"Excuse me?"

"You heard me," he said, "you've got some nerve coming onto a set with real actors, using up our energy and wasting our time."

I turned and looked at him, goddamn piece of garbage, talking to me this way. I flushed red. I could actually feel the blood running into my face. "Who the fuck do you think you're talking to?" I said. "Do you know what you're doing?"

Just then, Sydney yelled, "Cut-we got it."

I was sitting there dazed, at a loss.

Cruise started laughing. He grabbed my arm and said, "No, no, Jerry. It's not real. Sydney told me to do it for the scene. For the scene."

I looked around, then I started laughing, too. I said, " Sydney, my God, you bum!"

"It was just what I wanted," said Sydney. "Jerry being Jerry."

By the 1990s, my wife, Jane, and I were in different places. "I don't want to do this anymore," she said one day. "I don't want to run to all the premieres and parties. I want to paint. I want to read. I want to be with my children in my house and look at the ocean." In this way, while still loving each other deeply, Jane and I began to move in separate directions. We saw less of each other, and usually slept in different cities. It created a space, and it was in this space that the other great love of my life bloomed.

When people hear the details of my existence, they focus on the geometry of my romantic life.

Let me start at the beginning.

One morning, as I came into my office at Warner Bros., I noticed a new girl in the office, a redhead, a knockout. I waited a few minutes, then called my secretary.

"Who's the new girl?" I asked.

"Do you mean Susie?" she asked.

"With the red hair?" I said.

"Yes, she has red hair. That's Susie."

"Great," I said. "Talk to her for me. See if she knows how to ride."

"How to ride?"

"Yeah, ask if she wants to go horseback riding with me tomorrow morning."

So they called Susie and said, "Mr. Weintraub wants to take you for a horseback ride. Do you know how to ride?"

Susie said, "Sure I know how to ride."

When she got off that call, she phoned her sister and asked, "Is it hard to ride a horse?"

"No, it's easy," he sister told her, "just grab those leather things and hang on."

I met Susie at the Equestrian Center. She was beautiful, petite, with long hair and a smile that made the day. She was outfitted like a rider, in jeans and cowboy boots. I had a gorgeous horse picked out for her. It was a spirited animal, but she said she knew how to ride. As soon I saw her in the saddle, though, holding the horn with fear in her eyes, I knew she had never been on horseback in her life. I admired Susie even more for not being able to ride, for the way she took the challenge, put out her chin, and tried her best. It was like something I would do.

"Come on, Susie," I said, holding out my hand. "Let's get you on a better horse."

We found a grandma of an animal and rode into the mountains. The hills were studded with wildflowers, the meadow grass stirred, the horses whinnied as they cantered over the passes. We talked about this and that. I made jokes, some funny, some not. Susie laughed at them all. We got off the horses and walked under the trees. I made a pass, which Susie pretended to miss. Then one thing led to another, which is an oblique way of saying I fell in love.

Susie and I courted for months. I use the old-fashioned word deliberately, as there was something proper about it despite my being married. We went to dinners and to shows, on picnics and for car rides. I knew I had to tell Jane. A little dalliance here and there, okay, but this was something else, something wonderfully serious.

Jane and I talked in Malibu. This was one of the most remarkable conversations I've ever had. I told Jane everything: about how I met Susie and about how I felt. I said, "Jane, I have fallen in love with another woman."

She sat there, listening, thinking, then spoke. Did she say, "You bastard!" Did she say, "I will see you in court!"? No. Jane was in a different place in her life. She had lived as a star, she had lived as a wife, she had lived as a liberated woman and as a working woman and as a career woman and, most important, as a mother. She loves me and I love her, but her identity was never bound up with mine. She understood what had happened and why. She understood what she could give me and what I needed. When I offered her a divorce, she said, "No, I do not want a divorce."

"It's silly to get a divorce unless you really need a divorce," she explained. "It doesn't matter to me. I'm not with anybody, and I don't intend to be with anybody. I want to paint and have a quiet life. Your life is not quiet, I know that. You have a busy life and I support it and will never stop supporting it, because I love you. And I know you love me. And we have children and grandchildren. And those things are important. They're not to be thrown away. They're not to be treated like they're something that doesn't mean anything. And what will divorce give us? Contention. Aggravation. I don't want to sit with a lawyer, and go through this and that, and you shouldn't either. You worked hard for your money-do you really want to pay millions of dollars to figure out a divorce? For what? To someday, hopefully, get back to the situation we already have today, where everyone can sit in a room together at a wedding or a funeral? There is no reason for a divorce. We can work it out. If Susie doesn't need to get married to you right now, let it go. I'm fine with it."

She was so wise, so wonderful.

"What about the children?" I asked. "What about the grandchildren?"

"We will talk to the children and grandchildren," she said. "I will explain it to them. I will say, 'Look, there is no reason for animosity. I am fine with this, you should be fine with it, too. There is no reason for you not to be friendly with Susie or close to Susie.' "

And that's what we did. We sat with the children and grandchildren, and told them, and they were all right with it. We told our friends, and some could not understand and were terribly bothered about this arrangement-okay, you are not us, you don't have to live like us.

The simple fact is, Jane no longer wanted my life. She didn't want to go to parties, didn't want to have sex with me. Not interested. Good. She needs what she needs and I need what I need, which is to be with somebody who wants to be involved in every part of my life: mentally, emotionally, sexually. Warren Beatty, lothario of lotharios, once asked me the secret. "How did you make it work, Jerry? How do you pull it off?"

Well, the answer is, I didn't. Jane and Susie did. I have a life with Susie and I love Susie, but I'm still with Jane, too. I see her all the time, and we're on the phone constantly. I will be there whenever she needs me. Otherwise, I am off, in my own life. I think this works only because Jane had such a long and successful career. She was a singer, she was a star, she was a mother. She had many lifetimes without me and I have had many lifetimes without her. She never lived through me. We used to live together; now we live apart. When marriage was invented, people didn't live very long. When I was a kid, if a couple had a fiftieth wedding anniversary, they were ancient. Nowadays, with the medicine and the longevity we have, when you marry somebody, you are in it for a very, very long time. I don't know if that's the way it's supposed to be. It's not for me, anyway. I have been with Jane for forty-eight years. I'm one of the ancients now. But I am still here, which means I am still living, still changing.

I later learned that Susie descends from Hollywood royalty. Her mother's godmother was Fanny Brice. Her mother's father was an Academy Award-winning writer. Her father was Bud Ekins, the legendary stuntman. Bud always had a passion for motorcycles. Wheels, crankshafts, throttles-he could not get enough. He used to ride wide open, burning up the desert east of LA. He was a legend in the racing world. In the 1960s, he won four gold medals at the Six-Day Trials in France and England. He won or came close to winning dozens of races in America and all over the world. He was known as the desert fox, a charismatic star, cool before that attitude went mainstream, tough as hell, with a cigarette forever hanging from the corner of his mouth.

His motorcycle shop in LA-he sold Triumphs-was a haunt of leather-clad riders and wannabes, including young movie stars eager to soak up Bud's authenticity. Steve McQueen was a regular, hanging around the garage talking to Bud, who, in his greasy white T-shirt, grimaced and said, "Yeah, yeah, hand me that spring hook over there." When McQueen was shooting The Great Escape, he asked Bud if he would be his stuntman double. It was Bud Ekins who, on a Triumph TR6, performed the famous jump that carried Steve McQueen over a wall of concertina wire. Bud was sought out after that. He appeared in dozens of films and TV shows: racing a Mustang up and down the streets of San Francisco in Bullitt, running a motorcycle up the stairs of the fraternity house in Animal House, doubling for Ponch in the more hair-raising sequences of Chips.

I got an incredible kick out of Bud: the way he looked and walked, how he went at each insane stunt with a carefree ease. I want to make a movie about him, a biopic, in which he will be played by Brad Pitt, because who is the star really, the man who stood for the movie still, or the man who cleared the concertina wire?

Bud was an older man when I knew him, ailing from a life of machines, whiskey, and cigarettes. I sat with him in the hospital when he was sick. I loved the guy. He was a Catholic, so a priest went into his room, but he did not want a priest.

I asked him why.

"Why?" he said. "Because I don't want to confess all the shit I did, that's why."

He asked about rabbis. "When they come, do you have to tell them everything?"

"Nah," I said, "you don't have to tell them anything."

Soon after that he told me he wanted to convert to Judaism. "'Cause you're a Jew and Susie is a Jew," he said. (Susie converted.) "And I figure I'm whatever you guys are. Also the confession stuff."

I gave a eulogy at Bud's funeral. I spoke of how he had decided to become a Jew. Many of the mourners looked confused. These were stuntmen and bikers, hundreds of tough guys with long hair and leather coats, giant guys named Tiny. "Let me explain why he became a Jew," I said. "Because Bud Ekins did not want to confess his sins." With that, the stuntmen and bikers went wild, hooting and cheering, a good send-off for a great man.