Maybe We'll Have You Back: The Life of a Perennial TV Guest Star by Fred Stoller, Ray Romano Read Free Book Online Page A

forties who kept in great shape and was a bit rough around the edges. I’ll call her “Claudette.” Claudette was a cross between Mrs. Robinson and Kathleen Turner. She had a strange hold on me. She would warn me in pretty harsh terms of the irreparable harm I could do to my career if I messed up even one audition, but reassured me that she had gotten to me in time and could help me take advantage of the avenues I hadn’t yet damaged.
    Acting class may have taught me some things, but I’m glad eventually I got out and didn’t become another one of its permanent students. For me at least, I started getting booked for acting jobs when I stopped with the classes. Nowhere else in real life did I beat myself up as much, analyze everything to death, and feel so inadequate as I was encouraged to do in acting class. Even though I already beat myself up and analyzed myself to death, acting lessons brought this art to a whole new self-destructive level. But it took me a long time to figure that out. Of course the parts I auditioned for never had anything to do with all that deep stuff I did in class: all the crying, the pretending you’re slipping on ice, the screaming and shoving matches, or remembering the pain the time Uncle Larry threw a book of stamps at you. And in the end I would get parts the way most comedians do, by reenacting my stand-up persona. But it would take a lot of auditioning to get there.

6
    AUDITIONS
    M y first audition was for a TV pilot in 1988 that never aired. All I remember was that it was about two buddies and I had to do a sinister laugh. I got to the lot early, found a pay phone, and called my friend Joel in Brooklyn. I practiced my laugh for Joel a few times so he could reassure me that it was, in fact, maniacal and authentic. If that wasn’t enough confirmation, I only had to look at the man standing behind me who had been waiting to use the phone. The look on his face assured me I seemed like quite the lunatic.
    In the waiting room, I recognized Michael Cole, the star of the sixties hit classic The Mod Squad . He sensed that I was freaking out, and although I knew he hadn’t worked much since Mod Squad , he was kind enough to offer help by running my lines with me before I went in. That was the first of a very few times I’d get unsolicited help from a competing actor.
    My first two years out West, I stumbled through most of my auditions without a clue as to why I could never book anything. Here’s how it goes: The first step is usually the call from the agent informing me of the appointment, and then I’d get faxed the sides, the extracted section of the script with the lines I’d be doing at the audition. Back in 1988 when I came out for my first pilot season, I didn’t have a fax machine, so I had to drive a half hour to the William Morris Agency in Beverly Hills to pick up my sides.
    My agent was not very inspiring. Once I found myself being put up for the part of a southern redneck.
    “Are you sure this is the right part I’m supposed to read for?” I asked my agent. “It doesn’t seem to make sense.”
    “It’s in their best interest to use you,” he said, looking at me for just a brief second before turning his head toward the beautiful garden right outside his window. “Just have fun with it. Have fun with your audition.”
    Fun? I had no idea how to make the arduous process fun. To me, auditions are as uncomfortable as having to apply for college several times a month for years on end. It’s like being on a date, where they’re just sort of laughing at the things you say and there’s a long line of others right behind you waiting to charm them. As far as the odds for success, it’s like being a traveling salesman who only sells one tchotchke every few months if he’s lucky.
    To make matters worse, finding my way around L.A. was not easy, especially after I first arrived. I was used to New York, where the streets are numbered and straight. I had found that the stress