Ian Parker reports on what's up these days with Charles Grodin, one of my favorite actors and also one of my favorite talk shows guests back when he used to guest on talk shows. And hey, this might be a good place for…
For this, we go back to June 9, 2002, back when Mr. Grodin had a new book out. I still recommend that wanna-be actors read his autobiography, which you can find used copies of on Amazon for the bargain price of one cent plus postage. (Obviously, they make their money by padding postage charges.) But I also recommend they read what I quote below, what he said in his follow-up book about what he'd said in the autobiography…
I've always been a big fan of Charles Grodin as an actor, an author and especially as a participant in talk shows, including the one he hosted for a few years on MSNBC and CNBC. He tends to be very sarcastic, very candid and confrontational in a funny, as opposed to hostile, way. When he's been on with Leno and Letterman — and before that, with Carson — it has usually resulted in the all-too-rare interview that doesn't sound like both parties are reading it all off TelePrompters. He's also written several books, the best of which was his first — a basic but fun autobiography entitled, It Would Be So Nice If You Weren't Here.
Subsequent books have suggested that Mr. Grodin said almost everything he had to say in It Would Be So Nice…, but there are moments in each that make them worth a read. His third — We're Ready For You, Mr. Grodin — contained several points of interest, not the least of which was a section in which he said he'd been too modest in the autobiography. He wrote…
I get the impression that most of the people in show business who read it take it as an inspiration to continue. The rationale is, "Look how much rejection Charles Grodin dealt with." While I'm pleased the book inspires people, I meant it just as much as a warning. I do say in there that you don't want to spend ten years in this profession and end up nowhere but ten years older. I say that even if you're not publicly recognized, there must be plenty of signs along the way that you're really good to encourage you to keep going. I did have a lot of praise in my unrecognized years, but I found it awkward putting all my compliments down on paper.
I found that refreshingly honest. As I wrote in an article posted here entitled The Speech, I think too much false hope is sometimes given to neophytes; that it does them a disservice to tell them that if they keep at it and don't give up, they will eventually get everything they want. Well, no. Very few people who enter show biz ever get the kind of career they seek and most do not support themselves at all. Dreams should not be dashed but people should be reminded that there are no guarantees; that it isn't the dumbest thing in the world to have a Plan B for your life.
While I'm quoting lines from We're Ready For You, Mr. Grodin, I'd like to quote a paragraph that made me laugh out loud. It has to do with a production of Charley's Aunt in which Grodin appeared…
Charley's Aunt is almost a hundred years old, and although we had a good cast, the first ten minutes or so of the play can be a little deadly — three Oxford undergraduates running around trying to figure out what to do about getting a chaperone as the girls are coming to tea. The idea is hatched that one of us — me — dresses up like my aunt Donna Lucia D'Alvadorez. Here's the moment I love and it's not onstage, but backstage. I come off to change into the woman's dress, but before I do I'd always look at the stagehands or whomever was standing back there and say, "God, we're dying out there. We need someone to dress up like a woman or something!" Then I'd spot the dress and as though I'd just gotten the idea, I'd say, "Hand me that dress!"
His newest book is called I Like It Better When You're Funny, and it deals mainly with his CNBC/MSNBC talk show and the various TV executives who put it on, took it off and — at other networks — danced him around about a replacement show before he wound up doing short commentaries for 60 Minutes II on CBS. If you need testimony that folks who run TV companies sometimes show bad judgment and aren't completely honest, this book might come in handy. There are, of course, segments I enjoyed but, over-all, fewer than in Grodin's earlier books. If, however, this one gets him out, making the talk show rounds to promote it, I'm all for it. I'm all for anything that gets Charles Grodin in front of a camera, especially when he's playing that most interesting of all his characters, Charles Grodin.