How I Got to Be Whoever It Is I Am

191 Pages·2009·1.43 MB·English

by  Charles Grodin

Copyright © 2009 by Charles Grodin
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976,
no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any
form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the
prior written permission of the publisher.
Grateful acknowledgment is given to Carson Entertainment for permission to
reproduce letters sent to Charles Grodin by Johnny Carson.
Springboard Press
Hachette Book Group
237 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Visit our Web site at www.HachetteBookGroup.com.
Springboard Press is an imprint of Grand Central Publishing. The Springboard
name and logo are trademarks of Hachette Book Group, Inc.
First eBook Edition: April 2009
ISBN: 978-0-446-55464-0
Contents
Copyright Page
Author’s Note
Growing Up in Pittsburgh, PA
My Grandparents and Other Loved Ones
From Thirteen to Eighteen Years Old
High School
Girls
Dad
University of Miami
The Military
The Pittsburgh Playhouse
More Mistakes
To Hollywood and Back
Uta
Don’t You Dare Show Up!
A Kiss with Troubling Ramifications
Getting Better and Getting Banned
Mad Men
Lee Strasberg
Julie
Doctors
The Woman in the Hotel
Candid Camera
Endings
Special Agents
Critics
The Graduate
The French Girl
Simon and Garfunkel and My Politics?
Benefactors
Steambath
Appearing on Johnny Carson and David Letterman to Show the Real Me?
Memorable Encounters with Icons
The Unexpected
A Most Formidable Woman —or Something
The All Knowing
I Go to Washington
Co-ops
Midnight Run
CNBC
The Rockefeller Drug Laws and the Felony Murder Rule
How Naïve Can I Be?
Lousy Treatment of Kids
Highly Unusual Experiences That Make Me Not Miss Show Business
Why I’m Getting Increasingly Skeptical
What Did You Say?
Proceed with Caution
Socializing
Regrets
Peter Falk
Henry
Jack Paar and Regis Philbin
Paul Newman
Jack and Bob
Elie Wiesel
My Family
The Diary
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Illustrations
To all of us who are finding life a lot harder than we had in mind
Author’s Note
This book is the result of an effort to write about the events that informed my
actions and values. It covers the 1940s to the present. I figure if I try to
understand myself better, it may help me better understand others. Well… maybe
not, but it can’t hurt.
Growing Up in Pittsburgh, PA
M
y first memory of something having a powerful, lasting effect on me came
when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.
I was a six-year-old growing up in Pittsburgh. I asked my brother, Jack,
who was twelve, if the Japanese would be coming to Pittsburgh. He said, “Yes,
they will.” I asked, “Well… they won’t be coming to our house, will they?” He
said, “Yes, they will.” I said, “Well… I’m going down to the basement. They
won’t come down there, will they?” He said, “Yes, they will.”
Amazingly, that’s the only tense moment I’ve ever had with my brother.
Decades later, he did once give me a look when I commented on his orange golf
pants.
I met my lifelong friend Herb Caplan when we were four years old. We had
moved into a small house with a wall connecting to another small house, which
had a wall connecting to another small house. Herb and I shared a wall. When
we were around ten, we would pound on it to get the other’s attention and yell
through it, mostly saying, “I’ll meet you outside in five minutes.” Amazingly,
our parents didn’t complain, or more likely they weren’t home.
Herb always has been and remains today one of my closest friends and one
of the wisest. On my birthday, he said, “It’s only a number,” and if you read the
obituaries you easily see what matters is not the number of your years but the
state of your health. Recently, he said to a mutual friend who was complaining
about this ache or that pain, “You can make yourself old.” In other words, we can
choose different ways to see things. Choose happy or at least positive thoughts.
That may seem obvious, but how many of us do that?
Herb and I have had a lot of laughs over the years, but the best one he gave
me recently. It’s a true story.
When Herb’s father, Larry Caplan, was in his eighties, Herb would
accompany him into the doctor’s examining room. The doctor once asked his
dad, “Mr. Caplan, are you afraid of death?” Mr. Caplan said, “No, but I’d like to
know where I’m going to die.” When the doctor asked why that was important,
Mr. Caplan said, “Then I won’t go there.”
My sixth through tenth years coincided with World War II. The headlines in
the papers (there was no television then) were all about the Allied forces and the