Never Have Your Dog Stuffed: And Other Things I've Learned by Alda Alan

Author:Alda, Alan [Alda, Alan]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
ISBN: 9781588364920
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2005-09-12T16:00:00+00:00

chapter 12

YES TO EVERYTHING

To be young, out of work, and an actor is to say yes to everything. Can you ride a horse? Certainly. Can you play the trumpet? Oh, yes. How tall are you? How tall do you need?

You take any acting job you can get—not just to be able to live, but also to learn how to act.

As our family grew, saying yes to everything wasn’t easy, especially when Arlene was due to have our third baby. Our daughters seemed to be arriving like clockwork every year or so, and paying the doctor this time was beyond the capacity of the envelopes we kept our money in. I was offered a small part in a Broadway musical called Anatol that was trying out in Boston. It seemed to me from reading the script that the play would probably close out of town, but even if it did, those two weeks of work would pay the hospital bills. The hard part was that Arlene’s due date fell within those two weeks. I hated owing money, and I thought I should go to Boston on the chance that she might deliver later than expected. Arlene didn’t like owing money, either, but she also didn’t like having a baby by herself. We agonized over it, and finally, she stayed behind while I went on the road. I tried to make the most of it. For an extra fifteen dollars a week I understudied Anatol, played by Jean-Pierre Aumont. He saw I was young and struggling and told me that actors who understudied him all became stars. Gregory Peck, he said, had understudied him. That sounded good, but I had taken on the extra responsibility of understudying knowing that I had no time to learn his songs or rehearse the dialogue. I was taking a chance that I would never have to go on for him, but I had nightmares in which I did have to go on. I would stand in the middle of the stage with the cast staring at me while I made up an entire musical comedy. Ultimately, I won that bet but lost the bet on the baby. Beatrice was born while I was in Boston, with Arlene’s parents helping out. As I thought it might, the show closed out of town.

I was taking jobs that would make normal people wonder if they were perhaps not going anywhere. But actors don’t think that way. We were getting by; in fact, we were happy. When money got low, I would stop drinking the single can of beer I had every night at dinner, and that would save us $1.05 a six-pack, enough to get us out of a rent crisis that month. One of us could always find a way to make a few dollars. We would take turns—one working while the other stayed home with our three daughters. In the winter, it would take an hour to diaper and bundle them up to get out of the apartment.

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