Collections - 14. Chapter 14 -- Remember My Name?

Remember My Name?

Lately, a number of people - some who've surprised me - have been asking, "What famous people have you worked with?" as though that might validate my living or make their lives, by association, slightly more exciting. When they say "famous", I assume they're talking about actors and actresses, since I'm not exactly working with Mother Teresa. Still, how famous should any actress or actor be? Talented, maybe. Perhaps, well-known. But famous?

Larry - this is a classless democracy - Olivier may someday be better remembered than the more delightfully named and possibly as talented Helen Twelvetrees of earlier theater history, but that's because some of Olivier's work will always (?) exist on film, ready for immediate viewing, while Miss Twelvetrees has mainly been reduced to a sepia-tinged, Renaissance-tressed, enigmatic photograph. And if, in 400 years, Olivier's name yet waves through theater history texts as Shakespeare's does today, still, what - finally - am I to Mr. Olivier, or he to me?

In the 20 years before my move from full-time teaching, the only person who ever asked what famous people I knew was a teething college freshman, Kenny Conniff, son of a minor 50's boxer with a disproportionally well-publicized career. Kenny was - to be generous - enthusiastically naive in any number of ways: maturity and depth of perception being front runners, brazen stupidity their close companion. One day, early in my attempted rote-teaching him some subtleties of "This-is-a-hammer, this-a-saw" stagecraft, he inched his tiny hand above his closely-matching head and, smiling cherubically, first asked me that now more familiar question, "How many famous people do you know?"

"Kenny," I said, gently, "other than the fact that you're as far from our subject as nuclear fission is from French pastry, what makes you think that I, a minor, small college theater teacher, know any famous people?"

Admittedly, his father being so well-publicized, Kenny may have grown up surrounded by people better known than the Arkins, Hirschlers, Spresslers, and Pargaments of my immediate relations, but to emphasize this, possibly shaming publicly an otherwise benignly nondescript design teacher seemed more mean-spirited than the generally absent Kenny ever could be.

"I've met Liza Minelli," he cheerily continued that afternoon in the early 80's, addressing both me and the class. "And David Bowie, Cher, Bette Midler, Mick and Bianca Jagger..." His list continued to some length, tallying others whose often poorly color-balanced faces regularly graced our supermarket tabloids beside those of alien and disfigured babies. One of the few other times Kenny had spoken in class, he breezily interrupted my absolutely base level explanation of how "normal" light isn't actually colored by theatrical media as split into its base parts - "Mr. Green Filter lets through green light. Ms. Orange Filter lets through red to yellow light because, that's right, orange has both red and yellow in it." - to ask how many proscenium theaters there were in the United States.

"Kenny," I said, again gently, trying not to shock him too quickly into consciousness, "what makes you think that I, a humble college teacher of little discernable scholarship, might know the total number of professional, university, college, high school, prep school, grade school, vaudeville-turned-movie, and bowling-alley-turned-dinner proscenium theaters currently existing in the United States? The other kids laughed to see such sport, their not unusual reaction to this genial-but-otherwise-poorly-grounded sprite, and even Kenny seemed slowly to recognize the illogic of his question. Still, it didn't stop him, five minutes later, from raising his hand again to ask, "But how many proscenium theaters are there?"

Famous people, huh? Those I've worked with? Well, there's Dasher and Dancer, Prancer and Kenny Conniff...

My problem is that I don't think actors and actresses should be any more famous than, say, car insurance sales folk. True, actors are often intelligent, well-educated, disciplined, self-aware individuals, but as often they have too much in common with supermarket aliens - as apt to fuss intently over the color of a barely seen pair of cufflinks or hat pin as to analyze lucidly the decline of party Communism in Eastern and Central Europe in its presently evolving state. It comes down to, as almost always, the separation of art - "Magnificent!" - and the artist - "Dull." - or science and the scientist, garbage and the trash compactor.

Actors, finally, work in one of the I hope few fields where self-indulgence is tolerated if not encouraged on the evil assumption that it's clear evidence of genius. To me, genius is supreme talent blessed also either with excellent manners or distant death. (Long live Mozart's work.)

Now if asked what people I've worked with whose abilities and behavior I respect if not envy, I'll happily tell you, though I doubt you'll ever read about them in People magazine - if reading is something you do with People: more, its contents seem sinisterly to ooze into our hapless brains, indelibly displacing far more useful information. I once brushed against a copy of People, and perhaps you want to know Michael J. Fox's ring size? Or you're curious how much Jane Fonda weighed on June 3rd 1958? Write me. Or call.

As for my recent move away from full-time teaching, it certainly had nothing to do with my seeking personal fame, or even wanting to brush against more than photographs of the people on the covers of People. As I've told more than one person recently while explaining my suddenly living in the unlevel land of Los Angeles after years in the flattest Midwest and chilly New England: if I really have left teaching for show biz, there's little reason for me to work at its financial low end - earnest regional theater. More bluntly, there's almost no reason at all for a - you'll pardon the expression - tall white guy, in this country, at this time, to be as poor as I seem to consciously have been. So it's not so much that I want anyone to remember my name as more than the creator of "Mr. Green Filter," as I'd like someone to remember my bank account.

Sic Semper Personalem Conturbauit. That should be self-translating, but actually, it has to do with the death of personal bankruptcy.