BRENDA VACCARO AND JOHN VOIGHT IN “MIDNIGHT COWBOY”
Brenda Vaccaro, veteran actor of theatre, television and film, was touring in a road show of Neil Simon’s smash hit Broadway comedy, California Suite. Similar in structure to his earlier Plaza Suite, the comedy composed of four playlets set in Suite 203-04, which consists of a living room and an adjoining bedroom with an ensuite bath, in The Beverly Hills Hotel. Tammy Grimes and George Grizzard starred in the original Broadway version.
The play landed in Austin on June 11, 1978, at the Paramount smack dab in the middle of yet another scorching summer. That was at a time when we did not have the money to replace the ancient and wheezing air conditioning system. We’d start cooling down the theatre at 8am in the morning to get it reasonably cool by the time the audience began to arrive at 7pm. By 8:00pm, the temperature in the auditorium was already on the rise. By 8:30pm, it was 75-80 degrees inside!
The temperature on stage, however, was much, much hotter owing to the theatrical lights just about 14’ above the actors, overhead. I’d guess it was at least 90 degrees, on stage, and most probably, hotter.
This was one of the productions we presented in conjunction with Art and Barbara Squires of Southwest Concerts. (See separate blog link for more information)
At the end of Act I, Art buttonholed me in the 2nd lobby. He was quiet calm when he uttered these words: “Brenda wants to kill you. Her face has melted away from the heat. She’s backstage waiting. And, she’s not going on for Act II. You’d better come up with some spectacular BS to explain it to her and to beg her to finish the show.
I was 30 years old at that moment in time. Cold beads of ice defied gravity, running up my behind, on up my spine, through my neck and in to my brain. This is a phenomenon classically called “brain freeze”, which one experiences when taking too big a bite out of an ice cream cone or snow cone. In my case, however, I was frozen in the 4th dimension of The Actor’s Studio’ method style of acting. Missed that class! I had to make my feet and legs move my body to find magical words to entreat Brenda to go back on to finish the play. It occurred to me I might die by high heel punctures which is no way for an Italian to leave the earth.
As if in a dream, my body was floating just off the floor, moving across the 2nd lobby, down the long aisle, under the opera boxes, up the stairs, through the fire door, across the stage, down the stairs to the dressing room area and, finally, to Brenda’s lair. I now knew what it was like for an antelope to accidentally wander in to a pride of lionesses. RUUUNNNNNN!!!
I knocked very softly on the door in the hopes she was in the “cooling off” mode. I didn’t want to increase her anxiety with a RAP-A-TAP-TAP. She said, in that deep husky voice of hers, “NO!” At that second, I felt my body become a pool of liquid – just low enough and with enough viscosity, to slide under the door, hat in hand. I had my motivation. I was an amoeba – a single cell organism with the ability to change its shape. Hell, I could be Rhett Butler. Maybe she’d show mercy on him.
The door creaked open like the sound of a 1930’s radio show. There she was, like one of the characters in Vincent Price’s horror movie, The House of Wax, which scared the living hell out of me as a child as it was in 3-D. It was hard to see where her eyes began and her chin finished. What was not hard to see, and feel, though, were those obsidian, flaming orbs, dissecting me like an eight year getting medieval on a frog. Now I am become an ant on death row at the hands of a four year old with a large magnifying glass, expertly focusing the laser beam of Texas sunshine onto a microscopic dot on its back. Thankfully, she was barefooted and in a silk robe. No death by stilettos that day. Her street clothes, however, were draped over a nearby chair. I would describe her body language as taut like the cables on the Brooklyn Bridge.
Erecting myself up to my full 6’ frame, so as to lend an air of authority and command respect (joke), I started talking in staccato bursts. It is possible I was talking in tongues like those who have out of body experiences at a Pentecostal tent show with rattlesnakes in hand. Now that’s method acting!
My spirit re-entered my body from the ether of the netherworld. What I had to say was pretty simple. I told her that we were in the very early stages of trying to save the Paramount from the wrecking ball and to restore it to its former grandeur. However, funding to rehabilitate the old girl (not Brenda) was AWOL. I further said the IATSE union stage crew was, at that second, hammering the living hell out of the air conditioning copper coils, to break off a very thick layer of ice, which could easily have been sufficient to build a lovely home for an Eskimo in Gnome.
I’m guessing I said a few things about the history of the theatre and the importance of it to the community, but not much more. I wasn’t going to reduce myself to assuming the penitent position for the cat-of-nine-tails. She’d either buy it or not. At that moment, the air conditioning refreshed, giving me a reprieve from death by being stared at. She continued to lock eyes with me, trying to decide if she was going to take a “Pasadena” out the door or go on with the show. Before she could speak, I thanked her for her patience and slowly walked out the door, shutting it behind me lest some sharp object thrust itself in to my back like a Howitzer loaded with black pumps.
I retraced my steps for the long walk back to the last row in the last seat of the auditorium. All breathing stopped. Unlike my walk to Brenda’s dressing room, my feet were now leaden and heavy. God was merciful! The curtain opened and the actors were in place, starring Miss Vaccaro once again. The show received a rousing “Bravo” as attendees shot up from their seats. It was like all the wire coils in the seat stuffing had exploded at the same time. The audience knew what she must have endured. The salve from their love had saved me in the end like it does every other performer who ever lived.
After the patrons departed, I received a summons to come to Brenda’s dressing room, again! Maybe this would be like an acid flashback, where her anger was about to be fully released in black widow Technicolor. She said, “John, would you like to have dinner with my mother and me”? “Absolutely”!
I met them at Pecan Street Café on 6th Street which was one of only a handful of nice restaurants in the Austin of the late 1970’s. I was treated like a member of the family. God bless Brenda Vaccaro!! Meet Mr. Neil Simon – Broadway’s most famous comedy playwright!
