My Oscar and Emmy award-winning life acted out in movies and television
WHEN MY children asked my older brother what I was like as a teenager, he replied “Your father was Richie on ‘Happy Days.’” I’m not sure I agree with that characterization, unless he meant seeing life through the eyes of a wholesome teenager and his eclectic group of friends as they navigate adolescence, high school, struggling with first crushes and school dances, or just trying to fit in. I certainly wasn’t a brooding, James Dean in “Rebel Without a Cause.” If I had a cause, it was in support of a blemish-free face. Thinking back to those mixed-up teen years, I think the TV show, “My So Called Life,” even though it was about a girl, would have been a better title.
If your life were a movie, how would you see yourself? And who do you see playing yourself? No matter your personal image, someone else is going to have a different point of view. Perhaps you perceive yourself as the suave, sophisticated Nicky Ferrante (Gary Grant) in “An Affair to Remember,” while someone else might see you as Napoleon Dynamite (Jon Heder), whose voice alone could drive you off a cliff.
I considered asking Robert De Niro or Al Pacino to play me in my bio-pic, but they’re looking a little ragged around the edges. I’ve aged better. Still have that youthful glow, that twinkle in my eye. Sam Elliott and I are both silver haired, and I love his deep, gravelly, resonant voice. Or maybe the distinguished Morgan Freeman, who also has a certain warmth and authority in his voice. Or do I see myself more of a Denzel Washington (with hair)? Don’t get all hissy and accuse me of cultural appropriation because Morgan and Denzel are black while I’m white. It’s my movie. I get to be the casting director.
I’m not sure that even Spielberg could make a believable movie out of my twenties. There I was, still clinging to the last threads of a carefree life, tossed into the deep end of adulthood. Figuring out my first job out of college—trying to be competent, professional, like I’ve got it all together, while learning how to warm up a bottle at 3 a.m. without turning on every light in the apartment, and worrying that my lovely young wife realized she didn’t marry Superman. Perfect title: “Clueless.”
During my thirties things settled down — steady job, stable family life in the epitome of a family oriented city, Grand Rapids, Michigan. I was Jack Lemmon, the perfect mix of wit and vulnerability, — an everyman, trying to enjoy the simple pleasures of life.
In my forties, my wife and I became Eddie Albert and Eva Gabor in “Green Acres.” I had plunked my family down on ten acres in Michigan in the middle of nowhere, with a house half the size of the one we left. We had ducks, chickens, a rooster who crowed at dawn, guinea hens, dogs, cats, rabbits, a pond, a septic tank, and a propane gas tank almost as big as the Goodyear blimp –- with no idea how to cope with any of them. But we learned, and tilled the land into a garden overflowing with enough healthful food to make a heart specialist smile. Before we moved back to the big city, I reckon there was a touch of Jed Clampett in me, too. “Weeeell, doggies!”
In my fifties and sixties I went from Gregory Peck in “To Kill a Mockingbird,” to Walther Matthau in “Grumpy Old Men.” Both were strong, principled characters, but expressed their qualities in different ways. Merging two personalities allows me to appropriate a character played by our own Clint Eastwood. Gregory Peck’s calm and dignified persona and Walter Matthau’s boisterousness were combined in Eastwood’s character, Walter Kowalski in “Gran Torino.” He had that Atticus-like sense of justice, plus Matthau’s grumpy exterior. Only a dullard would not identify with Clint, who spoke one of my favorite lines which had nothing to do with making anyone’s day. It came from “The Bridges of Madison County,” when he said, “The old dreams were good dreams; they didn’t work out, but I’m glad I had ‘em.”
My eighties have run the gamut of real and fictitious characters. I became regal and could have played Prince Phillip in “The Crown.” I’ve been at least three characters from “Downton Abby” —Hugh Bonneville’s Lord Grantham, the stubborn (but yielding) patriarch of my family, Jim Carter’s Carson, the epitome of loyalty and duty, and Maggie Smith’s Countess Lady Violet Crowley, sharp-tongued, witty, and sometimes, even wise, or as Ben Franklin said, “I am in the prime of my senility.”
Imagine your life as a movie or TV show and think of who would play you. As star, producer, and director, you would get two thumbs up. Go ahead and grab some popcorn. Join me. The balcony is open!
Contact Jerry at jerrygervase@yahoo.com
