Interview: Gary Kroeger (Pt. 2)
WARNING: If you haven’t yet read Pt. 1 of this piece, then you’re going to want to do that. I’m not saying you can’t read Pt. 2 first, but you’re only ruining the experience for yourself.
That said, even if you have read Pt. 1, it seems only appropriate for an interview with an SNL alumnus to start with a cold open, so…enjoy.
And now, on with the interview!
When we originally set up this conversation, I vowed that I would ask you about Cognac, and I am nothing, sir, if not a man of my word.
Cognac! Which was known as The Secret Ingredient. Another one of those experiences that I just chose to do. I knew that it was a director - Slobodan Sijan - who had earned a lot of acclaim for one of his earlier films [Maratonci trče počasni krug], and this was his opportunity to try and break into the American market. He hired Catherine Hicks, who was fresh off of starring in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, and Rick Rossovich, right off of Steve Martin's Roxanne. So he had two pretty hot stars, and I'm playing the third lead in it, and it's going to be shot in Yugoslavia, and the script had a lot of heart. It's about this dying man sending his daughter off to find this magic fountain-of-youth elixir which turns out to be this cognac made by this silent order of monks. And it's love affairs - I'm the chemist who's brought along, and I fall in love with Catherine
It was a charming story, but it was one of those things that just didn't go anywhere. I think maybe you can rent it. I think maybe it made a little money in Yugoslavia. [Laughs.] Or the former Yugoslavia, rather. But I did it, I had a great time, I got paid, I saw a part of the world that was stunningly beautiful. It was pre-genocide explosion. I say that because we didn't know what was going on at the time or soon after. I just remember wonderful people and generosity and incredible scenery.
There are a couple of other interesting people in the cast. I don't know if you actually worked with them or not, but Sam Wanamaker was in it.
Sam Wanamaker, absolutely! And Jeff Corey! [Laughs.] Look, here's the point, Will: it doesn't matter where it goes. I'm sitting in a chair, waiting for the shot to be set up, and I'm listening to Sam Wanamaker, Jeff Corey, and Brad Dexter, who of course was in The Magnificent Seven, and I'm hearing their stories about Hollywood behind the scenes. They're sharing Robert Mitchum stories, Robert Redford, Paul Newman...
And again I'm pinching myself, going, "I am getting a bird's-eye view, up close and personal, of what it's really like." I mean, I mentioned that I worked with George Hamilton, but I also worked with Tony Curtis, and hearing stories from them about Mitchum, Marilyn Monroe... Not third-person, but first-person stories! And I look back, and I just think... It's been so remarkable!
That's why I do this. I mean, this newsletter that I started, it's basically because I love talking to actors, I struggle to find outlets who are nearly as enthused as I am about talking to some of the people I want to talk to. But here we are talking, and the stories you're telling are fantastic!
Will, I've got to tell you something: I've already told stories about things that I don't think anybody's ever asked me about! [Laughs.] I mean, A Man Called Sarge, Sam Wanamaker... This is really fun, because I'm going, "Wait a second, this was all pretty incredible!"
If nothing else, I feel like I'm doing a service by reminding actors just how great their careers actually were.
Yeah! In fact, can we do this again in, like, 30 years, when I've forgotten everything? [Laughs.] That'd be nice.
Sign me up! I was on the cusp of helping Alex Rocco put together a memoir a few years before he died, to the point where we did about a dozen phone calls, but in the end, I think it fell apart because one of the anecdotes that he thought sure would interest publishers... I don't think he had any idea how it would play in print until I transcribed it and did just a little tweaking to make it into a proper anecdote, but after he read it, suddenly he wanted to shift his focus from his Hollywood years to his years as a petty thug working on the fringes of the Winter Hill Gang.
I sat next to him once, waiting to go into an audition, and I'm looking at him, going, "Wait a second: you're Alex Rocco. Why are you sitting out here with a schlub like me? You should be whisked in and just given the role!" But he was a humble man.
He was. He had lots of stories, but I remember very specifically that, at one point, he asked, "Whaddaya know about New Girl? They need somebody for, like, a landlord, and they got me maybe comin' in to read for that." I said, "It's a good show. You should at least go in for it." And he said, "Awright, I'll go in."
And my takeaway from that is that it doesn't matter if you're known - and certainly a guy like me knows who Alex Rocco is - he's still an actor, hitting the pavement, doing the grind, getting the sides, memorizing the lines, going in and auditioning. He was a working person's actor.
[At this point, I regaled Gary with a ramshackle version of a story that Rocco told me about a job he didn’t get in a movie that, now that you know he could’ve been in it, you can’t believe was made without him: William Friedkin’s The Brinks Job. Rocco told the story way better than I did. Maybe somehow I’ll share his version on here. But not yet. End tease.]
Last time we talked about how you worked with Christopher Guest on Saturday Night Live, but you also worked with him in one of his few non-improv films, The Big Picture.
Yep! That's another one that I was just asked to come in for, didn't have to read for. Chris just said, "Would you come in and do this part? It's just a day." But it's a memorable part, in that I'm an executive and had some pretty funny lines, I think, some pretty bad, dry notions about where Kevin Bacon's character should go with his script. But I'm sitting next to Kevin Bacon, so I get to say to anybody now, even you, that you've just reduced your number of degrees from Kevin Bacon. Because if I'm zero degrees, then I guess that makes you one degree, right? Or... Wait, how does that work? Would I be one degree, and then you would be two?
I'm a journalism major, but...I think that's right, yeah.
Okay, so I'm one degree and then you're two degrees. And maybe you were already.
I may have been. But it doesn't matter. I'll take it again.
There you go. Take it again. You're welcome. [Laughs.]
So how was Chris to work with in general? I know he's notorious for having one of the driest wits on the planet.
Well, I always wanted to work with him again. I auditioned for him for a couple of other things, but I never got another role from him. But I was in awe of Chris Guest, because he walks into a room, and he has a quiet presence. And you already know he's a genius, because we've all seen This is Spinal Tap and so many other things that... Well, I was just in awe of him. He was an adult. I mean, he's about 10 years older than me, but I've always been in awe of him, so if he liked something and said, "Good job, Kroeger. Cut, print." [Beams.]
He came up to me at a Saturday Night Live reunion, and I hadn't seen The Big Picture yet, and he said, "Oh, you're going to love it. You're really terrific in it." So that made me happy. The stamp of Chris Guest's approval is... We'll put that on my tombstone, too! "Chris Guest Approved of This Death." [Laughs.]
You mentioned George Hamilton earlier and how you'd been the announcer on his talk show, but prior to that you'd worked with him in the series Spies.
Yes, I've had a lovely relationship / career with George Hamilton. We worked together twice. I did a pilot with Tony Curtis called Spies, and it was terrific. Really terrific. A little darker than the series that was to proceed. Tony was great, but the network just didn't feel it was right. So they recast it, and because they had a deal with George Hamilton, they were thinking, "We're going to play him a little more tongue-in-cheek, a super-suave spy, like James Bond, but amping up the playboy aspect a bit." And Tony, as I heard, was upset about that.
But they didn't offer me the role. I was hired with Tony, so I had to go in and fight for the role that I had already played in the pilot! They weren't really thinking about having me carry over. They thought... [Starts to laugh.] Somebody said, "He looks too much like George Hamilton!" Which... Nobody looks like George Hamilton. So that's not true. But what I did was, I dyed my hair to be kind of brownish-orangish or something, so there was great contrast, and I went in and screen-tested. And... I'm namedropping, but it was actually his girlfriend, named Elizabeth Taylor. Yes, the. [Laughs.] And she said, "I like him. I thought he was great. You guys had great chemistry." Well, that was enough for George to go in and fight for me. And I did the series!
Now, I don't know we did - a pilot again, and six episodes or something, not even half a season - but the show had a tremendous charm, I really liked it. I loved the characters, the relationship. But it was the wrong show at the wrong time. It wasn't the flavor that people were looking for. We were up against Growing Pains, and our numbers were...paltry. So we were canceled. But George and I remained friends, and almost 10 years later, I was one of the producers of The George and Alana Show, for which I was also the announcer. So we kept our friendship and our relationship going, and he even contributed to my political campaign when I ran for Congress six years ago. A great man. Terrific fella.
Speaking of political matters, you did Goin’ to Chicago, which was a political film, to say the least.
Well, it was about this guy in 1968, he's part of the protest movement. This was a small independent film made by a gentleman who's passed away, a guy named Paul Leder, whose daughter, Mimi Leder, became a major casting director and producer herself. But Paul made this film, and he really liked me. I made a couple of movies with Paul. And Going to Chicago was really a heartfelt movie. I think it was very personal for him. My character's grandmother is dying, and I'm at the Ambassador Hotel, where [Robert] Kennedy says, "And now, we're going to Chicago! It's on to Chicago!" Which is basically the theme of the film.
I really loved it. It was the first winner of the Santa Barbara Film Festival, which is now a major film festival. But it was the first year of it, and it was the winner! So it got a little bit of attention. And I got to work with Viveca Lindfors, who was my grandmother in the film. I have this dramatic scene with my character's mother and with Viveca Lindors, for heaven's sake! Those are things you never forget, you know? The movie didn't go anywhere, and I don't even know if you can rent it, but it was a charming little movie, and well made on a dime. Paul made these movies out of the change in his pocket. Seriously! I may have been paid virtually nothing, but it didn't matter.
[Alas, I could not find even so much as a trailer for Goin’ to Chicago, but I did find the trailer for another Paul Leder film, and while it is not one that features our man Gary, I couldn’t just leave it sitting on YouTube without sharing it, since it clearly speaks to the making-movies-with-the-change-in-your-pocket dynamic of Leder’s filmmaking, God bless him. Also, at about 12 seconds before the trailer ends, seven words flash on the screen…and they are definitely seven words which were absolutely unnecessary, which makes them all the more hilarious.]
Oh, and I just remembered one more that I'd wanted to ask you about: Radioland Murders.
Radioland Murders is just a fog to me. I was asked to do it. It was a George Lucas-produced movie done by a British comedian, Mel Smith. Wonderful man. Somehow I got asked to just come in for a couple of days and play Gork, Son of Fire, who is a character from a 1930s radio drama about a caveman. And we're in the middle of all this espionage, and it's just this farcical kind of situation. I never really knew what I was doing, what the purpose of my lines were... [Laughs.] I was in a loincloth, leading lines from the radio show, while doing the lines from the movie.
So I'm an actor acting within the film, and then all hell breaks loose, and I'm running around. I basically just hit my marks and did what I was asked. I didn't know what it was about until I saw the movie. I didn't realize where I fit in or anything like that. But here I am with this amazing cast - Michael McKean, Brian Benben, Mary Stuart Masterson, just these phenomenal people around me - and I go, "Wow! Well, here I am in the middle of it!" [Laughs.] There was a reunion of the show - a Zoomcast, actually - of people involved in the show that I was part of, and the movie holds up better now than it did at the time it was released. Because it didn't make any noise when it came out. But it actually has some fans. It's a highly farcical, pedal-to-the-metal-beginning-to-end movie...and, again, not what people wanted at that time. But times change. I seem to do a lot of things that are not correct for the climate of their time but hold up fairly well 20 or 30 years later. [Laughs.]
Do you have a favorite project that you've worked on over the years that didn't get the love you thought it deserved?
All of them.
Fair enough.
I mean, really, all of them. You know, I don't think Spies got the love that, if aired today, it would deserve. I think Cognac - or The Secret Ingredient, as I know it, because that's what it was called when we were making it - is a charming, charming movie. Goin' to Chicago was a wonderful experience working with marvelous actors, including Cleavon Little. I think that might've been the last film he did! But he was remarkably charming. But all of those things were made with a good heart and with good intentions.
You know, I wouldn't say that Archie: To Riverdale and Back is something that would've changed the zeitgeist. [Laughs.] But it was a really good effort to do something fun. Oh, and The Return of the Shaggy Dog! That was fun from curtain up to curtain down. I even broke my leg during it and continued to have fun! But I know there were a lot of kids who are now grownups and probably have kids of their own, they saw that movie, and they still say, "Hey, you were the Shaggy Dog in the version of the movie I know!"
That's an important turn of phrase. Every generation has their own Shaggy Dog. Mine was Dean Jones in The Shaggy D.A.
Well, there you go! And mine was the original!
With…Tommy Kirk?
That's correct!
I cannot believe that I just pulled that out of thin air.
[Laughs.] So, yeah, I'm part of that franchise, and I'm proud of that. I'm very proud of that!
Well, before we wrap, I'll circle back to Richard Kind's remark from the beginning: do you have any specific Rush Pearson and/or Tom Virtue stories?
[Doing a Richard Kind impression.] "Well, first let's talk about Richard Kind. Do you know I can put my whole fist in my mouth?"
Amazing.
[Laughs.] Well, Tom Virtue and Richard Kind, they were Butch and Sundance. I mean, these two were inseparable. They shared a house together. They were just great friends.
Tom Virtue is one of these guys... Now, he's a working actor, has been for decades, a great family guy, married, solid as all get-out. But back in college? He was a little bit nuts. Now, I don't have specific stories, but he could go off the rails at any party and destroy things. He was just that energetic.
Rush Pearson was this person that is mythological to anyone who went to Northwestern University at this time. Rush makes his living now with Renaissance fairs, largely. He's part of what are called the Sturdy Beggars, and they take their beggar show and mud show to Renaissance fairs, and he's as happy as can be, living out of a tent. But he was... [Hesitates.] I don't want to say "the comedian's comedian," but he was the rebel's rebel. He was like a Belushi. He was like a Chris Farley, but in incredible shape. All of this energy and his ideas compacted into this dynamo. But he always wanted to press the outer edges, to push the envelope.
So I was in college with him, and I had no money. I was the poorest kid that I knew. [Pauses.] That's not true. At all. But I didn't have any money. So I was kind of known as a tightwad. And I've overcome that, but at the time, I was ridiculed for counting my pennies. And so I'm standing in line at Burger King, and I've got my little $5.00, and I make my order. Now, Rush comes in behind me and starts ordering as well. And I go, "No, no, you can't include him! No, I can't pay for him!" But I'd order a Whopper, and then he'd order one. And I went, "Rush, I can't pay for you!"
Well, I get the meal...and I realize that I have just bought his meal as well. That's not enough for Rush. Knowing that it bothers me that I'd just paid for his meal, he took his hamburger, his French fries, and his milkshake...and he ate it in about 15 seconds. [Mimes a few seconds of purest gluttony.] So he has the satisfaction of me being bothered and then him having no enjoyment of what I just bought. He still wasn't satisfied. He says, "Gary, come here." He goes outside, puts his finger down his throat, and throws it up. So in the course of one minute, I've bought him a meal that I didn't intend to buy, he ate it in 15 seconds, and then threw it up. And he pointed at the mess, and he said something like, "Well, there you go: all your anxiety is right there on the ground, in that bush." And to me... Perhaps that creates some sort of portrait of this person. And I love it! Believe me: I love it. He took my vulnerability, he took my anxiety, he took my weakness...and he made me look at it. Now, that's rather poetic, in its way, right?
And what was Richard like in college?
Richard...has always been Richard. Now, I wouldn't have pegged Richard to be a big star. Not that he wasn't talented, and he's incredibly smart, but he found himself doing the Practical Theater and then Second City. He worked at the craft of improvisation, and it turned on lights in him to where he can characterize things in his way. Because Richard is a character. God created a few people and said, "You're going to be different. You're going to sound different, and you're going to look different." And Richard figured that out. He created... [Does his impression again.] Richard Kind. Jeff Garlin, from Curb Your Enthusiasm, is a good friend of Richard's, and probably the best Richard Kind impersonator. Tom Virtue is also a great Richard Kind impersonator.
Richard has been saying of late that he can never do a good impression of himself, but he can tell you the sentence that contains all the requisite vowels for you to do one: "I can't, I'm doing a Commish."
[This information causes Kroeger to burst out laughing, at which point he takes Richard’s advice, and suffice it to say that the conversation briefly descended into dueling Richard Kind impressions, although - as one might reasonably presume - mine couldn't touch Kroeger’s.]
You see, you've got to get the face just right. Basically, the key to doing Richard Kind is to imagine putting your fist in your mouth. Don't talk with your fist in your mouth, but just create the mechanics to where you're about to.
This is a tip that's destined to go viral. I'm going to request that anyone who reads this should tweet out their own Richard Kind impression.
I hope that happens. [Laughs.] Oh, I certainly hope that happens.
Lastly, I wanted to ask you what led you to transition away from acting into politics and advertising?
Having a kid.
That'll do it.
Yeah, my son was a little boy in Los Angeles, and I was tired of the up and down. I never wanted to say, "Well, you can get your teeth fixed when Daddy gets a pilot," you know? "We'll have health care next year!" Now, ironically, I was doing the best I'd ever done when his mother and I decided to leave. But I had made the decision that I wanted him to have a life that I considered to be a more normal one. You know, I loved my career and the people who were there. I loved the trappings of it all. I did! But it's a little bit status-driven. "Where's your kid going to school?" "What're you driving?" And those just weren't the values that I wanted. I wanted my son to grow up the way I did. Found a job here, literally in the town I grew up in, in advertising. But advertising for me created the opportunity to write, to direct, to use all of the skills that I had been accumulating and developing over a 20+ year career. So I carved out a real nice niche and bought a house and started a family.
Now, that's the fairytale side of it. I was divorced a year later. But you know what? Life corrected itself, and I am now the happy stepparent of three, remarried, my kids are grown and happy and doing well. But politics have always been part of my matrix. Brad Hall and Paul Barras and Julia and I, and Rush and Tom and Richard, all of the satire we created with the Practical Theater always was about politics. It was about sociopolitical issues. Everything had a meaning in some way. It wasn't hyper-intellectual. We were very physical. But at the same time, there was a purpose to it. We were all active in politics. Verbally, at least, but we marched on this, that, and the other. For injustice, civil rights, and all that. But once I got into an environment where I could control my income, it opened me up to the possibilities of being a representative. So I ran for Congress, and I ran for the House of Representatives. And I lost. I'm a progressive in a predominantly conservative place. But I don't regret a bit of it. I cherish all of it!