Tricks Of The Trade Read online

  Jim’s routines would have been misconstrued. Baseball bats would have been interpreted as phallic images. Locker-room and shower-room jokes and what weekly guest stars from the world of gymnastics did would all appear to have sexual connotations. If the script called for him to change a fuse while puttering around the house on a weekend, audiences would have squealed uncomfortably as they imagined Jim’s delight at being electrocuted.

  So now middle-aged Jim Fallon was washed up in show business, without any marketable, real-world work skills. He wasn’t even bright enough to earn a realtor’s license, which many a failed actor in town got as a backup.

  Still, he was determined to make a comeback. Whatever he had to do and whomever he had to use. “As God is my witness,” he said, imagining himself as Scarlett in silhouette, a red sunset in the background, with a dirt-encrusted sweet-potato root clutched in her hand, “I’ll be a star again!”

  But making a comeback in Hollywood is much more difficult than starting out. Ask Eartha Kitt. There are no more Merv Griffin Shows or Mike Douglas Shows to rekindle the flames of old celebrity. Today the talent bookers at Leno and Dave want only the hottest stars from the latest blockbuster movies or television shows. Jim Fallon feared that his name was soon to be merely a footnote in The Comprehensive Guide to TV Throughout the Century. He would be all but forgotten, like Dana Plato from Diff’rent Strokes, who’d had to get a job in a Vegas dry-cleaning store before eventually OD’ing herself into complete oblivion.

  In the meantime, Lydia, the beard in Jim’s life—the woman he’d palmed off as his “live-in companion”—wasn’t above filing for palimony, which she had been secretly planning ever since the first season of Grass when TV Guide profiled the couple in a Valentine’s Day issue entitled “Happy Hollywood Honeys.”

  The grass was getting browner by the minute.

  “Holy Christ!” Michael Scott shouted as he grabbed the National Enquirer from his assistant, Troy, who brought in the trades and rags bearing the news of Jim’s excommunication from his own hit show. Michael was Jim’s agent. “Why didn’t I know about this before?” he screamed at Troy, who was merely the messenger. “Why do I have to read these things in the trades? Nobody tells me anything!” he ranted, emulating his hero, the character Kevin Spacey played in Swimming With Sharks.

  Troy said, “I’m telling you now, aren’t I?”

  “Ah! Scratch the surface of any actor and you’ll find an actress.” Michael swacked the paper with a backhand. He didn’t want to admit he was also kind of amused by all the Jim Fallon stories. Michael looked up at Troy. “That just came to me. It’s great. Is it original or a famous line?”

  “Got me,” Troy said. “Although it sounds like Dorothy Parker. Or Oscar Wilde.” Troy knew his boss was basically an idiot who had probably never heard of Dorothy Parker and more than likely thought Oscar Wilde was a hot dog. “I think that you’re an Oscar Wilde weenie,” Troy sang to himself to the tune of an old Oscar Meyer commercial.

  “Find out if that’s a real quote,” Michael ordered. “I want it to be attributed to me. It’s a good line, don’t you think? Don’t just stand there looking at me, for Christ sake!”

  Troy nodded, winked, and walked away. He knew his boss was a wuss. No amount of screaming and bitching could ruffle Troy, who saw through Michael the way that Haley Joel Osment saw dead people.

  Michael Scott was not exactly an Actors and Others Agency hotshot power player, although he wanted desperately to be one. He had thought that with Jim in his stable (like common barnyard animals, actors are often referred to as being in a stable), he was on his way. He had discovered Jim at the Comedy Store. A couple of blows of coke and a night of pretending to be gay and convincingly offering up his eight inches for Jim to use as a tether, he gave a solemn Hollywood promise for more action if Jim would sign up for personal representation. Was it the blow of coke or the cock that did the trick? Michael wasn’t sure. But within days of Jim signing his agency contract, from out of the blue NBC dropped the no-name comic into a pilot called The Grass Is Always Greener. The show went to series, replacing the low-rated Suzanne Somers’s comedy Mrs. C. and the Chimpanzee, and it became an instant hit.

  Now, this dreary Monday morning, faster than a zap from a cattle prod, Michael and Jim were both in career interruptus.

  Michael’s client roster was mostly a disaster: Rose Marie, Jack Carter, Lorna Luft, Delta Burke, Jay North, Ruta Lee, Ali MacGraw, and Darin McGavin, to name a few. McGavin’s recent stroke didn’t seem to faze Michael, who couldn’t get the old fart a job, anyway. Now his only cash cow, Jim Fallon, had dried up—overnight.

  Michael, seated behind his huge desk, swiveled his chair around to face the tall smoked-glass windows overlooking the murky, leaden January skies above Beverly Hills. “Am I to be mired in a bog of has-beens my entire career?” he uttered disconsolately. “Jim, you son of a bitch! I’m very disappointed. February sweeps are just around the corner! You’ve fallen into the same stinking cesspool as my other clients. Is it me? Am I a jinx?”

  Michael could barely get his other so-called stars a little work here and there. Mostly they just appeared once a year in guest appearances on episodes of Law & Order or Ally McBeal or starring in productions of the ubiquitous Love Letters on the condo circuit in Florida. Their income was just enough to keep up their SAG health-insurance premiums. But the older they all got, the more demanding they became, insisting on such contractual imperatives as a box around their names in print ads and in Playbills or last-place billing preceded by:…AND ALSO STARRING…It wasn’t hard to see that the less important one’s name was in Hollywood, the more important it was to amplify the appearance of status.

  For all the lack of viable working talent he now handled, Michael Scott wouldn’t have been surprised if the senior agents dumped Sally Struthers or Joyce DeWitt in his lap, too.

  Suddenly paranoid about his career, Michael became certain the entire town either didn’t know his name or knew who he was but laughed about his client list behind his back. If it weren’t for his assistant, Troy, Michael wouldn’t even be able to get a table at The Ivy. As a matter of fact, he could only get a table at The Ivy because of Troy, who was movie-star handsome and had dated most of the waiters at the Robertson Boulevard eatery. Michael justified the situation matter-of-factly. “With a name like Troy, you just automatically get laid, like a Tito or a Trampus. Not much he can do about it.” Michael hated his too-bright son-of-a-bitch assistant because everything came too easily to Troy. That’s what good looks and half a brain will get you in Hollywood—everything.

  Troy was an up-and-coming player himself. In fact, unbeknownst to Michael, Troy’s ambitions were coming to fruition faster than his well-planned timeline. He was a mere several paces away from taking over Michael’s career.

  All of Michael’s clients adored Troy. More often than not they preferred to deal with him because he was always better able to answer their pathetic paranoid questions about pilot season or a show that they had heard was going into production and how right they thought they’d be for this or that role. Troy could appease them, usually by getting them invited to premieres or at least press screenings of upcoming films. Without exception, each encouraged him to seek an agent’s position, if not with Actors and Others, then elsewhere. And they all promised to follow him if he ever decided to jump ship. However, Troy only had his eyes on new talent. Once he left Michael, he planned to leave the Wax Works behind for the coroner’s office to eventually collect in plastic zippered body bags.

  Tossing the Enquirer aside, Michael picked up Marilyn Beck. A cryptic item jumped out of her column:

  As the gophers continue to burrow under the “green grass” of this ex-sitcom star we have it on good authority that his top-secret tell-all autobiog will dig deeper, grave-size holes in the careers of Hollywood’s hottest!

  Michael’s blood was already boiling, but now he was at serious risk for a massive stroke. He gnashed his teeth, guessing at once that
the item referred to Jim. Only he, Michael, hadn’t agented any goddamned book deal! What the fuck was his client trying to pull on him? Fifteen percent of a big book advance was what? Michael couldn’t do the math, but he knew it was a serious chunk of change. After five seasons on a top-rated show, the small fry from Alaska was almost as big a star as Paul Reiser or Jerry Seinfeld, both of whom got ridiculous multimillion-dollar advances for their books. Five million dollars wasn’t an impossible sum to consider, especially now, what with the gossip-hungry world craving every bit of dish about Jim’s personal life.

  Michael barked at Troy to get his now-professionally-destroyed client on the phone. “Oh, how Hollywood loves to see the mighty tumble,” he groused as he crumpled the newspaper and once again yelled at Troy to get Jim, even as Jim’s phone was ringing.

  Michael’s voice oozed sanctimony when he put on his telephone headset and greeted Jim. “Poor baby,” the agent purred. “What a pity about that damned tape. And the show. And all that money! And the lawsuit filed by the mother of that sixteen-year-old from Pacoima. Oops, you hadn’t heard? Check out today’s Army Archerd, second to last paragraph. Happy to fax it over. What’ya say I pick up something from Wolfgang and I bring it over to the house. It’ll cheer you up. We’ve got to make some plans, Jimbo. ’Bout an hour? Terrif!”

  Before hanging up the phone (without so much as a good-bye), Michael snarled at Troy, “Get Panda Express to deliver a bunch of stuff here, pronto. When it arrives, put the food into something decent. No leaky cardboard containers in my Beemer! Then bring the car up from the garage. Oh, and throw in a couple of rejected scripts, too.”

  Jim wasn’t thrilled to receive Michael’s call. They hadn’t spoken since Jim threatened to leave the agency a few weeks ago for another agent who he felt would truly care about jump-starting his feature-film career. Michael calmed Jim down, then promised him a special fuck and to work extra hard at getting Spielberg, Coppola, De Palma, the Coens and Mingella, and top producers for his “favorite client.”

  This appeased Jim for about a week, but they still hadn’t exchanged a word since. Now, Jim thought, perhaps Michael was coming to officially drop him from the agency. Or perhaps Michael had deciphered Marilyn Beck’s coded item about the clandestine book deal.

  “How do these things get out?” he asked himself, trying to remember who he might have mentioned the project to while he was drunk. Then Jim decided to try to view this from a different angle. Perhaps Michael actually had some career-enhancing magic to impart—a deal for a film. He sang, then whistled, an impersonation of Eric Idle being crucified in Life of Brian. Without question, there was an agenda to this unusual meeting, because Michael never paid house calls—except to catered parties.

  Jim was anxious about all the possibilities. He decided he’d better shower, shave, and put on his cleanest pair of 501s. The younger and more appealing he looked, the better he felt. And he still toyed with the idea of taking his stupid agent to bed again—although he always fantasized more about being banged by Troy, the assistant. Everybody did.

  Jim looked around his vast mansion and sighed. Soon he would have to downsize, since the big checks from The Grass Is Always Greener would no longer be rolling in. Nor would the large sums from his Ford truck endorsements. Even the lucrative Japanese commercials might be history. Everything seemed in limbo—a state Jim loathed because he had no control over it.

  Off Mulholland Drive, between Laurel Canyon and Wrightwood—not the most prestigious location in town but better than most—Jim Fallon’s six-bedroom estate was nestled atop a long, steep cobblestone driveway, hidden behind an electric gate and surrounded by tall pines and palms. The pool, which was only steps away from the back door, was clean but needed resurfacing. Because of the profusion of trees, very little sunlight ever got through, so the pool was seldom used, giving lie to the urban myth, perpetuated by porn videos, that all pool boys in Los Angeles are blond calendar models—tanned, muscular, and unable to wait to strip and service their clients. Jim thought he must have been living in a parallel universe, as was evidenced by his own pool boy. Or pool grandfather, as in this case.

  The old man came once a week and did meticulous work. However, Jim had only to answer an ad in Eros magazine, a freebie gay publication he regularly picked up in West Hollywood, and his Nordic “full service” pool cleaner would be in the cabana and out of his swimming trunks in a flash. Different pool boys came twice a week, but none of them so much as dipped his skimmer into the water. It was doubtful they even owned a net, let alone understood the correct pH level for the water. At five times the expense of the pool grandfather, the Eros boys would probably have to be downsized, too—in a manner of speaking.

  By the time Michael arrived, much later in the afternoon than he’d promised, Jim had jacked off to one of his infamous homemade videos, showered, dressed, and was stirring his third martini of the day. Michael would later recall that the man who answered the door when the bell chimed the first few bars of The Grass Is Always Greener theme song didn’t seem to be a man who was a pariah in Hollywood and the hot topic of Dr. Laura’s psychobabble call-in radio show. Jim had a bemused smirk on his face when he greeted his agent. Consciously reaching into his tight 501s, Jim adjusted himself.

  “Laughing on the outside, crying on the inside, are we, Jimbo?” Michael chirped.

  “We?” Jim hated being called Jimbo.

  “We’re a team. We’ve both got to be strong. But first a little nosh.”

  Into the vast kitchen Michael carried a tray of orange chicken, chow mein, fried rice, beef with broccoli, and egg rolls. Jim could see he’d been lied to about where the food was procured. The entrées were obviously not from Wolfgang, but he kept silent. He really wasn’t in the mood for eating, anyway. It was too late for lunch and too early for dinner. However, another martini would be filling enough, and so he prepared himself one. He didn’t offer a drink to Michael.

  As he prepared a plate, Michael asked rhetorically, “What happened to Hugh Grant when he was arrested for getting that blow job from a prostitute off of Sunset?”

  “Where are you going with this?” Jim asked.

  Michael, plate and eating utensils in hand, continued babbling as he moved toward the library/den. “And what happened to Rob Lowe when he was videotaped screwing a minor? And what happened to Michael Jackson when he was caught having sleepovers at Neverland Ranch with little white boys?” Michael stopped short. “Scratch that one. It’s not a good example. Anyway, what I’m getting at,” Michael continued, “is Hugh’s still very big…in films. Rob’s got West Wing. With the right strategy, you’ll be back on the tube—or even the big screen—in no time.”

  Jim whined, “I want to work in films. I want Kevin Spacey to be my costar.” His speech was beginning to slur. “I want a fucking Oscar. Just one. Is that too damned much to ask from this fucking town? I’ve paid my dues. I came from nowhere, and look where I am now.”

  “Nowhere again,” Michael said with a wink.

  “Do I have to prove that I’m a fucking survivor before I get the fucking recognition I deserve? Is that the fucking lesson I’m to learn from all this crap?”

  Michael looked around the vast mansion, his eyes drawn to Jim’s two Emmy Awards, perched on either side of the fireplace mantel under pink spotlights. “My friend, ‘fucking’ is what got you into this mess. Unless you clean up your act—and your language, for heaven’s sake—and do things my way, not only will there never be an Oscar, you’ll be hawking those Emmys on eBay!”

  Jim began to sob.

  Envious of Jim’s living in this gorgeous mansion, Michael took a seat in a wing chair opposite the fireplace. “Here’s what I want you to do. First of all, read these scripts I brought over. They’re all tentative projects that require packaging. But don’t read ’em with the idea of playing the lead. I’m going to have to reintroduce you, first in supporting roles.”

  “But…”

  “Don’t argue with me about th
is, Jim,” Michael insisted. “All the best shows have supporting characters who make the stars look better than they are. Just look at Jack and Karen on Will & Grace, and Daphne and Roz on Frasier. I think you’ll be especially good in this one. It’s a feature.”

  Michael indicated a copy of a script called Blind as a Bat. “It’s a hoot. It’s like Mr. Magoo, only the star character is a near-sighted former Wall Street executive who is now reduced to being the super of a building on a run-down street in New York. The role I have picked out for you is the new gay tenant who is trying to gentrify the neighborhood.”

  “Gay?” Jim was aghast.

  “Let me finish. Everybody knows that real men, straight actors, play gay better than gays. But the public doesn’t know that there aren’t really any ‘straight’”—he used his fingers to indicate quotation marks—“actors in Hollywood. They think that ‘straight’—again with the fingers—“actors are comfortable enough with their own sexuality that they haven’t a problem playing queers. No offense. It’s all Scientology…or sociology. I get those two confused.”

  Jim sobbed again. “Scientology my ass. If I joined them, I’d be better taken care of than I am with you. Just look at Tom and Nicole and Travolta and Kirsty.”

  As Michael finished his plate of orange chicken, he offered some traditional agent-client wisdom: “Trust me.” Then he added, “So what’s your fortune?”

  “It was a high six figures per episode.”

  “No. Your fortune cookie. But here’s a twist. Whatever it says, you have to add ‘in bed’ to the prognostication.”

  Jim, in a gin stupor, didn’t quite follow as he held a Panda Express fortune cookie in his hand.

  “Here,” Michael said as he cracked open his cookie into crumbs and demonstrated what he wanted Jim to do. “Oh, mine’s a goody. ‘Luck will visit you on the next full moon…in bed.’ Now you try it.”