Hollywood memoir: Howard DaSilva, Jerry Orbach & Author Ben Bryant

• Posted on 5th August 2014
• in celebrity books, celebrity stories online, celebrity story, entertainment books, funny celebrity stories, Hollywood books, Hollywood memoirs
• by Ben

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Here’s a funny Hollywood memoir story that’s not about Hollywood but off-Broadway in New York.

In an earlier post here I told you of my 1964 audition for Howard DaSilva who was directing an Off-Broadway revival of Marc Blitzstein’s The Cradle Will Rock and how I got the dual roles of a Cop and a Doctor.

Serious Howard DaSilva

To briefly reiterate: Howard growled that I was too young for the dual roles of a Cop and a Doctor so I followed him into the hallway and aggressively told him I was twenty-nine and would by now be a resident if I were a doctor and a detective if I were a cop, or words to that effect.

Excerpt from Three Stages, Chapter 7 First Bites of The Apple: New York City 1964–’66

“He stopped, turned and stared at me for a few seconds and said. “Okay, okay, you got the job. Be here at nine in the morning for rehearsal.”

“I was flabbergasted, as were the other actors who’d witnessed this brazen display of chutzpah. I had the job. Amazing.” (End of excerpt)

Click here to get Three Stages

Four years later when Elizabeth (then still “Betsy”) and I spent the summer with Howard DaSilva – and Alfred Drake – at Goodspeed Opera House we revisited that bizarre incident. I asked Howard why he’d hired me that day. Surprisingly to me, he recalled the event as clearly as I did.

“Of course I remember. Never had an actor confront me like that before or since,” he said.

“So how come you hired me without even a reading?” I asked.

“Two reasons. I figured that with balls like that you could probably do anything.” He paused.

“What was the other reason?”

Howard roared with laughter. “I was afraid not to hire you.”

Howard wasn’t afraid of “Betsy”.

This show was where I met and became friends with Jerry Orbach who was the star, playing “Larry Foreman” the role originated by Howard. Jerry was the personification of “cool”.

Me with Jerry Orbach at a party in 1983

We remained friends until his untimely death in 2004. The Reverend Elizabeth Hepburn, formerly known as Betsy, presided at his funeral.

I told Elizabeth afterwards that I would like to have spoken because there was a great omission about him by the many speakers at the funeral. Jerry was the best poker player I ever sat down with and folks talked about that but the thing about him that none of them mentioned was how funny he was in real life. He was one of those guys who could tell a long “story” joke and have you in stitches all the way through. On several occasions over the next forty years my phone would ring, I’d answer and without preamble Jerry would launch into a lengthy joke. A few times I returned the favor. The big difference was that my jokes were short and not nearly as funny as Jerry’s long ones.

A few times a week I ride my bike past the building he lived in at the corner of Eighth Avenue and 53rd Street, renamed after his death as “Jerry Orbach Way”. Each time I see that sign I have a grin on my face and a tear in my eye. Sometimes I ask, “Got any new ones, Jerry?” So far there’s been no answer. I guess Jerry now has more important things to do. But what’s more important than the laughter of a friend?

 Click here to get Three Stages

Tags: Howard DaSilva, Jerry Orbach