Starlit
Moments
So I
am at this private party in a restaurant; the name of which I can’t recall; on
the Avenue of the Americas just north of Houston St. On the Island of Manhattans
commonly known as New York. The host for the evening is Harvey Keitel who is
one of three leads in a film that I have played a very minor part in the making
of. It is 1994. Harvey is a Brooklyn boy made good. He was hired as the female
love interest in the film by the Director and Producer not just because they both
wanted to sleep with him but also because when they met him for lunch at the Beverly
Hills Hilton – outside by the pool, he cried real tears when he said that ‘he
just had to play the loneliness of the guy’. What an operator.
I
got to know Harvey a bit in New Zealand when we met up at the swings in the
children’s playground in the Harbour side suburb of Devonport in Auckland, New
Zealand where we both stayed for the shooting of the film. I remember discussing
with him whether it was a good idea to get his ex-wife (the mother of the child
he was pushing on the swing) whacked or not. We managed to agree it was
probably not the best way to secure his daughter’s future happiness and so the
idea was dropped.
We
would ramble on like this about men’s business on Harvey’s days off and we
became friends in a sort of way. I like him a lot because he makes jokes that
make me laugh and he displays a loyalty to his old friends that is more than
admirable.
When
he returned to Sydney for the launch of the film I was cast in the role of
Harvey’s minder and so we hung out together for a few more days of laughing. Harvey
had agreed to do one interview but as he was the sort of actor who usually only
said ‘he just tried to do good work’ we had thought one interview would be
enough. The New Yorker had published a cartoon inspired by the film where a
couple were getting ready to go out to a party and the wife was saying ‘If
Harvey Keitel is there all bets are off’ so we were pretty confident that he was
going to connect. The journalist turned up a bit flustered. She was 40-something,
very plump with long blond hair in beaded dreadlocks. The publicist told her
she had 20 minutes and left the three of us alone – Harvey had requested I
stay. The poor woman was so nervous that she could hardly speak. Harvey was
kind to her and she relaxed then went through her questions. It was clear that
she must have spent the past few days viewing every film Harvey had been in for
her knowledge of his career was encyclopaedic. The publicist came back in
twenty minutes but Harvey waved her away and the interview went on for another
hour. When the journo had packed up her notebook and disappeared with the beads
clacking quite the different person to the one who walked in I said to Harvey “
So what’s with the extension”. He looked at me and said, “She was serious”. Later
at the launch party I had sat beside him and gave him a brief background of each
of the women who approached to say hello. Yeah ok it was a boysie sort of thing
but we were very respectful. It was like watching the after cartoon. But I
digress. At this party on the Avenue of the Americas Harvey suddenly appeared beside
me saying “How do you like the food?” Great Harvey, its great”
“Should
be, cost enough” he shot back. Later he comes back “
You
know how much this cost me?”
“Nup”
“$5000”
“Wow
Harvey! “I shoot back, “That’s how much it cost me to get here”
We
both laugh. Big Guys.
It’s
not big this place but there are lots of people, I meet Arthur Penn who directed
“Bonny and Clyde” I am amazed at how normal he seems. Like why should he not
be? I light up a cigar and a voice behind me gives me a run down on what kind
of cigar it is and why maybe I should not be smoking it when I could be smoking
another brand the name of which escapes me now twenty or so years later. The
voice belongs to Victor an old friend of Harvey’s whom I have since seen
popping up in movies in small roles. We talk. He tells me Harvey is a great
guy. After the success of ‘Mean Streets’, when Martin Scorsese was going to
make Taxi Driver’ Victor tells me that Marty was going to cast Harvey in the
main part but Harvey says to Marty “No Marty its Bobby’s part he would be much better”
and so Robert de Niro’s career was given a ginormous kick in the arse. They
remain close friends to this day.
After
another trip to the buffet I turn and take in the room and there in a corner is
Woody Allen. He is dressed in the famous army jacket and is shadowed by a minder,
in the tradition of these things. Being too stupid to know better I head off in
his direction feeling his eyes upon me as I approach. Now if any of you have seen
Stardust Memories where Woody plays a Famous Director at a film festival where
fans constantly come up and say incredibly stupid things to him you will have
an idea of what happened next.
“Mr
Allen Hi! Stephen O’Rourke from Sydney I am with the film. I am not going to
stand over there and not speak to you like everybody else. I just want to thank
you for all the joy you have given me.”
“
Oh. How long does it take to fly from Sydney?”
“Oh
um about nineteen hours”
“Nineteen
Hours?” Woody reacts incredulously like he could not imagine why on earth
anyone would do such a thing – unless of course they were very stupid.And just
to confirm his suspicions I say.
“I
just want to say that there is a lot of love for you in Australia”
Woody’s
face does not move.
“You
know with all the fuss about your divorce and your new situation”
Woody’s
face does not move.
It
was around this point I realised the floor was not going to open and I began to
wonder what I could do to extricate myself from this belated Stardust Memories audition
when there was movement and noise as a group of men joined us and it was
greetings of friends. I had been saved by the old school gang from Brooklyn and
their trip down memory lane quickly turned to how things could have been. I of
course was safely irrelevant. Woody says ‘yes he could have been a national
basketball star had it not been for the teachers refusing to continue
supervising school sport’. School grounds were the only places where you could
play basketball and with the school courts no longer available it was the end
of Woody’s career. The others all agreed. Particularly loud supporters were
Harvey’s car-salesman brother and a guy called Marty. These guys had all grown
up together and had made it onto Manhattan where they gave parties at $5000 a
pop. I loved them, they laughed easily, the known and the unknown, remembering what
little twerps they were with their dreams of sporting stardom and marquee value.
Later I discovered ‘Marty’ was Martin Scorsese.
The
next day I was in a lift at the NY Film Festival when Marty gets in.
“Hi’”he
says.
“I
just found out who you are” says I, “ ‘Mean Streets’ was very big in my life!”
“Hey!”
he said raising his arms in surprise a smile lighting up his face, “it was very big
in my life!”
Stephen
O’Rourke
