Steve Guttenberg lost his father, Stanley, to kidney failure a year ago. But the star of 80s favorites like dinner And police academy can talk to his father again whenever the actor performs Tales from the Guttenberg Biblethe autobiographical play that Guttenberg adapted from his 2012 memoir, The Guttenberg Bible. “It helps a lot,” Guttenberg, 64, told Yahoo Entertainment in a moving conversation. “My dad and I were very close – he’s the reason I became everything I am. Ultimately, I wanted this room to be all about him and me.”
And it’s not a one-way conversation between father and son on stage. Rather than taking the “one-man show” approach so common with staged versions of celebrity memoirs – think Billy Crystal 700 sundays, for example – Guttenberg surrounds himself with three actors who play all the major and minor figures of his life and career. The fast-moving trio of Dan Domingues, Carine Montbertrand and Arnie Burton are tasked with representing everyone from former college pals and ex-agents to celebrity co-stars like Laurence Olivier and Tom Selleck.
It’s Burton who shoulders the heavy emotional burden of being Stanley Guttenberg, a Long Island family man portrayed in the play as being by turns bewildered, perplexed, and dazzled by his son’s rapid rise through the Hollywood ranks. According to his offspring, this is definitely a case of art imitating life. “I’m sure when Picasso said to his father, ‘I want to be a painter,’ his father said, ‘How are you going to make money? ‘” Guttenberg said with a laugh. “Gaming sounds like a crazy way to earn a living!” [This interview was conducted before the SAG-AFTRA strike.]
Guttenberg began the years-long process of turning his memoir into a play while his father was still alive and remembers sitting next to him as his illness progressed, speaking through scenes. “We had 300 pages of the play at one point,” he recalls. “My dad said, ‘I don’t think it should be that long. It’s not Nicholas Nickleby!’ But he also always said, “It’s going to be a great play; it’s gonna come to broadway one day. And I believe it will.”
Tales from the Guttenberg Bible had its world premiere in April at the George Street Playhouse in New Jersey, and will return for a second production August 1-20 at the Bay Street Theater in Sag Harbor, NY The entire cast of the original production is back for this run , although Burton will be alternating his or her roles with Steven DeRosa. “I swear to you that when I do this play, I’m talking to my father,” Guttenberg said, visibly in tears. “And when I kiss Arnie, I kiss my dad. It’s amazing – I’m stepping back in time, which is such a luxury after losing my dad last year. That’s why I want to keep doing it : My grief is extremely heavy, and it feels so good to me.”
“But the play isn’t just about me and my dad,” Guttenberg adds. “I wanted our relationship to be a metaphor for everyone in the audience who has lost someone they loved so much it hurts. It’s about you and the person who told you you could become a teacher or a writer or an actor. That person who says, ‘You can do it.'”
How Guttenberg did it certainly seems impossible to understand now. After graduating from high school in 1976, the 18-year-old headed west with outsize ambitions to get into acting in the weeks between his senior year at Plainedge High School and his freshman year at the University of Albany. Collapsing with his godfather, voice-over star Michael Bell, Guttenberg snuck into the studios and worked his way into appearances in Kentucky Fried Chicken commercials and a one-line role in the film. 1977 disaster. Russian mountains – an almost disastrous experience for the novice comedian.
These moments of youthful pride are recreated in Tales from the Guttenberg Biblewith Guttenberg inviting the audience to laugh at his own naivety while nodding in appreciation for his ingenuity, which paid off in early performances in ’70s films like The Chicken Chronicles And brazil boys paved the way for his string of seminal ’80s hits, from Cocoon For three men and a baby. The actor acknowledges his specific journey isn’t replicable in today’s Hollywood, but that doesn’t mean anyone can’t use creative means to become someone.
“Ambition and action are what it’s all about,” Guttenberg believes. “It can’t be done the same way, but if you’re ambitious and want to be an actor, producer or director, there’s a way to slip under the door. You just have to be really dedicated and really lucky My dad always said, ‘Play the game and don’t go. Hold on until you get the opening. “”
An aspect of Guttenberg’s superstar days that is largely overlooked Tales from the Guttenberg Bible are the sexual escapades that can come with being a top celebrity. In his 2012 memoir, the actor candidly described some of his affairs – including a recurring relationship with a stalking fan and a one-night stand with a woman posing as a reporter at a film festival – in a way that was both amusing and, at times, sorry. But in adapting the book for the stage, Guttenberg felt these parts of his life didn’t “advance the story” he wanted to tell.
“When you read it, your face perks up a bit,” he admits. “Talking about failed marriages or failed romantic experiences or dessert experiences of being famous is hard. But that’s the game, man. When you’re not famous anymore, you’re just another handsome guy. I can throw a stick in Malibu and hit 20 of us!” (Guttenberg was previously married to model Denise Bixler from 1988 to 1992 and married his second wife, Emily Smith, in 2019.)
As dramatized in the play, Guttenberg developed his own complicated relationship with fame as the spotlight on him shone ever brighter. Tales from the Guttenberg Bible ends with the production of three men and a baby – which holds the record for the highest-grossing film of 1987 and of Guttenberg’s entire career – how the actor consciously moved away from Hollywood in search of a quieter place to live. To this day, he divides his time between various cities outside of the Los Angeles area.
Guttenberg says that choice was largely motivated by his frustration at having to follow the unspoken but strictly enforced “rules” of Hollywood. “Let’s say you’re at a party and you want to say ‘hi’ to someone,” he says by way of example. “There are some people you’re not allowed to say ‘hi’ to unless you’re accredited. I can’t tell you how many parties I’ve been to where I wanted to say hello to someone that I knew, and the guard would come and say to me, ‘Can you wait a bit?'”
“The other rule is you’re going to get screwed,” Guttenberg continues. “And you’re going to fuck someone else. And you can’t get mad about it. You’ll think you got a part and then you’ll find out they gave it to another actor. You will say: ‘But you told me that I had the role!’ And they’ll go, ‘I know we made it. I hope you understand.’ Those are the rules of Hollywood.”
Despite his distaste for those rules, Guttenberg says he’s not ready to give up the game he fought so hard for. In recent years, he has risen to character actor status, appearing in roles on popular TV shows like Community, The Goldbergs and, most memorably, one of the best episodes of To party. “The business has been a little better than great for me,” he says. “It’s given me family experiences we can only dream of and financial security we never would have had otherwise. The best part of being famous is sharing it. If you don’t share it, you’ll die alone on a yacht with nobody It’s a fun game, and you have to be a certain person with the stomach for this game.”
And there is one more game that Guttenberg still thinks about playing. Despite his strong bond with his late father, the actor never became a dad himself. And live his life through Tales from the Guttenberg Bible put this absence in mind. “I think I would be a great dad,” Guttenberg said. “It’s still a dream of mine. I’m a very young-minded, very fit guy. But I don’t know if I could stay in show business and be a dad. Maybe I should walk away. “
In other words, don’t expect Guttenberg to raise a “baby nepo,” a term he laughs at when defined for him. “I don’t know if I would want to raise my kids in the business,” he says. “It worked well for some actors, but not for others. It can be weird when you have a family member who is famous – really weird!”
Tales from the Guttenberg Bible from August 1 to 20 at Bay Street Theater in Sag Harbor, NY