Niro was attempting, “he not only tore the sheet off, he balled it up, then tossed it across the room.”
On the night of opening, the Woiwodes accompanied the two Robert De Niros to the gallery and were greeted by the appearance of yet another De Niro—Henry, the father of the painter, in town from Syracuse to see how
his
son’s career was faring. Woiwode remembered him as “tall and heavyset, silver-haired, with a way of walking with his arms out from his sides, as if about to quick-draw on the louts he sees on the street, as he calls them.”
After the show, they all went for dinner. Walking along the street, they came upon Bobby’s girl’s boss from Max’s, who she’d been complaining had been forward with her, pawing at her and making lewd chat. Told who the man was, Bobby pounced on him, grabbing him by the collar, shoving him against a building, hitting him in the head, and warning him of worse: “You touch my girl one more time and I’ll bust your ass, you fucking scumbag!” Eventually his father and grandfather pulled him off (“Bobby, you cannot do that in this city,” Henry told him), and the groper, terrified and chastened, fled into the night.
----
*1 Two decades later, no longer involved with the theater, Sklar would see De Niro in the only Broadway performance of his career, in
Cuba and His Teddy Bear
, and she came away with the same impression: “I was right. He was brilliant in front of the camera, but it didn’t come across the same way in the theater.”
*2 De Palma wouldn’t finish editing
The Wedding Party
until 1966, and it wouldn’t be released until 1969, when he and De Niro had acquired a patina of indie film cred and someone saw some commercial possibilities in it. Over the years, it was released on video and DVD as a De Niro/Clayburgh film (in fact, they would almost never be on-screen together in a single shot), and one bottom-feeding distributor billed it, with almost larcenous disingenuousness, as “De Palma!! De Niro!! De Clayburgh!! De Lovely!!” (De trop.)
*3 Decades later, Woiwode still owned the painting.
*4 The 2012 film
Being Flynn
, in which De Niro played a wayward Manhattan father struggling with mental issues, included a version of this very scene, with De Niro enlisting the help of his son (played by Paul Dano) and his chums to fetch his belongings out of a storage unit.
S UDDENLY HE WAS DRIVEN .
He would audition for almost anything—plays, movies, student projects, commercials. He’d show up, always prepared, distribute head shots and clippings, and mention his experience and schooling if he thought it would matter. He made a job of going out to look for jobs, on his own, without an agent, tireless. “If you don’t go, you never know” became his mantra, and he’d hold on to it for years, sharing it with other hustling wannabes, dispensing it as advice to newcomers once he’d ascended, passing it on to his own children as a family ethic.
He wasn’t afraid to look for or ask about work anywhere. Tagging along to a literary party with Larry Woiwode, he peppered John Updike with questions about who owned the film rights to
Rabbit, Run.
*1 He showed up for auditions in empty storefronts where potential directors conducted business sitting on flattened cardboard boxes on the floor. He tried out for student productions.
“I had an optimistic outlook,” he remembered. “I sent out my resume and went to open calls. I felt like a gambler. If I didn’t go, I would never know. I was never discouraged as long as I was acting. I read for a lot of things.”
His resumes were a particular specialty. Because he had access tounlimited typesetting and printing through his mother’s business, he built a small library of head shots—single images and composites in the guises of various personae: cops, cabbies, beatniks, a hippie with a guitar, a Chekhovian man with glasses and suit, an Italian gangster with cape and goatee, even some with his hair apparently
On the night of opening, the Woiwodes accompanied the two Robert De Niros to the gallery and were greeted by the appearance of yet another De Niro—Henry, the father of the painter, in town from Syracuse to see how
his
son’s career was faring. Woiwode remembered him as “tall and heavyset, silver-haired, with a way of walking with his arms out from his sides, as if about to quick-draw on the louts he sees on the street, as he calls them.”
After the show, they all went for dinner. Walking along the street, they came upon Bobby’s girl’s boss from Max’s, who she’d been complaining had been forward with her, pawing at her and making lewd chat. Told who the man was, Bobby pounced on him, grabbing him by the collar, shoving him against a building, hitting him in the head, and warning him of worse: “You touch my girl one more time and I’ll bust your ass, you fucking scumbag!” Eventually his father and grandfather pulled him off (“Bobby, you cannot do that in this city,” Henry told him), and the groper, terrified and chastened, fled into the night.
----
*1 Two decades later, no longer involved with the theater, Sklar would see De Niro in the only Broadway performance of his career, in
Cuba and His Teddy Bear
, and she came away with the same impression: “I was right. He was brilliant in front of the camera, but it didn’t come across the same way in the theater.”
*2 De Palma wouldn’t finish editing
The Wedding Party
until 1966, and it wouldn’t be released until 1969, when he and De Niro had acquired a patina of indie film cred and someone saw some commercial possibilities in it. Over the years, it was released on video and DVD as a De Niro/Clayburgh film (in fact, they would almost never be on-screen together in a single shot), and one bottom-feeding distributor billed it, with almost larcenous disingenuousness, as “De Palma!! De Niro!! De Clayburgh!! De Lovely!!” (De trop.)
*3 Decades later, Woiwode still owned the painting.
*4 The 2012 film
Being Flynn
, in which De Niro played a wayward Manhattan father struggling with mental issues, included a version of this very scene, with De Niro enlisting the help of his son (played by Paul Dano) and his chums to fetch his belongings out of a storage unit.
S UDDENLY HE WAS DRIVEN .
He would audition for almost anything—plays, movies, student projects, commercials. He’d show up, always prepared, distribute head shots and clippings, and mention his experience and schooling if he thought it would matter. He made a job of going out to look for jobs, on his own, without an agent, tireless. “If you don’t go, you never know” became his mantra, and he’d hold on to it for years, sharing it with other hustling wannabes, dispensing it as advice to newcomers once he’d ascended, passing it on to his own children as a family ethic.
He wasn’t afraid to look for or ask about work anywhere. Tagging along to a literary party with Larry Woiwode, he peppered John Updike with questions about who owned the film rights to
Rabbit, Run.
*1 He showed up for auditions in empty storefronts where potential directors conducted business sitting on flattened cardboard boxes on the floor. He tried out for student productions.
“I had an optimistic outlook,” he remembered. “I sent out my resume and went to open calls. I felt like a gambler. If I didn’t go, I would never know. I was never discouraged as long as I was acting. I read for a lot of things.”
His resumes were a particular specialty. Because he had access tounlimited typesetting and printing through his mother’s business, he built a small library of head shots—single images and composites in the guises of various personae: cops, cabbies, beatniks, a hippie with a guitar, a Chekhovian man with glasses and suit, an Italian gangster with cape and goatee, even some with his hair apparently
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