How I Got to Be Whoever It Is I Am by Charles Grodin

for drinks
     and then have dinner there or go to other restaurants around the city. I loved Dick Watts. He was as kind a man as I’ve ever
     met and knowledgeable on so many subjects.
    The late Clive Barnes, formerly the drama critic of the
New York Times
and later a critic for the
New York Post
, wrote about Dick after he passed. He said among other things that Dick’s opinions were informed by knowledge, love, and,
     very significantly, compassion. He said his writing was modest, and he had the honesty almost to protest his subjectivity.
    Dick once gave a mixed review to something I had produced and directed on Broadway. He said that most likely part of his problem
     with the play came from some hearing loss he was suffering, as there were a number of lines spoken offstage. That Friday at
     “21,” I read into his ear a review from another major critic. He listened carefully, and when I finished turned to me with
     a big grin and said, “Why, Chuck, that’s a
rave
!”
    There was only one Dick Watts. He knew he was subjective, as we all are, and he genuinely came to the theater wanting to like
     the production.
    Maybe, in fairness, all critics want to like what they’re reviewing. Personally, I couldn’t handle going to see a play or
     a movie five nights a week or so. I mean, I’d come
in
in a bad mood, and that of course wouldn’t be fair to the people putting on the show.

The Graduate
    N o matter how many times I’ve written about or said to people that I did not turn down the lead in
The Graduate
, the question always comes up in interviews. “Why did you turn down the lead in
The Graduate
?”
    I had read about twenty pages from the script for the director, Mike Nichols; the writer, Buck Henry; and the producer, Larry
     Turman; with an excellent actress reading the role of Mrs. Robinson. Mike called me that night to say, “You’re our number
     one choice. We don’t have a second choice.” He also said, “When I close my eyes and listen to you, you’re perfect, but when
     I look at you…” It was a typically gracious Mike way of saying, “Lose some weight.” It wasn’t that I was heavy, he just thought
     that being thinner would make me look younger. I was thirty-one. The character was supposed to be early twenties. He said
     they wanted to do a screen test, but only for “photographic purposes.”
    In order to do a screen test you must first agree to the fee they will pay you, if they choose to hire you. They offered me
     $500 a week to star in
The Graduate
, plus a seven-year contract with modest increases, all with their option, of course. I was making more than that for a three-day
     guest spot on a television show, and I simply thought it was unfair. It really had nothing to do with the money, but the fairness.
    This attitude, which first reared its head on the CBS Sunday morning shows, manifested again. Even though I have sometimes
     worked for scale in really low-budget movies, in this case I thought the salary was inappropriate, and I still feel that way.
     We went back and forth and finally agreed on a thousand dollars a week.
    It seemed that within an hour my doorbell rang, and somebody delivered a large packet of pages from
The Graduate
that they wanted me to memorize before going in front of the cameras the next morning. That’s the kind of thing you deal
     with if you’re doing a soap opera, but to get to the level of acting they had seen me do in the office reading the script
     would be impossible. A note enclosed in the envelope read, “If you have any questions, call Mike Nichols,” and they gave me
     his home phone number.
    Now I believe he might have subconsciously known something wrong was happening. I called him and said, “With this many pages
     to memorize overnight, I can’t be at the level I know you’d expect.” By then, I had studied acting for ten years and done
     a lot of theater and television. He again said, “Don’t worry about it. It’s only a