Grateful American: A Journey from Self to Service(40)
Early in the morning of the day of the operation, Moira, Ella, and I sat in the waiting room, waiting for the staff to come and get our little girl and take her back for the surgery. Ella sat on my lap and I held her closely, smoothing her blonde curls.
“Daddy,” she said in a small voice. “When are they going to fix my heart?”
“Soon,” I murmured. “Very soon, honey. You’ll be all better.”
The nurse opened the doors to the waiting room and nodded to us. I carried Ella to the nurse and placed Ella in her arms and watched as they disappeared through the doors of the operating room. Moira and I stood there, stunned. I can still feel that moment of emptiness. When you hand your child to someone else, and she isn’t near you anymore, everything is out of your hands. Moira and I held each other. We paced. Then we sat on the couch again, trying to keep it together.
Dr. Trento is a tall, highly educated man with a hearty smile and a grayish shock of hair—the best specialist in his profession, with a list of medical accomplishments on his bio that literally continues for more than forty-three pages. After Ella’s open-heart surgery, when Dr. Trento personally delivered the news that all went well, I wanted to hug him and give him effusive thanks. Instead, I choked up, very emotional, and all I could do was whisper, “You have amazing hands.”
Dr. Trento looked at me intently and answered in his Italian accent, “Gary, it’s God. God puts his hands on me, and then I touch my patients with God’s hands.”
Moira and I crept into the Intensive Care Unit where our little daughter lay. Ella had a tube in her neck and another tube in her chest. Machines surrounded her with blinking red lights. Lying in the hospital bed with a thin blanket to cover her, she looked so small, so vulnerable. She was sleeping, still groggy with anesthesia, and all we could do at first was stare at her while the fact sank in:
She was going to be just fine.
It would be an understatement to say we were grateful at that moment. On the outside, we simply took three steps forward in the hospital room and sat, our hands clasped in each other’s hands, our bodies huddled close around Ella’s bedside. But on the inside, we were kneeling before an altar, wordless in our gratitude, cheering far harder than any ten-minute standing ovation, our arms upstretched to heaven in thanks.
Within a few days, we were able to take Ella home. She was in a lot of pain at first. Anytime she coughed or sneezed, her chest expanded, and she cried. A slew of appointments followed. Gradually she healed. She started to grow faster. When she was ten, we took her to the cardiologist and he said to Ella, “Well, we have good news and bad news. The good news is you’re all healed. The bad news is I won’t get to see you anymore, and I’ve really enjoyed getting to know you.”
In 1992, Moira and I had three wonderful little children, and after Of Mice and Men came out, I said to Moira, “I’m really going to go for this film business thing. I’m going to put all my energy into it.” Moira agreed. She started to audition less and less and focus more on the kids. I parted peacefully with my New York agent and signed with Bryan Lourd at Creative Artists Agency (CAA), a global powerhouse of a company and one of the top agencies in Los Angeles, and I hired a publicist and personal managers at Brillstein-Grey Entertainment. I wanted to surround myself with a team of people who could get me to the right folks in the movie business.
In fall 1992, my agents set up a general meeting for me to sit down with Steven Spielberg. As a director and producer, Steven was already legendary, having pulled off a string of blockbusters including Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. Steven asked me what I was doing, and I told him about Of Mice and Men, and he said, “Oh, I’d love to see it. Will you show it to me? Just bring it over to my house. I’ve got a screening room there. We’ll watch it together.”
And I said, “Uh . . . uh . . . uh . . . of course.”
We set up the screening. Just outside the theater in Steven’s house, he had a little lobby with a popcorn machine and a candy counter. His wife, Kate Capshaw, joined us, and we all grabbed some popcorn and sodas and sat down to watch Of Mice and Men together. It was surreal. Steven and Kate were both very gracious, and they loved the movie. Afterward, we stood outside their home, saying our goodbyes. Kate gave me a little hug, and Steven turned to me while I wracked my brain. Think, Gary, think. I was desperate to ask Steven one brilliant question. But all I could muster was, “Steven, how do you know where to put the camera?”
He chuckled and said, “I just watch a lot of movies.”
So simple. So profound. To become a great filmmaker, you must study the greats. You learn and steal from people you admire. Over the years I had endlessly studied the actors I admired: Al Pacino, Jack Nicholson, Gene Hackman, Robert De Niro, Jon Voight, Robert Duvall, Dustin Hoffman, Marlon Brando, and many others. Steven took the last sip of his soda and added, “Oh, and, Gary, based on what I just saw in Of Mice and Men, you should definitely keep directing.”
Directing.
Hmmm.
Driving away from Steven Spielberg’s house, I mulled over his advice and couldn’t help but notice my mixed feelings. I felt so thankful for my time with Steven and Kate, yet I thought back to those early days in high school when I was hanging out in the Glass Hall with my bandmates, trying so hard to fit in and look cool. As a grown-up, I knew that directing held many more possibilities for me. But I also knew my real love had always been acting. Acting had pulled me up out of that difficult time in high school. It had given me a direction and purpose, and acting had held my close attention for so many years. As I headed home to Moira and the kids, I held out hope that acting—not directing—would come through again, even though no acting opportunities were anywhere in view.