Steve Guttenberg: The Luckiest Man in Hollywood

By the nineteen-nineties, Steve Guttenberg’s time on the A-list had ended.  He had gone from one of the top-grossing actors of the 80’s to a punchline.  But he stubbornly refused to go away.  In 1995, Guttenberg appeared in three movies any one of which could have raised his profile.  As it turns out, none of them did.  But the actor seemed very hopeful when he sat down for this interview with Movieline Magazine in the November issue twenty years ago.

Martha Frankel reads Guttenberg some of his more scathing reviews.  She notes that he comes across as one of the nicest guys in Hollywood, but she doesn’t pull any punches when telling the actor that he is the luckiest man in town.  Poor Guttenberg just wants to talk about those movies which he hopes will restart his career, but Frankel is more interested in hearing about the time he tied up a fan.  Eventually, Guttenberg makes an unlikely prediction of a comeback.  Though Frankel dismisses it, history has proven Guttenberg got that one right.  Unfortunately for him, it wasn’t his comeback.

“Let me read you some of your reviews,” I say to Steve Guttenberg.

“Shoot,” he says.

“I’m quoting: Steve Guttenberg’s star billing is getting to be a surefire negative guarantee.”

“I am not bragging,” Guttenberg says with a shrug, “but my movies have grossed well over a billion dollars, so I don’t really think that’s true. Do you have the piece where Rob Reiner and Billy Crystal take some shots at me?”

“No, but I do have the one that says: Guttenberg has, on a lower order scale of merit, the same nervous energy of ten projected by Tony Roberts.”

“I’ve read what’s been written about me and for some reason, people get a big kick out of making sport of me. I don’t know why, but I have lots of theories. A friend of mine said to me, ‘Tall trees catch a lot wind. And the birds pick at the sweetest of the fruit.’ There’s a lot of truth to that, don’t you think?”

“Truthfully, I have no idea what that means. Here’s another one: Steve Guttenberg [is] a bland smudged Xerox of Chevy Chase.”

“Hmmmm. Chevy lives around the corner from me. What else can I say? Did you read the review that called me a barking dog?”

“Missed that one,” I admit, “but this one says: Guttenberg has a wide-eyed schmucky quality that makes him bizarrely inadequate as Isabelle Huppert’s lover.”

“I would love these guys to review Arthur Miller and Marilyn Monroe’s marriage. What would they say? ‘OK, what is she doing with him, that skinny, bald, bespectacled Jew? No, this marriage would never work.”‘

“Well, they’d be right about that.”

“I’d like to think,” Guttenberg says with a wide grin, “a lot of these reviewers are dead now.”

guttenberg - bedroom window

When my editor called and asked if I wanted to interview Steve Guttenberg, all I could remember was that he was the guy from Diner who wouldn’t marry his girlfriend until she passed a rigorous football exam, and that he was in The Bedroom Window, a terrible takeoff on Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window. When I ran a list of Guttenberg’s credits off my computer, there were close to two dozen of them! But you’re probably ahead of me, right? You knew he was in 3 Men and a Baby and its sequel, too many of those Police Academy movies, and both Cocoons. He’s also been in movies that either you didn’t see, wish you didn’t see, or wish had never been made. Really. They include The Chicken Chronicles, Can’t Stop the Music, Amazon Women on the Moon and Don’t Tell Her It’s Me (in which the central joke is Hodgkin’s disease).

Watching these movies is pure torture. But Guttenberg isn’t kidding: his movies have grossed well over a billion dollars, and if you think that’s no big feat, the only other people who are in that club are the big action-adventure stars and perhaps Tom Hanks.

I asked around the industry, and found that there are two schools of thought about him: (1) he’s the luckiest man who ever lived, and (2) he’s the nicest guy in the world. Some people mention his great chest, and others remark that he’s good-looking in a unthreatening way, but the words “lucky” and “nice” are the ones that come up most often.

Now that I’m talking to him, all I have to say is this: if you had a sister, you’d want her to marry Steve Guttenberg. He cooks, he gardens, he’s kind to young children. He’s what my grandmother would call a mensch, although Grandma didn’t know about that groupie he tied up. We’ll get to that later.

Guttenberg showed up to my suite at the Mondrian hotel on time. Not 20 minutes late (which, in actor-speak, is early), but exactly at 11. He put out his hand and said, “Hi, I’m Stevie Guttenberg.” Yep, Stevie. He was wearing a crisp white T-shirt and jeans, and he looked like the boy next door.

And now we’re settled in talking. “So,” I say, “are you the luckiest man in Hollywood?”

“Definitely.” he says, his head bobbing up and down. “Are you kidding? I was just thinking that this is my 20th year in the film industry! I started two days after high school, and I’ve traveled the world, done so many fabulous things, met the most wonderful people. So they can make fun of me all they want. I’m still here. And I’m still getting work.”

If you’re expecting a smirk, forget it. Guttenberg says this with a sweet, sincere smile.

Steve Guttenberg - Can't Stop the Music - 1980

“Let’s talk about Can’t Stop the Music, because it’s possibly one of the most disastrous movies ever made.”

“I was 20 years old. I had my 21st birthday party at Studio 54, Sammy Cahn sang me ‘Happy Birthday.’ My grandmother was dancing with Leatherman from the Village People and amyl nitrate was coming through the vents. My father kept saying, ‘I feel great, what’s with this place?’ He was dancing with Valerie Perrine’s topless friend, I kid you not. People talk about Can’t Stop the Music now because it’s got the whole gay aura, and it was supposed to be a family movie! But all I can say was that it was an incredible experience for me. Just great. I’m glad I had it. Because I come from Massapequa, Long Island, and I never thought I’d get to do and see the things I did. Allan Carr produced Can’t Stop the Music, and he had already done Grease, there was nobody bigger than him, and everybody thought this movie was going to be huge. Everything he touched turned to gold. So they gave him gobs of money. There were limos and food and Twinkies and girls and dancers. It was great. But I knew the movie was a disaster while we were promoting it. In the beginning, it was me and Nancy Walker [the director] and Valerie Perrine and Bruce Jenner and all the Village People. By the time we got to New York, Bruce had dropped off; by L.A.. Valerie dropped off; in Wisconsin, the Village People said they couldn’t make it. By the time we got to Miami Beach. I was the only one there.”

“Isn’t Massapequa where Alec Baldwin and his brothers are from?”

“Yeah, the Baldwin boys, Jerry Seinfeld, Ron Kovic, the war hero who wrote Born on the Fourth of July, Brian Setzer from the Stray Cats, Jessica Hahn and Joey Buttafuoco. They’re all from Massapequa. I grew up on the other side of the tracks, really, from most of them. They lived on the side with the water, and we didn’t.”

“You mean they were richer?”

“Aren’t we going to talk about my new films?” he asks.

“We will, I promise. But this stuff is much more interesting.”

“OK. Yes, money was tight. My father didn’t take a vacation for 14 years because he would just work the overtime. Every summer I dreaded the week after school ended, because I knew that everybody on my block was gonna leave, and everybody was gonna come to me to take care of their animals. And I remember everybody had those trailers that you hook to your car and then you go to the woods and pop them up. Everybody seemed to be leaving on the same day. And while they were packing the frozen food into the cooler they’d say, ‘The hamster eats on Thursday, and if the dog doesn’t come out from under the bed. just throw the food under there and clean the shit out later.’ We didn’t have a pool, and on the other side of town, people lived on the water and had boats. I was always very sensitive to money. If there were ever any arguments in my house, it was about money. We never had enough.”

“I’m just guessing,” I say, “but you probably have enough money now, right?”‘

“Well, I think I do, but a friend of mine said to me. ‘You know, you can take the kid out of Massapequa, but you can’t take Massapequa out of the kid.’ And you know, I’m not a fancy dresser, I don’t have a drug habit, I don’t like to wildly spend money. Although in a fit of craziness about five years ago, I did go out and buy a Mercedes.”

“Was that during the time you were married to the model?” I ask, nodding toward the magazine stories about him that are spread on the floor.

“Yes, but it wasn’t a reflection on her. I had a bad back at the time, so I thought this would be the best thing.”

“Sure, 45 grand instead of going to the chiropractor.”

He laughs. “I was driving a Honda Civic, and my back was hurting. One day I just said, ‘Fuck it, fuck everybody.’ I went to Beverly Hills Mercedes and pointed to a car and said, ‘I want that one, right now.’ Now it’s five years old, it has 30,000 miles on it. I give it out to friends when they need a car. I don’t care about it. I’m comfortable, I think I’ve done really well, but I don’t think I’ll ever forget that for my mother and father, things were tough, I mean, we weren’t starving, we had food, but we didn’t go out to restaurants. McDonald’s was like a big deal for us. That shaped me. My friend George said, ‘God giveth and God taketh away,” I mean, how can Wayne Newton go bankrupt? How about the guy who owned the Daily News, Robert Maxwell? How could he go bankrupt? And what about Stan Laurel, Abbott and Costello? They all thought they were OK, too. My friends laugh at me, because if they do good, I always take them aside and beg them to put their money away, to save, to take care of the future. I think that money is going to make them safe. And it doesn’t. But that’s my illusion.”

guttenberg - police academy 2

“Well, you may not be secure about money, but I hope you realize how famous you really are. Every single person I told about this interview knew exactly who you were. All my movie friends adored Diner, every little kid remembered you from Police Academy, every senior citizen revered Cocoon. I’ve never interviewed anyone who crosses so many boundaries. What kind of fan mail do you get?”

“I get a lot of fan mail. I guess it’s pretty much run-of-the-mill: ‘I love your movies, I want an autograph, you’ve always been my favorite actor.’ I assume other actors get the same kind of mail. And then I get the come-fuck-me nude pictures.”

“You do?” I say.

“Yeah, it’s great.” he replies with a sheepish grin.

“You get that a lot?”

“Yeah, I mean no. Well, I’ve gotten them often enough. You have to be real careful with those. When I was younger I’d kind of go after those, and they were always a disaster.”

“Do tell.”

“Nah, I don’t think I could.”

“Steve,” I say, “of course you could tell me.”

Amazingly, he does. “OK. I have a fan mail service, and they weed through them and forward on the more bizarre ones–the threatening ones or the weird ones. So this girl sent me a high heel shoe, and the next week she sent me a pair of stockings. Then, like clockwork, a garter, then the bra, then some pictures of her in this outfit, then a nude picture of her without the outfit. And she was gorgeous! I was in one of my cheap periods, and I had a lot of friends who were going through my fan mail, and they started saying, “Oh, you’ve got to get together with this one.” So she sent her number and I called her and she flew out here ..”

“You flew her out?” I ask.

“No, no. she flew out on her own dime, and I met up with her. And she was real cute and real fun and real great, and we went dancing. We had a great time. I was like 23, 24. And then she wanted to take me to her hotel, which was in Marina Del Rey. And I said, ‘Sure,’ And we go back to the place and she wants me to tie her up. So I did. Jesus, Martha. I hope my girlfriend doesn’t read this.”

“It happened 14 years ago,” I point out.

“But I have a lot of respect for her and I don’t want this to make her feel bad.”

“Duly noted,” I say. “So what happened next?”

Guttenberg laughs. ‘”OK, so I tie her up, spread-eagle, the whole number, and we got pretty whacked. We were pretty drunk and stoned and all. But I didn’t have any condoms, they were in my ear. I go down there. I get the condoms, I turn around, and there’s these buildings that look identical, and I have no fucking idea which apartment she’s in! To make a long story shorter, it took me and the security guard eight hours to find her. All this time she’s been tied to the bed and she is furious.”

“So, you don’t get to nail her?”

“No,” he says, turning red. “she was ready to kill me.”

“I think your girlfriend’s going to like this story. I mean, who can be pissed off at a guy who goes downstairs to get his condoms?”

“Well, I’m smarter now. I just recently started getting a lot of sexy fan mail again, maybe because my movies are on cable so much. But I’m not tempted. I’m looking lo have a really strong relationship. I was very lonely after my divorce. I was so used to being around someone all the time. I was married for five years, and I believe that God took care of me, because I was able lo heal and gel better. I’m stronger, but I sure wouldn’t want to go through anything like that again. When I get married the next time, it will be forever.”

“It’s a great song, but how many Hollywood marriages last?” I ask.

“I want a really balanced life. I’d love to have a great family. I came home the other day and I thought. Wouldn’t it be great to have a family, to come home to a house that’s full of kids? I’ve always been torn between being the playboy or being the home boy. My nature is to be a home boy. I got the chance to be a playboy, and it’s very dangerous. I look at a lot of the guys who are playboys and they’re 47, 48, 50. Isn’t it stale? To me it was unfulfilling and disappointing. I have a theory about a soul coming to Los Angeles, especially to the film industry. Want to hear it?”

“You betcha.”

“OK. Your soul is a beautiful white sheet, pure and fresh. You work in the movie business and someone says. ‘Hey, this chick, she’s totally loaded, why don’t you fuck her?’ So you do, and there’s a little pop, and that’s a hole breaking in your soul. And someone tells you a story, and asks you not to repeal it, but you go to a party and you tell the story because it makes you seem cool, and pop! Another hole in your soul. Or you tell someone you’ll meet them for lunch at 2:30, and you walk in at 3:30. Pop. Or your secretary says, ‘Your best buddy is on line one, but Don Simpson’s on line two.’ And you say, ‘Fuck my buddy, how ya doin’, Don?’ Pop. pop, pop. You end up with a sheet that flows in the wind. It’s not a soul anymore, it’s the remnants of a soul. I have a theory about sex, too.”

“My theory is that I don’t respond to sex. I respond to making love. I have a glow about me after I make love. I feel full. I feel that golden canister inside me has been just ladled with more gold, and it’s shining, and it feels good, and I feel good about what I did, and I feel good about how I treated my partner, and I feel good about how I’m going to treat her, and I feel good about how I was. When you’re in my position, you can have sex whenever you want, basically. But should that make you feel good?Whenever someone’s coming on to me because of who I am. I have to remind myself that Alex Trebek could probably get them, too.They don’t care about my soul. Because a lot of sex is built on a lie. ‘I’m using you for sex, I want something from you, I want your body from you.’ But it’s not that clear-cut. One person is usually going to get hurt, because they’re not using each other in the same way. Although, every once in a while, you have a mutual using.”

“Those are the great times, huh?”

“No. I mean this. When I do that, that punctures holes in that beautiful canister, and my gold leaves me. And for the moment. I have that primal satisfaction, and maybe a little satisfaction of what I conquered, but in the long run. I don’t fee! so good about it, and the next few days aren’t good for me. I’ve finally learned this lesson. So, is it time to talk about the new films?”

“Actually,” I say, glancing at my watch, “we’ve run out of time today. We could get together in a few days and talk about them.”

“Sure,” he says, “we could go surfing or take a walk on the beach or…”

“Steve,” I say, looking right into his eyes, “what you really should do is invite me over to your house so I can see how you live.”

“You think so?” he asks, looking none too sure.

“Absolutely,” I tell him.

He writes the directions on a pad of paper and goes.

When I leave the hotel later that day. the doorman, who has never up until now acknowledged my existence, says, “Should I put his parking on your bill?”

“Whose?” I ask.

“Steve Guttenberg’s,” he says, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

Steve Guttenberg - It Takes Two - 1995

The house sits at the end of a cul-de-sac, no more than a quarter of a mile from the ocean. The front is thick with flowers (I told you, he does his own gardening), and the large Mediterranean-style house is gorgeous. Inside there are pictures of Guttenberg’s parents and sisters and sisters’ kids in every room. He lets me walk around and snoop. Then we sit out by the pool, while the dogs. Diva and Bucky, dive in, get out and slobber all over us.

“This place is not bad.” I comment.

“I told you,” he says, “I’m the luckiest guy in the world.”

“Since I saw you the other day.” I tell him, “I heard Jay Leno do a joke that had you as the punch line, and a friend called and read me an excerpt of a new book about the William Morris agency, which described you as the luckiest white man on earth.”

“You know, I was thinking about this since I saw you. I’m different from other people. I’m very friendly. I believe in kindness, and I realty believe in good neighborliness. You know, the Talmud says that one of the greatest blessings in your life can be a good neighbor. There are people here in Los Angeles who live next to each other and have never met. So when I do a movie, and I’m on location with people for three or four months, I like to get to know them. You spend all this time together and you get intimate. And then, boom, the movie’s over and you go back to your life. But with me, if I see them a year later, I’ll say, ‘Hey, how’s your father? Did he have to have surgery?’ And they look at me like I’ve got two heads. I don’t want anything from them, I just want to share some happiness, to he a good person. I’ve got a theory. Right now, it’s very hip to punch somebody out, it’s very hip to trash a hotel suite, it’s very hip to he very late. But one day, kindness and niceness will be very hip…”

“And you’ll be way ahead of the curve,” I say.

“Exactly. There are some people who act like I’m weird, and it hurts me very much. And others who really understand. Like Mickey Rourke, I miss Mickey still. I met him on Diner, and he became sort of a mentor to me. We were intimate, in that we told each other the truth about our lives at that point. He was like an acting coach to me. We went to Barry [Levinson] at one point and said we’d like to have a scene together. And Barry said, ‘Sure.” So he wrote the scene where Mickey and I are at the counter and he asks if I’m still a virgin and I say, ‘Technically.’ And that’s the scene where he picks up the sugar bowl and pours the sugar in his mouth. He was trying to steal the scene, but I didn’t mind. I love a guy who steals the scene, because as long as I’m on the team, you can steal any base you want. Because I know I’m getting my World Series ring, too. And a few months ago I ran into Mickey at a horse show…”

“What the hell was Mickey Rourke doing at a horse show?”

“I really don’t know. I didn’t ask. I was just so happy to see him. He’s had some tough limes, and I’m still a big fan of his. He came over to see me, and he looked like hell and he was with some sort of bodyguard type. And I hadn’t seen him in four years, and it was like no time had passed. I may be one of the only people in this town to think this, but I believe that he’s gonna come back in a big way.”

“You’re right. You may be alone in thinking that. But I like that you’re loyal. That counts for a lot.”

For the record. Steve Guttenberg recently made three new movies: The Big Green, a Disney film in the same vein as The Mighty Ducks; Home for the Holidays, a family comedy that Jodie Foster directed, in which he co-stars with Holly Hunter and Robert Downey Jr.; and Me and My Shadow, a retelling of The Prince and the Pauper, co-starring Kirstie Alley. If his luck continues, one of these films will make enough money to pay off the national debt. And there will probably be a whole new crop of jokes about Steve Guttenberg. And he’ll be as nice a guy as ever.

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daffystardust
Editor
8 years ago

The story about tying up the fan is a classic. I can picture it as part of a movie.

daffystardust
Editor
8 years ago
Reply to  lebeau

It’s like a cut scene from The 40 Year Old Virgin.

daffystardust
Editor
8 years ago
Reply to  lebeau

so who do they get to play a young Steve Guttenberg? That jokey boy next door is not as easy to find as it used to be.

shoegal529
8 years ago

I … I think I like Steve Guttenberg now? He really does seem like a nice guy, but he’s not trying to act perfect. A little much on the cliched sayings, but I’ll take that over a jerk any day. Plus, He totally called Mickey Rourke’s comeback!

Brethartfan
Brethartfan
7 years ago

Guttenberg career like I mentioned similar to kurt russell. He walked into hits but his star power was never advertised much in marketing. It was either his hits where ensemble or plot was bigger then actor. I think Guttenberg might be better off tv work. His light comic chops fit tv mold. I also reccomanded same thing with Broderick after watching matthew on modern family guest stint .

Lloyd Bowers
2 years ago

Your photograph of Steve Guttenberg shows a side of the actor not nearly exploited enough. He displays a kind of compact, organized fury. Each part of his mouth says something different about him. He knots each eye differently. Good work!

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