plunged into a small utility table that was holding a stack of blue plates that I later learned were used as props. I whacked my shin on the way down. A crescendo of shattering ceramics and my shriek of pain announced my clumsy crash landing on cold concrete. So much for staying invisible, I thought. In unison, the entire group turned and moved toward me. If I could, I would have shrunk into the floor.
“That’s quite an entrance. Can you do it again for the camera?” Fred Fishbach, the director of my first film, asked. Everyone but Papa and I laughed. “You must be Big Jake,” he said in a voice that was at once booming and friendly. “We won’t hold your clumsiness against you.”
I know he was trying to make me feel welcome, but I felt anything but that. Fred Fishbach was an experienced moviemaker who had worked for Mack Sennett at Keystone. He was tall and muscular and reminded me of what a Notre Dame fullback would look like in the flesh. He dressed conservatively in gray wool trousers, a white shirt, and dark cravat. If I close my eyes I can still see him in the white visor with green felt lining that he always wore on set to reduce the glare from those damned klieg lights.
There was something about Fishbach that got you to trust him. I liked him from the get go.
“Nice to meet you, sir,” I said timidly, holding out my hand to greet him.
“Well, what the kid lacks in grace he makes up in manners,” Fishbach said.
“I’m Jake’s father,” said Papa, holding out his hand as well.
“Well, I can see that when it comes to social graces the apple didn’t fall far from the tree. But how in the hell did such a little man produce this Paul Bunyan?”
“That’s a long story,” Papa said. I’d seen him handle similar questions he wanted to deflect in that manner before.
“Well, hopefully some day when we have more time you’ll tell me, but for now we have other fish to fry. Jake is up in the next scene.”
Papa and I walked back behind the camera. Despite the fact that the camera operator and lighting men and all their helpers—who I would later learn were called grips—focused like diamond cutters on their tasks, I was certain they were studying and judging my every move, just waiting for me to make a fool of myself again.
XXXX
I had been trying my best not to think about it. I really had. But standing there waiting for my first time in front of a movie camera, all I could think about was the fact that Papa and Mama were going home to El Paso the next day. Mama and Papa had already been in Los Angeles for almost a week and had to get back to my brothers—particularly my little brother—and the store.
Standing in that chilly soundstage with an aching shin, I came face to face with the reality that I would soon be alone with all those peculiar strangers working in this weird new business. I hadn’t even shot a frame of film and already a crowd had followed me in the street, I had smacked my head, I had fallen out of a chair, and my new coworkers saw me trip and break dishes. I wanted out . . . to quit . . . to go back on the train with my folks.
“Erlich, come over here.” It was Alf Goulding, the assistant director and one of the gag men. I hesitated suspiciously, having no idea who he was. “I won’t bite,” he said noticing my reticence. “I just want to help you.”
It turns out Goulding really did want to help me. He had previously worked as an actor and had compassion for what it was like to be the new guy on the set.
In those days in silent comedies, there were no real writers, just gag men like Goulding. Gag men would write their ideas for the funny parts in a particular scene that the actors would later bring to life in the movie.
I looked around in hopes that Goulding was calling somebody else.
“Erlich, on the double.” Goulding was a little shorter than Papa but very thin, with a head of busy blond hair and a ruddy complexion to match. He was a regular Beau Brummel; everything the man wore matched. “Kid, today you’ll be filming a stunt.” Goulding said. I had no idea what a stunt was and I was too embarrassed to ask. “Four men playing the roles of detectives will boost you up to the open lintel so you can eavesdrop on the conversation between some bank robbers taking place inside a hotel room,” he said.
Then he went on to tell me I was to squeeze myself through the tiny opening and fall to a mattress out of sight on the other side. Then the director would stop filming. A group of grips would hoist me up and I would do the same thing from the opposite direction, coming out of the opening over the door in the next room.
“The bits sure to get a laugh,” Goulding insisted.
When I heard his description of what I was supposed to do, I got nervous. Perspiration poured off of me. It was too late to run away. Soon, hoisted, squeezed, and contorted, I would be the center of attention.
“I might not even fit through that tiny opening,” I muttered to Papa.
“Okay boys, take your places for the scene in the hotel hallway,” the director ordered. I walked to the door with four large men. I thought I would throw up or crap in my pants. But as terrified as I was, my excitement soon took over.
“Hold the hammers,” Fishbach commanded. The carpenters, who had been building sets on the soundstage, stopped what they were doing. “Ready, action, camera!”
Wow, my first time in front of a movie camera, shooting the first scene in my very first picture! I want to remember this moment, I said to myself.
Before I knew it, four actors grabbed my legs and boosted me up. They all appeared to be schtarkers, but they had misjudged my tonnage. Apparently crushed by the load, they started to sway to the right, then to the left, then to collapse backward. To avoid falling, I did the only thing I could. For dear life, I grabbed the outside of the scenery flat painted to look just like a hotel room door. In my death-grip struggle to hold on, I began to swing my feet. When my right foot slammed into the canvas-thin scenery, I booted a hole in it the size of a steer’s head.
“What’s this?” I heard a banshee echoing across the room. “Have you forgotten? We have a budget! Do you think we’re full of money? Such a waste . . . a waste!” It was Stern, bellowing through a megaphone. “Erlich, I expect you to get it done in one take! Do you hear me? One take!”
Terribly embarrassed yet again, and more afraid of my new boss than any plunge, I dropped back to earth. When I slunk back to Papa, I saw he was standing next to Kitty, who must have come on to the set while I was doing my scene. She looked at me with a smile. After our earlier interaction I would have never expected her kindness.
She motioned for me to bend down. I did. She put her lips next to my ear and whispered softly. “If you wanna make it in pictures, kid, you need to toughen up. Sometimes Mr. Stern can be a real horse’s ass. You need to learn when to ignore what he says and when to take him seriously.”
Stern worked us actors like dogs. On second thought, he was probably kinder to his dogs. Because he and his brother Julius were such slave drivers, Century Comedies was prolific and made a lot of money. We’d crank out a movie in less than a week. We called them “five-day-wonders.” They made Century Studios rich and the rest of us poor schleps exhausted.
Each of our movies cost only about $3,000 to make, but the producers had taken in about $50,000 from investors to cover costs. Then Universal made $300,000 when they distributed our films. You can see there was a lot of money in the picture
