Fred Stoller's entry into my life was emblematic of his personal gestalt -- which he's turned into an unlikely career.
You know when you're at a cool party and then someone latches on to you and they're kind of annoying but persistent and you can't shake them and then you give up and realize there's something inimitable about them that is compelling?
That's Fred Stoller.
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| Phil Rosenthal's awesome screening room (LA Times) |
We met at one of those parties you always imagine take place in Hollywood yet never dream of getting invited to. But in 2002, during my year on
West Wing, my
Rolling Stone buddy David Wild brought me to the home of
Everybody Loves Raymond creator
Phil Rosenthal, who has hosted Sunday night movie screening pizza parties
[right] with his wife Monica Horan (who played Brad Garrett's wife on
Raymond) since they met in New York in the 80's.
Among the two dozen or so guests were several character actors, writers, and the like. The house was beautiful but not ostentatious; the entry hall was hung with framed autographs Rosenthal had collected from his idols, including, if I'm remembering right, Billy Wilder.
Before that night's screening of Woody Allen's
Radio Days (Rosenthal had been re-screening all of Woody's movies)
I hung out in the kitchen and ate slices from pizza boxes off the large island (apparently Phil has since
upgraded to pizzas from Mozza), and eventually out of the cast of characters emerged -- Fred.
Fred was tall, lean, anxious, nasal-voiced and Brooklyn-born. He told me he'd been working on a memoir about his piecemeal, freelance experiences on the fame's fringes called "
Maybe We'll Have You Back" - -the noncommittal statement told by TVproducers to itinerant guest stars like Fred their entire careers.
I was wary, but intrigued.
I'd been a big comedy fan since childhood -- and written a lot of journalism about comedy, including editing two special issues of
Rolling Stone on the topic. And I had never read or heard of a book told from the point of view of someone like Fred. Someone like, well, these guys:
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| "Fred, Ed, Ted, and Fred" (Willard, Begley, Lange, Stoller) |
Stories from a journeyman character actor about how different stars behaved, of rating gigs by how good the food is, of trying to fit in and make enough of a mark without stealing the stars' limelight(s).
