The Rolling Stone interviews - Jann Wenner [91]
Were you close to the people in your family?
I was pretty close to my sister Peggy. She was the one close to me in age.
What has she become?
She’s become a parody of herself. No, she lives in the suburbs, and she’s got three kids. She’s an activist. She’s about as active as anybody can get. She drops out of bed rolling. Gets a lot done. She always was that way. So when I went into my bad phase, in college, she had no time for me. At that point, the only decent relationship I had in the house was with the dog.
What was the dog like?
The dog was the greatest dog in the world. Cairn terrier, one of those little dogs. My mother’s dog. He was one of those dogs that will play fetch forever. And he just loved to go for walks. I’d take him for walks to Evanston, about a fifteen-mile walk. His feet would be sore, but he would love it. This was my bad period. Everybody had left the house. My oldest brother was in the air force, my second oldest brother was living downtown, one sister was in the convent, another sister had moved away somewhere.
My day would basically begin around twelve or one. I’d wake up, and I’d eat like about eight fried eggs and about half a loaf of toast, and then I’d drink about half a gallon of milk, and then I’d hang around, I’d read, I’d listen to the radio, I’d make a few phone calls. And then, at about five-thirty or six, when my mother was going to come home, I’d split. And I’d come back around four or five in the morning. I’d be lying there in bed, and my mother would scream at me, “I want you here when I get back.”
I’d have been downtown, hanging out with my brother Brian Doyle-Murray. Also, I had friends who went to Northwestern. I’d walk the streets of Evanston all night long. Walk home or ride home on the subway in the middle of the night. It was so cold in the winter, I would just jump in front of cars to get them to give me a ride. And they were so scared, so glad I didn’t have a gun, that they’d give me a ride home.
When was the first time that you figured out that you might want to be an actor?
I was in The Caine Mutiny at school. I played Keefer, a sleaze guy who rats on everybody. It wasn’t much of a part. The only great thing about it was that you got to get out of class for a few hours, and that was like getting a three-day leave in the army, because class was hell.
Then they had another show, The Music Man. I auditioned for the part of the Music Man because I could sing. I auditioned for the part with two other guys, but someone else got it. Then, we three auditioned for the barbershop quartet, and we got those parts. One day after school, I walked by the school theater, and there were girls in there, and I just walked in. It was an all-boys school, you know, so it was like, girls—you wanted to take your clothes off. They were attractive girls, too, and they were wearing almost no clothes, ’cause it was a dance audition. A woman turned around and said, “Now, who’s going to audition to be a dancer?” I just jumped up and said, “I’m a dancer.” And people were like, “Huh? What? Come on.” So I went up onstage. I just wanted to sort of stand behind these girls, really, get as close as I could. I did my little audition, just clowning around, really. The woman said, “Okay, you, you, you and you,” and she pointed to me, and I was in. So I told my friends, “Hey, I’m not going to be in the barbershop quartet—I’m a dancer now.” They said, “What? Why?” I said, “I don’t know, man, I don’t know. It’s just an instinct.”
It turned out to be a good move, because the dancers rehearsed at night. The dancers rehearsed at seven-thirty, ’cause the dance instructor was a real dancing teacher, and her only time was between seven-thirty and ten at night. So it meant that I would go home, eat dinner and say, “Mom, I gotta go out.” And I would leave the house, which was even better than leaving school. I would