14 SPRING 2020 MOVIEMAKER.COM
EXCLUSIVE BOOK EXCERPT
more or less. But he was not real-life André.
A character who looks and sounds like
André but isn’t really André? Which parts of
me were me? Which were right for the role?
Who the hell was I anyway? We are all many
faceted. I have been thrown out of four gyms
in my life for horsing around; would anyone
know that André? I couldn’t answer the
central, spiritual question: Who am I? This
part of the work—finding the man who was
and wasn’t André, and in the process finding
myself—was the hardest of all.
Then one day out of nowhere, after
months of rehearsing, I had it. I found four
voices: André the flighty, off-the-wall rich kid;
André the guru (à la Peter Brook); André the
spiritual used-car salesman; and the sincere
André (who appears briefly at the end of the
film). I had my André, the character Wally
had based on me and on my life and stories.
But we still had one problem: We still
hadn’t raised any money. “You know, boys,
I love this project, but I can’t spend the rest
of my life on it,” Louis said.
The theater critic John Lahr suggested we
do My Dinner with André as a staged reading
at London’s Royal Court Theatre. Nothing to
lose. We rehearsed once. Our set: a table and
two chairs. When I walked onstage to hug
Wally, I was horrified to see, in this small,
small theater, an audience full of British
theater legends. They hadn’t come to see
Wally and me—no one knew us then. They
came because it was their custom to attend
openings at the Court. I wanted to go home.
I still hadn’t memorized all my lines, so I
had someone in the front row “on book.” My
knees were actually knocking. I didn’t know
knees really did that outside of comic books.
- • •
WE BEGAN. Total silence from the
audience. The silence lasted maybe twenty
minutes. What the hell do these unknown
Yanks think they are doing? What is this?
What the hell is an experimental beehive in
a Polish forest? We were dying up there.
Finally—suddenly—a few, scattered
laughs. Then more. And more. And more.
The audience roared with laughter. We were
a hit, a strange, unique sensation.
Michael White, the legendary producer
of The Rocky Horror Picture Show and
Monty Python and the Holy Grail,
congratulated us backstage. He wanted
to produce our movie. It was all happening;
we couldn’t believe it. It was coming
together. But where would we shoot it?
A New York union crew would be way out
of our budget. And we couldn’t afford to
shut down a New York City restaurant for
twelve days. Indeed, in those days, even with
White’s backing, we had very little money.BUT CERTAIN PROJECTS , I’ve learned,
have a life of their own. Out of nowhere,
the Atlantic City assistant costume designer
mentioned to Louis that his father had
recently purchased a long- abandoned grand
hotel in the Old South—Richmond, Virginia.
The lobby boasted empty alligator pools and
a majestic staircase that had inspired the
one Rhett Butler carried Scarlett O’Hara
up in Gone With the Wind: “Frankly, my
dear, I don’t give a damn.”
We had a set.WE DID HAVE ONE PROBLEM,
though. It was cold, very cold. The only
way to heat the set was to heat the entire
hotel, and we had no budget for that.
Thus, we began filming as if we were
doing a documentary in Antarctica. The
crew wore ski clothes, earmuffs, thick
gloves. Between takes they brought in heat
lamps. Next shot, we would freeze again.
If you know My Dinner with André, you’ll
get the irony: Under the table, I had an
electric blanket draped over my knees.
I wore long johns under my elegant outfit.
Downed a shot of brandy between some
takes. Louis had been right. Nothing,
nothing about this movie was easy.
ANOTHER OBSTACLE: finding the rightwaiter. A critical role, because he’s really the
only other actor in the movie, punctuating
the scenes between Wally and André. We saw
many actors. Some were elderly and, for good
reason, unknown. Some were too well known
to appear with the two of us unknowns. As
shooting got closer, I called Richard Avedon,
who never forgot a face. I described what we
were looking for. Dick said: “I used to know
a guy who would be perfect. If he’s still alive.”
The man he told me about wasn’t an actor.
He worked as a technical director for film,
somewhere in the bowels of the Museum
of Modern Art. Used to be a successful film
distributor in Austria, but fled the Nazis.
He was still alive. We brought him down
to Richmond. A day into shooting, though,
Louis wanted to fire him. He had no idea
how to serve a table. Wally and I stayed up
all night teaching him. It worked.
Jean Lenauer was wonderful in the role.
After the film came out, Jean, despite his
years and total inexperience as an actor,
became a minor celebrity, speaking at
universities, surrounded by admiring
young women.OUR TAKES WERE TWELVE MINUTES
LONG. We were shooting film, not video,
so no taping over our mistakes. In many
movies, takes last about three minutes,
and even within those short, three-minute
takes actors often flub their lines. I could do
twelve without missing a word. The sound
technicians couldn’t believe it.YEARS LATER WALLY and I were
walking down the street when a fan
ran up to Wally. “My god!” he exclaimed.
“My Dinner with André is my favorite film
of all time, and you”—meaning Wally—
“were great! So great.” He went on and on
about how great Wally was without ever
looking at me. Finally, Wally pointed at me
and said, “I guess you know my friend?”
He didn’t. “I was the other guy,” I admitted.
He went back to praising Wally. In time he
walked away. Then he rushed back. “I’m so
sorry,” he said to me. “You were the waiter!!
You were great.” And off he went. MMExcerpted from This Is Not My Memoir by
André Gregory and Todd London. To be
published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux
in November 2020. Copyright © 2020 by
André Gregory and Todd London. All rights
reserved.“I COULDN’T ANSWER
THE CENTRAL, SPIRITUAL
QUESTION: WHO AM I?
THIS PART OF THE WORK—
FINDING THE MAN WHO
WAS AND WASN’T ANDRÉ,
AND IN THE PROCESS
FINDING MYSELF—WAS
THE HARDEST OF ALL.”