LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth |
To Writer Bruce Vilanch Tinseltown's A Big Joke |
by Mark J. Huisman |
He gave birth to Bette Midler's famed nasty granny Sophie Tucker. He's written material for, among others, Robin Williams and Whoopi Goldberg and has roasted celebrities like Elizabeth Taylor and President Clinton. He scripted the last nine Academy Awards, two of which won Emmys, including the one featuring Billy Crystal's Hannibal Lecter entrance and has won another four Emmys for his work on shows like the Tonys and the Grammys. And he's currently the head writer of Hollywood Squares where, in a rare break from years of toiling anonymously, he sometimes occupies dear departed queen Paul Lynde's old box. But almost nobody recognizes his name, certainly not in these parts. But utter his name in Hollywood and the stars will actually bow down before Bruce Vilanch. (Okay, some will curse and spit.) And now Vilanch is the star of his very own flick Get Bruce! a raucous look at Hollywood's most visibly invisible comic genius, the man big wig directors and producers call when they need something funny. "It's very bizarre, to go through having your life put on film," says Vilanch, surrounded by loud upholstery at a hotel in Park City, Utah, where Get Bruce! premiered at the 1999 Sundance Film Festival. "They really do dredge up everything. Stuff that I thought was long ago buried and would never come out is a lot of what's in the movie. They unearthed so much material I thought we were going to have to call the thing, Pig in the City. This happens to you when you're famous, but I was just buying the three dollar hand bag." As Vilanch speaks, his lightning-inspired bright blonde hair contrasts loudly with his white t-shirt, black slacks, fushsia eyeglasses, socks and shoes and the room's maroon and pine upholstery. Some have said he resembles a Muppeta Muppet, that is, with a fashion sense partly gleaned from his late father an optometrist and his mother, a former Broadway show girl. "She's as obsessed with image as famous people," Vilanch says of his mother, his hands making the kind of hyper motions that indicate adoration of the stage veteran. "When I was little, the house had what she called the showcase room. The furniture was all wrapped in plastic and nobody except company could go into it. Of course she took the plastic off then. A few years ago, the dog discovered the room, ripped through the plastic and ruined the upholstery. She called me and said she was going to redecorate it. And when I asked her what excuse she would use, she said, 'I'm telling people it's because Sonny Bono died." Suddenly, Vilanch spots a pack of black-clad film mavens through a nearby window. All of them are speaking into cell phones except one, who is using two. "They're like crows in the snow," Vilanch quips. Not satisfied, he tries again. "It's like a nightmare out of The Graduate. I'm surrounded not by stacks of New Yorker magazines but by actual New Yorkers." While never missing a chance to crack a one-liner, Vilanch's manner softens when reminded of the high accolades he receives from stars who simply cannot seem to say enough about his fabulousness. "I was just bowled over by all of it. Stunned. Very, very flattered. The golden part of this for me is that everybody would bare themselves by sharing their process. They didn't have to do that. The public has a lot invested in the idea that these people sprang fully grown from the head of Zeus. But they've grown into themselves. And their willingness to talk about that on my behalf is amazing." As are the occasional asides directed at him. "I didn't think Bette was going to call me cranky," Vilanch laughs loudly. "I was a bit surprised. And she wanted to cut it out. But coming from Bette, well, it's very real. As I told her, "Coming from you, that really made me laugh. Because, you know, you're no drive through a flower shop." Many a writer would blanch at never sharing the spotlight they help create. But Vilanch is content, even if that wasn't always the case. "I did originally think I would write my way into acting, like Mel Brooks or Woody Allen," he says. "So many people have said, "Write yourself a movie." But I didn't have a character for whom I could write. Later on, when I had found and written that character, nobody wanted to do that particular movie. So I just kept doing this. And it's turned into this amazing career that's validating in ways I never imagined. "And after a while when that supposedly magic moment never came, I said to myself, 'This is what I do. I don't do this until that happens. This is what I do. And I'm good at it.' Dozens and dozens of people had said to me that I do this kind of thing better than anybody. I never believed it until I believed that I was my greatest creation. Sometimes, you just have to be happy with who you are and what you have already. Most of us live in denialI'm in dress rehearsal for the show I'll do when I'm thirty. And then it's thirty-five. And then it's forty. And it's the middle of your second act already and you're still waiting? Hello! I've stopped worrying about that. I've thrown myself into a sitcom that happens to be my very own life. And I'm already in the fifth act." On February 19, Miramax Films will release "GET BRUCE!", the sensational documentary about Vilanch, and featuring Whoopi Goldberg, Robin Williams and Bette Midler, to home video. Mark Huisman is a New York-based freelance journalist whose work appears in The Village Voice, The San Francisco Chronicle, Poz and The Nation, among others. |
LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth, Vol. 10, No. 1, Feb. 4, 2000. |