The actor remembered that he and Felter’s dad would sometimes hang out for a beer after the week’s shooting for Homicide Detail had wrapped. Of course, they’d gossip about the shenanigans on the set but they’d also talk about their shared passion: feature films. O’Connor recalled that often young Aaron would join them, their conversations helping to plant the seeds of the boy’s future career.
Felter and the bodybuilder of a production assistant concluded their discussion of the actor crisis. The producer shook his head. “Okay, find somebody else. But I’m talking one day, tops.”
“I’m on it.”
Felter grimaced. “People make a commitment, you’d think they’d stick to it. Was it different back then?”
“Back then?”
“The Homicide Detail days?”
“Not really. There were good people and bad people.”
“The bad ones, fuck ’em,” Felter summarized. “Anyway, sorry for the interruption.”
O’Connor nodded.
The producer rocked back in a sumptuous leather chair. “I’ve got to be honest with you, Mike.”
Ah, one of the more-often-used rejections. O’Connor at least gave him credit for meeting with him in person to deliver the bad news; Felter had a staff of assistants, like Mr. America, who could’ve called and left a message. He could even just have mailed back the materials. O’Connor had included a self-addressed, stamped envelope.
“We just couldn’t sell episodic TV like this nowadays. We have to go with what’s hot. People want reality, sitcoms, traditional drama. Look at Arrested Development. Brilliant. But they couldn’t keep it afloat.” Another tap of O’Connor’s proposal for Stories. “This is groundbreaking. But to the industry now, that word scares ’em. It’s like it’s literaclass="underline" an earthquake. Natural disaster. Everybody wants formula. Syndicators want formula, stations want formula, the audience, too. They want a familiar team, predictable conflicts. White guy, black guy, hot chick, Asian guy who knows computers. The way of the world, Mike.”
“So you’re saying that Entourage is just The Honeymooners with the F word.”
“Naw, I’d say more Leave It to Beaver. A family, you know. But, yeah, that’s exactly what it is. Hell, Mike, I wish I could help you out. My dad, rest his soul, loved working on your show. He said you were a genius. But we’ve gotta go with the trends.”
“Trends change. Wouldn’t you like to be part of a new one?”
“Not really.” Felter laughed. “And you know why? Because I’m a coward. We’re all cowards, Mike.”
O’Connor couldn’t help but smile himself.
On his show, O’Connor had played a Columbo kind of cop. Sharp, nothing got by him. Mike Olson the cop on Homicide Detail wasn’t a lot different from Mike O’Connor the actor. He looked Felter over carefully. “What else?”
Felter placed his hands on his massive glass desk. “What can I say? Come on, Mike. You’re not a kid anymore.”
“This is no industry for old men,” he’d say, paraphrasing William Butler Yeats’s line from “Sailing to Byzantium.”
In general men have a longer shelf life than women in TV and films, but there are limits. Mike O’Connor was fifty-eight years old.
“Exactly.”
“I don’t want to star. I’ll play character from time to time, just for the fun of it. We’ll have a new lead every week. We could get Damon or DiCaprio, Scarlett Johansson, Cate Blanchett. People like that.”
“Oh, you can?” Felter wryly responded to the enviable wish list.
“Or the youngster of the month. Up-and-coming talent.”
“It’s brilliant, Mike. It’s just not salable.”
“Well, Aaron, I’ve taken up enough of your time. Thanks for seeing me. I mean that. A lot of people wouldn’t have.”
They chatted a bit more about family and local sports teams and then O’Connor could see that it was time to go. Something in Felter’s body language said he had another meeting to take.
They shook hands. O’Connor respected the fact that Felter didn’t end the conversation with “Let’s get together sometime.” When people in his position said that to people in O’Connor’s, the lunch dates were invariably canceled at the last minute.
O’Connor was at the door when he heard Felter say, “Hey, Mike. Hold on a minute.”
The actor turned and noted the producer was looking at him closely with furrowed brows: O’Connor’s flop of graying blond hair, the broad shoulders, trim hips. Like most professional actors — whether working or not — Mike O’Connor stayed in shape.
“Something just occurred to me. Take a pew again.” Nodding at the chair.
O’Connor sat and observed a curious smile on Felter’s face. His eyes were sparkling.
“I’ve got an idea.”
“Which is?”
“You might not like it at first. But there’s a method to my madness.”
“Sanity hasn’t worked for me, Aaron. I’ll listen to madness.”
“You play poker?”
“Of course I play poker.”
O’Connor and Diane were sitting on the patio of their house in the hills off Beverly Glen, the winding road connecting West Hollywood and Beverly Hills to the San Fernando Valley. It was a pleasant house, but modest. They’d lived here for years and he couldn’t imagine another abode.
He sipped the wine he’d brought them both out from the kitchen.
“Thanks, lover,” she said. Diane, petite, feisty and wry, was a real estate broker and she and O’Connor had been together for thirty years, with never an affair between them, a testament to the fact that not all Hollywood marriages are doomed.
She poured more wine.
The patio overlooked a pleasant valley — now tinted blue at dusk. Directly beneath them was a gorgeous house. Occasionally film crews would disappear inside, the shades would be drawn, then the crews would emerge five hours later. This part of California was the number-one producer of pornography in the world.
“So, here’s what Felter’s proposing,” he told her. “Celebrity poker.”
“Okay,” Diane said dubiously. “Go on.” Her voice was yawning.
“No, no. I was skeptical at first, too. But listen to this. It’s apparently a big deal. For one thing it airs during Sweeps Week.”
The week during which the networks presented the shows with the biggest draw to suck up the viewership rating points.
“Really?”
“And it’s live.”
“Live TV?”
“Yep.” O’Connor went on to explain the premise of Go For Broke.
“So it’s live, sleazy reality TV. What makes it any different?”
“Have some more wine” was O’Connor’s answer.
“Uh-oh.”
O’Connor explained that what set Go For Broke apart from typical celebrity poker shows was that on this one the contestants would be playing with their own money. Real money. Not for charity contributions, like the usual celeb gambling programs.
“What?”
“Aaron’s view is that reality TV isn’t real at all. Nobody’s got anything to lose. Survivor, Fear Factor…there’s really no risk. The people who climb walls or walk on girders’re tethered and they’ve got spotters everywhere. And eating worms isn’t going to kill you.”
Savvy businesswoman Diane O’Connor said, “Get back to the ‘our own money’ part.”
“The stakes are a quarter million. We come in with that.”
“Bullshit.”
“Nope. It’s true. And we play with cash on the table. No chips. Like riverboat gamblers.”
“And the networks’re behind it?”