Free Maybe We'll Have You Back: The Life of a Perennial TV Guest Star by Fred Stoller, Ray Romano

huge. If you aren’t a hot commodity with a production deal or a name like Brad Pitt or Tom Hanks, it’s not just easy to get lost in the shuffle, it’s almost guaranteed.
    If the wardrobe lady hadn’t called for my sizes a few days in advance, I would’ve been in a depressing comedy condo in Dayton, Ohio, trying to decide which of three mustard containers in the fridge contained the least bacteria as my name was being introduced at the table read of Lenny . This would be my first network guest appearance since Singer & Sons . In that seven months since I played Sheldon, the timid deli guy, half that money I earned had gone to taxes, living expenses, and the rest to my agent and coach.
    The role I was to play was in a new show featuring Lenny Clarke, a stand-up comedian who had immense popularity in his hometown of Boston. In his self-titled show Lenny he played a good-natured working-class lug, working two jobs trying to make good for his family. Mainly he worked for the electric company, but at night sometimes moonlighted as a doorman at a fancy hotel. I’d be playing the bellhop.
    The set was a great contrast to the stress and panic from the Singer & Sons set. At the run-throughs, the producers were very accessible, greeting me and telling me I was doing a good job. After the first run-through, Lenny mentioned there was a good chance they’d “bring me back.” That was the first time someone said that to me. I remembered that on Singer & Sons , that was the magic phrase the fruit salad guy longed to hear.
    Only the show was not doing well in the ratings, but everyone on the set was still fairly optimistic. Just a few more episodes were produced after my appearance and I never did return.
    “What the hell’s Lenny ?” was the first thing my mother asked when I told her I was on it, and that was what most people who saw it on my résumé also wanted to know. But it was significant to me because I got that part on my own without any coaching. And it also lit the fire in me to leave my agent and find one who, like me, felt getting booked on a show as a cackling dopey bellhop was something worth noting.

9
    AMEN TO GREAT FOOD!
    M ost of the hard work in an acting career is actually
landing the job. No stress compares to the uncertainty of wanting to fill all of those vacant boxes on one’s month-at-a-glance calendar. So when I got offered a role on the sitcom Amen without having to audition, it was a real compliment, an actor’s dream. But it also made me even more nervous. At least if I’d auditioned, I’d know that they liked what I did. Instead I was flying blind.
    It turned out the executive producer was familiar with my Thrill Seeker persona from some of the stand-up cable shows I had done. They had gotten a video of my jokes and decided that I didn’t have to read for the part. They even asked for permission to use several of my jokes in the dialogue.
    The star of Amen was Sherman Hemsley, famous for playing George Jefferson on The Jeffersons , now playing Deacon Ernest Frye, who didn’t quite see eye to eye with his church’s new young minister, played by Clifton Davis. My episode was titled “The Wild Deak,” a parody of the Brando movie The Wild One . I played one of two biker thug brothers who harass the ministers at a food stop. I was the puny one who pretends to be tough but really lets his brother, a menacing psycho, do the dirty work. It was the most lines I had ever been given in the highest-profile show I had ever done. And so, nearly a year after my liberation from my coach, I had a relapse. Although I still resented her for how manipulative she was, I thought I needed professional reassurance before I read at the table.
    I stood outside her fairly modest home in the San Fernando Valley, which was built on the fears and desperation of many actors like me. She walked a young actor out the door and gave him some extra free words of encouragement as I approached the steps, “Good-bye sweetie.