A little over 30 years ago on a cold January day, I moved from Capitol Hill to New York City to become an actor. The first thing I did after getting situated was to enroll in HB Studio in Greenwich Village to study. It was an economic decision since the classes were relatively cheap, and I had little money — just a dream.
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Next I went about getting a job. I waited tables because I thought that’s what budding actors did. That lasted about three weeks. Then I got a job at the YMCA gym on 63rd Street. And when speaking to an older classmate at HB about my job status or lack thereof, she referred me to a law firm in downtown Manhattan that hired me to input legal documents and send faxes. I told people I proofread legal documents because I was too embarrassed to say what I really did.
Over the years, as January passes, I think about those days. And every time I see a stunning performance by an actor, I say to myself, That could have been you.
And then I think of Edward Morehouse because he said I could have made it.
Ed was one of HB Studio’s most legendary instructors. His reputation, intimidating as it was, preceded him. But if you were serious about acting, you took Ed’s classes.
After class one day, Ed and I went to lunch. We only talked about me and my time on the Hill. Ed deferred every time I asked him a question about himself. I’ll never forget what he said to me as we were wrapping up (I’m paraphrasing here): “You need to stick with this. You have what it takes to be a success.”
There are times that I’m nostalgic for those words and for Ed Morehouse.
The other day, I Googled Ed, hoping that he was still alive. He died in 2021. He worked into his 90s, teaching at HB for about 60 years. There are thousands upon thousands of actors — and wannabe actors like me — who have experienced Ed Morehouse. To some, he was their worst nightmare and a raging queen. And to people like me, a man who knew his stuff.
Ed would be 100 years old.
To me and I am sure many, many other students who took his classes, Ed was almost an enigma. His critiques of your work in class could elicit tears of joy or humiliation. He would eviscerate you if you didn’t do the work or you couldn’t grasp the subtext of the words. He tore me to shreds when I attempted Shakespeare — and I deserved it.
When I was thinking about how cruel Ed could be, I also thought about those attorneys I worked for at the time and how cruel they were. The cruelty was unwarranted. Conversely, Ed’s critques were not. He could spot a mile away whether or not you had adequately prepared to perform your work in class, and if you didn’t, God help you.
And when you did, it could be among the most meaningful validations you ever received in our life. I wept while I performed a moving monologue from the play I Never Sang for My Father. And so did Ed. He complimented my work to the heavens, and that’s because I worked hard to make it perfect.
I think about that moment a lot. The monologue was words spoken at the end of the play by a grown son who had just lost his father. I lost mine when I was 12, and when delivering that monologue, I was overcome with emotion.
It was as if Ed knew who I was when he assigned me that monologue. I had not spoken about the death of my father, so I’ve often wondered how he knew that those words would provoke me. He also assigned me a monologue from a baseball play, Yanks 3 Detroit 0 Top of the Seventh, about an aging pitcher who has one last brush of glory. As a kid, my dream was to be a baseball pitcher.
How did Ed know that?
And while Ed seemed to know me, I knew nothing about him, but I always wondered what his life was like. I knew he was gay — he couldn’t hide flashes of his flamboyance. Did he have a companion? Did he lead a “gay” life? What was it like to be an “old gay” man?
Yes, Ed told some stories about his brushes with stardom and fame, but he never exposed any details about his personal life. Was it because his generation just didn’t talk about things like that?
Since he never spoke about his life, I pictured him alone in a small cramped studio apartment, with a cat maybe, the TV on, the lights low. A very lonely existence. It scared the hell out of me. For so long, I was afraid that one day, I’d end up like Ed.
And oddly, when I’d see an older gay man, I’d think about Ed and where he was and what he was doing. And if he was happy. And if he was alone and sullen. I spent so many years of my life being afraid of becoming Ed.
Then I watched a video of an interview with Ed that one of his students did before he died. Ed told stories from “the good old days.” Legendary composer and lyricist Cole Porter appeared to take an interest in Ed as a young man. Porter kept Ed on the phone late at night and summoned him once to his penthouse apartment. Porter was gay and older. Ed was young, gay, and eager. Did something happen between them? Ed would never tell.
And in the interview, I noticed Ed sitting presumably in his small apartment, alone, with a small kitchen that was dimly lit. It saddened me, not so much where he lived but how he lived, most likely alone, and perhaps afraid of revealing too much about himself. The dichotomy was striking — he kept to himself as actors in his class we were forced to expose ourselves, and in the end that taught me a lot about life.
I’ll never forget him, and part of the reason for that is that when I see stunning work on film or in theater, I usually think of him, and wonder how he’d rate the performance. I always remembered him saying that Anthony Hopkins's performance in The Remains of the Day was one of the best ever in film. I’ve seen it at least 10 times since then, and I agree, and I lived with the thought that I’d likely never see Ed again.
And then, maybe 25 years after I’d left HB, I saw him.
He was sitting in a restaurant late at night having dinner, and I came in with a bunch of my friends, and we were all very drunk. After we sat down, I saw Ed and told everyone at the table about him. I had several more drinks, and as Ed was getting up to leave, I embarrassingly and regretfully ran over to him. Drunkenly, I asked him if he remembered me. He looked at me coldly, and seethed, “No!”
He had every right to be cruel.
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