Chapter Thirty Seven
I was cast as Sheridan Whiteside in Houston’s Actor’s Workshop production of The Man Who Came to Dinner and never looked back.
J David Moeller With Nancy Allen on the set of "Not For Publication"
The casting director was Shirley Abrahamson who'd seen me for other projects while I was living in Dallas.
One of those projects was a movie starring Gary Bussey.
It was the first time I'd met Shirley and, before I read my lines for her, she told to me she wanted me to scare her.
In that scene, the character was a roughneck working on an oil rig. It was quitting time. He jumps in his truck, races at breakneck speed to his favorite honky tonk, orders three tequilas and knocks them back: bam, bam, bam. Then goes up to the singer on the bandstand (Busey) who was playing rock and roll in “his” bar and says to him "If I don't get laid tonight...I'm gonna kill you!".
It was the opening sequence of the movie and led to a rousing knock¬down-drag-out fight to be choreographed by stunt legend Dar Robinson.
Well, I scared her and Shirley called me back to meet Gary, Dar, and the director.
I did my bit for them and was asked to hang around. Dar wanted to take a few mock punches at me to test my reflexes and stunt savvy.
Gary went to get his guitar and wondered if anyone had a pick on them.
I’d found one years before and, for some reason (I don’t play the guitar), had stuck it in my wallet.
I offered it to him.
I called Shirley a few weeks after the auditions to see what happened and learned I’d been cast...
Lesson: Always carry a guitar pick.
...(insert sound of other shoe dropping) and then they ran out of money and the backers pulled out of the deal.
The film was never finished.
The unsubstantiated rumor was Gary had “sniffed” his way out of a film.
Every time Shirley auditioned me she always got me to tell the story of how we met, to entertain the directors present. It's a way casting directors indicate to the directors their interest in the actor standing before them...by taking time to engage them in conversation; show them off a little.
But on this day she tried a different approach. I was there to read for the part of the bartender.
Paul Bartel and Shirley were sitting at a long table in the room when I came in. I read the scene and when I was through Shirley casually mentioned "You ran for Mayor of Dallas, didn't you, David?"
"Yes”, I answered and ran with the ball she’d tossed me. “It was the largest voter turnout in Dallas history and although I lost I ended up on the winner's Mayoral Advisory Committee", I said.
Paul said I looked like a mayoral candidate...and added there just happened to be a mayoral candidate in his film...would I like to read for it?
“Sure.”
I got the part!
It was two scenes and I was hired on what's known as a “drop and pick¬up” basis.
According to Screen Actor's Guild rules when an actor is hired the production company must pay him beginning the first day he works. If he's in several scenes that are not shot sequentially during the filming schedule they must still pay for days between shoot dates as if he’d been on the set all along...unless the actor is hired on a drop and pickup basis.
That means the actor comes in and shoots a day. He's paid for the time worked then he's dropped from the payroll.
He must then be "picked up" again within 10 days or he gets paid for all the days in between that he didn't work.
A few days before my first scene was to shoot I found an interesting message on my answering machine in Houston: "Would you please call David in Dallas"
Just before I'd moved down with Linda I had done a recording session with an engineer named David and I thought he might have looked me up to give me more work.
I called the number left on the machine and got a young man.
"Are you Justin Moeller?" he asked. "Did you used to be married to Julie Lambert of Dallas?"
"Yes, that's right." I answered bewilderedly.
"Hi! I'm your son, David!" said my son David!
The last time I’d seen him he'd been about two and didn't speak English very well. His mother had remarried to a bible thumper who had come by Jeanette and my house in Highland Park, when I was at KIXL, and offered me $300 to sign off on a form allowing him to adopt David as his son.
I refused the money but signed the affidavit. I wanted the best for David and thought this best for him.
His middle name had originally been Justin –don’t ask- but they'd changed it to Lee. And here he was on the phone with me across 200 miles of Texas.
The Dallas Morning News had run a little blurb under the heading "Dallas Actor Takes His Face to Houston" with two pictures of me: one straight and the other as Ebenezer Scrooge.
His adoptive father had shown him the article and said "I thought you might like to know. This is your real father."
David said his immediate response was "So that's where I got the nose."
Lesson: To heck with DNA, check out the nose!
I told him I was shooting a film in Dallas in a few days and we made arrangements to eat dinner together the night before.
We met at Salih's Barbecue in far North Dallas. It was a favorite place of mine and his mother’s.
When David arrived I was amazed at how good looking he was and also how much he looked like his aunt Olivia, his mother’s youngest sister. He had her red hair and freckles and was an all-American good looking kid. Any father'd be proud to call him son.
But I had trouble with it. I didn't know how to handle the meeting. I wanted to be his father and I knew he'd grown up with another. I wanted to be part of his life but mine wasn't in too great a shape. I wanted to know everything there was to know about him but didn't know how to talk to him to find out.
I learned he was into theatre, too, and did a lot of musicals. He was going to go to school in Denton at the North Texas State University. He was doing shows in Dallas.
I invited him to join me on the set the next day and was surprised when he declined.
He never said why.
We kept in touch by mail sporadically over the next year. One day he called and told me a huge semi tractor- trailer truck had pulled up in front of his house and the driver delivered my birthday gift to him. It had impressed him and he thanked me.
I heard from David one last time in February or March of 1985. He called and asked if he could come down and visit me in Houston. I was in the middle of another nervous breakdown with some serious depression added into the mix and told him I couldn't handle it. I bent his ear for at least an hour babbling about how I still thought I loved his mother and God knows what else.
In the end, I’d denied him.
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