Remembering 'Barton Fink' actor Michael Lerner

DAVID BIANCULLI, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm David Bianculli, in for Terry Gross. Today we're going to remember restaurant critic and food writer Mimi Sheraton, who died last week at the age of 97. When she was a child, one of her favorite dishes was her mother's chicken a la king. She went on to dine in many of the finest restaurants in the world. She wrote about food for New York Magazine for five years. Then from 1976 to 1983, she was the food and restaurant critic for The New York Times. She was the first woman to review restaurants for that paper. Her verdicts were reputed to have the power to make or break new restaurants, and she often dressed in disguise to make sure she got the treatment of a regular diner. Over one 11-month period, she tasted everything in the Bloomingdale's food department, 1,961 items. It was the subject of one of her best-known articles. Sheraton wrote 16 books, including cookbooks and a memoir. When she became food critic for Time magazine in 1984, she broadened her focus to national and international eating trends. But she continued to cover the New York restaurant scene with her subscription-only newsletter, "Mimi Sheraton's Tastes" (ph). Terry Gross spoke to Mimi Sheraton in 1987.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)

TERRY GROSS: When you're reviewing a restaurant, what's your method of ordering so that you can really judge how the food is prepared?

MIMI SHERATON: Well, usually we're four people. My husband and I usually go first to see if it's going to be worth reviewing, but then it's usually four people. And I ask people to order what I want to see, and as the visits progress, the choices narrow. But what I try for is an across-the-board sampling of the menu. I want to see obviously different foods, how they do veal and chicken and fish and beef, but I also want to see how they fry and broil and saute and poach. I want to see, if they have them, how classic dishes are rendered, and I want to know how the house creations are rendered. I like to see a restaurant at a slow meal and at a very busy meal. If there's an important lunch scene as well as dinner, I make sure that half of my visits are at lunch and the other half at dinner. I never review in fewer than three visits and rarely in fewer than four or five.

GROSS: You are always very careful about protecting your identity. I mean, that's one of the things that is legendary about you. You're never photographed with your face shown. How have you managed to keep your identity as protected as it's been, though, to tell you the truth, I imagine a lot of New York restaurants really do know who you are?

SHERATON: Indeed, they do. I would say about half of the places I go to in New York know who I am. I can still get into 50% of them without them knowing. But the other truth of that is that the 50% who know me are 100% of the fashionable places where I would least like to be known. I mean, they're most tuned into it. And I've been doing this for a long time, so waiters move around from job to job, and a waiter might recognize me if it's an owner who hasn't been on the scene before. But beyond that, outside of New York, I have never been recognized in a restaurant except maybe by a diner who knows me, a friend. So I have absolutely no problem outside of New York. And of course, in my work for Time magazine or my newsletter or Conde Nast Traveler or any of the other places I write for, I do a lot of work outside of New York and outside of the United States, so I have no problem there.

What I do in New York - the places that really know me will no longer be fooled by a wig and glasses, which is what I used to do, because they know my husband, because they know what the rest of me looks like, even without my head. So that doesn't work. But I never make a reservation in my own name, ever. If it's a place that I know will know me, we always eat with two other people that the restaurant will not know, and they arrive first to see if they get the table we requested when making the reservation. I usually say, you know, put us in the back or put us in the front or could we have a round table instead of a banquette? So we see if that's honored. If not, we ask the people who are going to be there first, our friends, to ask for that kind of table. If they're not given it, then they just take what they get. Now and then they try to tip to see if that will get them a table. And I must say that rarely works.

GROSS: Do you hope that it won't work? Would that be a sign...

SHERATON: I don't care.

GROSS: ...Of corruption if tipping got them a better table?

SHERATON: I don't care. I mean, if you say do I hope, I mean, I don't really want a restaurant to do the wrong thing.

GROSS: What's the - is the wrong thing to accept the tip and show you the better table?

SHERATON: Indeed it is. It's called selling tables in the restaurant business. And it's supposed to be a no-no. In a place that has a really good management, they would not go for that. It's a crummy kind of thing to do.

GROSS: Can I interrupt here and ask you what kind of wigs you used to wear?

SHERATON: Well, I have a whole wardrobe. There was one that was sort of henna, a long pageboy with bangs, which I called my '30s Greenwich Village lady poet wig. I had a very pale, silvery blonde bouffant that came down over one eye, which I called my Five Towns wig, which are the five towns out in Nassau County.

GROSS: In Long Island.

SHERATON: Yes. And I had a very curly sort of - not quite black hair 'cause that would look very strange with my skin, but quite dark, that I really didn't have a name for. And those are the three I used a great deal of the time. I still take them sometimes for certain out-of-town places where a few customers might know me. In Washington, D.C., and Chicago, I often take the wigs.

GROSS: Now in your newsletter, you recently described one Italian restaurant as having an atmosphere that is gloomy, dated and suggestive of an old-age home. That's a pretty negative thing to say.

SHERATON: (Laughter) It was a pretty negative place.

GROSS: I'm going to read something else you said that is also equally scary for a restaurant. You described another restaurant's special white room as a blazing dining room that suggests a high-toned interrogation center. Now, if I were that restaurant, I would not be pleased.

SHERATON: Well, I'm not in the business of pleasing restaurants.

GROSS: Were you ever threatened by a restaurant owner?

SHERATON: Never really flatly. There was one restaurant that got a very bad review, and it was a very famous restaurant for a long time, used to be very good. And they got a very bad review in my early days of reviewing at The New York Times. And they did say, if you know what's good for you, you will never come in here again. But that's the closest that anyone has ever threatened me.

GROSS: Anybody ever sued you or threatened to?

SHERATON: A couple of times, yes. There was - once papers were actually served, but nothing ever came of it. And a couple of times restaurants have threatened to but never did it.

GROSS: I guess that would be a very bad precedent for food writers if you could get sued for saying bad things about a restaurant.

SHERATON: Well, you can get sued. And in fact, Gault and Millau, the French critics, were not only sued, but they lost a judgment that was later reversed. Mr. Chow sued them for $20,000 in damages and won, but that was overturned in an appeal. You can be sued, indeed. And I think one of the things that has protected me is that anyone who sues me for what I had written in The New York Times or Time magazine takes on The New York Times and Time magazine and are probably reluctant to do so. And for the newsletter, I indeed will have libel insurance.

GROSS: Well, you are very controversial because your opinions are so clearly stated. If you are recognized in a restaurant in spite of the wig you might be wearing...

SHERATON: Yeah.

GROSS: ...In spite of your efforts to remain anonymous, are you ever asked to leave?

SHERATON: I have been refused service once and asked to leave once and did so in both cases, although I have a number of lawyers now who feel that a restaurant's case would not hold up. There was an old interpretation of what's called the innkeepers' law that stated that a hotel or restaurant owner had the right to refuse service to anyone he or she wanted to as long as it was not on grounds of race, religion, sex. And so when - I was always prepared for that happening. And I asked the lawyers at the Times what they wanted me to do. And they said, just go.

And it happened at the Water Club on the East River. I had had one meal there when they didn't recognize me. And then I sat down. We were six people. And someone came over and said that they had reason to believe there was a critic at the table (laughter). And they wouldn't serve us. So we left. And then another restaurant refused me a table when I got there with a reservation that someone else had made. However, there are - as I say now, I've been hearing from a lot of lawyers, even some up at the Cornell Hotel School, who feel they would love to fight that case because they don't think that that would stand up. I avoid it unless too many places do it because it will be a pyrrhic victory. My picture - you know, if it got to be a really talked about case and my picture in all the papers and so on, it would defeat something else that I'm trying to do.

GROSS: One more thing about anonymity. Now, your secret's safe with me about what you look like because, after all, I'm speaking to you from Philadelphia. You're in New York. We're speaking via satellite. And I can't really see what you look like. However, the engineer who's recording your interview in New York right now might have a Polaroid camera. I mean, does this ever happen, that someone takes a shot of you and tries to mail it to a major American publication to blow your cover?

SHERATON: In the first place, how do you know I'm really Mimi Sheraton? I may have sent someone else.

(LAUGHTER)

SHERATON: And no one knows.

(LAUGHTER)

SHERATON: But there are pictures around. And I think that anyone who wants one has one.

BIANCULLI: Mimi Sheraton speaking to Terry Gross in 1987 - more after a break. This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF ALEXANDRE DESPLAT'S "LEAVING PARIS")

BIANCULLI: This is FRESH AIR. Let's get back to Terry's 1987 interview with longtime restaurant critic and author Mimi Sheraton. She died last week at the age of 97.

GROSS: I think, perhaps, one of the worst hazards of the trade a food writer faces is overeating. You're forced to have rich meals and many of them. And I know that you had taken a five-month leave from The New York Times when you were still working with them to lose weight. Is this really difficult to deal with when you're writing about food?

SHERATON: It's very difficult to deal with. But in truth, I would have to say that I probably have pursued this career as an excuse to overeat. I think that the people who are really good at it are all in that position. You love to eat. And therefore, this gives you a reason to do so and an excuse to do so. But I do try - I mean, even though I am very much overweight, I try not to have it get any worse than it is by compensating when I'm not reviewing. That's the trick. And that's also a very hard part because I love to cook. So if it's a night when I'm not going to a restaurant and I'm going to prepare dinner at home, I have that awful tug as to whether to make a simple piece of steamed fish or whether to make a marvelous bowl of pasta with, you know, something wonderful on it.

And so it is a struggle. I try to swim. I try to walk. I try to take periods off when I don't have to eat. And my husband and I, when we are going on a real vacation, we try to find a place that is warm, that has very interesting things to see and that has terrible food. And we have found a few countries that fulfill that. Because if we go someplace that has wonderful food and food shops, we will spend all of our time in it. And that's what I do all year long.

GROSS: When you started writing for Time magazine, you said that you were especially interested in institutional food, where the eaters are a somewhat captive audience. Why are you interested in that?

SHERATON: Because it's becoming an increasingly important part of eating in the United States, and because I think that that food is much worse than it has to be. It's school eating. It's employee cafeteria eating. It's hospitals. It's airlines. It's executive dining rooms. And it's pretty soon going to be about a third of the eating that most Americans do. And I feel the psychology and economy behind it are necessitating a kind of bad food that could be improved.

GROSS: Now, you've said that the only real dismal failure of your career was when you were a consultant for one year to a university hospital trying to improve patient food there.

SHERATON: Yes.

GROSS: What happened? This is interesting. Because of your interest in institutional food, apparently you tried to (laughter) make it better in one instance and couldn't do it.

SHERATON: That's what got me interested in institutional food, because it's the hierarchy, the bureaucracy you have to work with, the remoteness of the people who are going to eat the food from the people who are preparing it. And because of the attitudes developed by the people who prepare the food in enormous quantities, it suddenly becomes something else. The thing that defeated me there was very much the bureaucracy, the unions, the inability to get people to change their ways when you weren't there. My only solution was really to shoot the first person who deviated from a recipe.

(LAUGHTER)

SHERATON: That was - and I felt, then we'd have no trouble with anybody else. But of course, they would have gone on strike if we had done that.

GROSS: You would have lost your job anyways.

SHERATON: Yeah.

GROSS: Now, you - as part of your survey of institutional food, you did one piece in which you flew all the different airlines and compared the meals that you were served on the planes.

SHERATON: There was one particular leg of a United Airlines flight that had superb food because I think it prepared the kind of food that could be done well within those circumstances.

GROSS: It struck me as a very extravagant trip to make, to buy all these airline tickets just to taste the food, though maybe you had other reasons for traveling.

SHERATON: I didn't buy the ticket. Conde Nast bought the ticket...

GROSS: Right.

SHERATON: ...As a story that would get a lot of attention, and it certainly did. And that's - it was very important to do. And en route, I did four other stories for them. So it wasn't quite as extravagant as it looked.

GROSS: What is your native food? What was the food that you were brought up on?

SHERATON: Well, I was brought up in Brooklyn in a Jewish family that was not kosher. And my mother made what is considered Jewish food, but she made a lot of what is American food and what certainly was at the period the sort of Fannie Farmer School of Cooking - fried oysters, clam chowder, chicken pie and traditional American food. I did write about it in a book called "From My Mother's Kitchen." And it was - it is - all of the food that I grew up on.

But my parents loved to eat in restaurants. And we did go to what we called the city, meaning Manhattan, quite often to eat. And there were a few good restaurants, especially seafood, in Brooklyn at that time, and we ate a lot of Chinese food. So we were always aware of all of that. And my father was in the food business. He was in the wholesale fruit and produce business in Washington Market. And my mother was a good cook, so there was always talk of food at the table and in the family.

GROSS: You had a very nice piece in the book about your mother's cooking, a piece on comfort cures and the kinds of food that your mother used to make for you when you were sick and home from school back...

SHERATON: Yes.

GROSS: ...When you were a child.

SHERATON: Yes. I still make them for myself.

GROSS: Do you?

SHERATON: And I...

GROSS: What are they? What are the foods?

SHERATON: Well, there were things like - as one was getting better, there would be eggnogs. There would be cinnamon toast. There would be baked custard with nutmeg on top, inevitably, chicken soup. But I also liked things like oatmeal. And I made a lot of those for my son when he was young. And they still seem to work.

GROSS: How much do you eat out now?

SHERATON: I would say almost every night. We eat home on the average now about 1 1/2 times a week. And I eat a couple of lunches a week out.

GROSS: Do you find that you behave differently or even chew differently when you're eating out than you do when you're at home?

SHERATON: I think I spend more time at the meal when I'm eating out. You know, when I left the Times, one of the things that I missed was cooking at home. And my husband said - no, I said, now we're going to be able to eat at home. And so the first four nights, I cooked dinner at home. And the fourth night, we just looked at each other across the table and said, this is boring. The food was fine, but there was no scene. There was no one else to look at. And the meal is over so quickly when you eat at home compared to when you eat in a restaurant. So I don't think I chew differently. We probably eat more when we eat at home because we can have seconds.

GROSS: Right. I don't know if you're the kind of person who has to finish everything that's on the plate. Like, whatever the portion is, small or large, that's what you're going to eat.

SHERATON: Well, I try very hard not to. I almost always do finish. However, the one course that I find I can taste and leave is dessert. I'm not a dessert person. So I can take a couple of bites of a dessert and leave it. But I don't think that I can practice what I call pasta interruptus. I think that would not work.

GROSS: Do you have any guilty pleasures in food, foods that aren't especially well prepared or even especially good for you that you really crave and love?

SHERATON: Do you mean junk food, or do you mean food that isn't good for me? I mean, I like everything that isn't good for me, and I eat it because I'm, fortunately, quite healthy, and I don't have cholesterol or high blood pressure problems. But there is no junk food that I crave. I would not say that. I mean, I like good potato chips. I like good peanut butter. I like well-made pizza. But I don't consider that junk food. I don't like Twinkies, and I don't like frozen anything. So I don't really feel guilty except for eating too much.

BIANCULLI: Mimi Sheraton speaking to Terry Gross in 1987. The veteran restaurant critic and author, the first woman to serve as a restaurant critic for The New York Times, died last week. She was 97 years old. After a break, we'll remember actor Michael Lerner, who appeared in the movie "Barton Fink" and in several TV series and telemovies, including "M*A*S*H" and "The Missiles Of October." And film critic Justin Chang reviews "Showing Up," the new film from director Kelly Reichardt. I'm David Bianculli. And this is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF QUADRO NUEVO'S "SERENATA CELESTE")

DAVID BIANCULLI, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm David Bianculli, professor of television studies at Rowan University, in for Terry Gross. Actor Michael Lerner, who died Saturday at age 81, was nominated for a supporting actor Oscar for his work as a Hollywood studio executive in the movie "Barton Fink." But for most of his career - and it was a long one - he worked as a character actor, guest starring on dozens and dozens of TV shows through the decades. He guest starred on "The Brady Bunch" in the '60s and "That Girl," "The Bob Newhart Show," "Starsky And Hutch" and "M*A*S*H" in the '70s. Michael Lerner also appeared on "Hill Street Blues" in the '80s, the Coen brothers movie "Barton Fink" in the '90s and, in this century, the movie "Elf" and several episodes of the TV series "Glee."

Some of his standout supporting roles came early and in made-for-TV movies. The 1974 ABC telemovie "The Missiles Of October," a drama about the Cuban Missile Crisis, featured Michael Lerner as White House Press Secretary Pierre Salinger in a performance that Jackie Kennedy Onassis later told him out-Pierred (ph) Pierre. Another memorable role by Michael Lerner in a TV movie - Lerner himself later called it one of his favorites - also had a Kennedy connection. He starred in the 1978 CBS TV movie "Ruby And Oswald" opposite Frederic Forrest. Forrest played Lee Harvey Oswald, the man who assassinated JFK in 1963. And Lerner played Dallas nightclub owner Jack Ruby, who shot and killed Oswald days later. Here's a scene from "Ruby And Oswald" in which Ruby is visiting his sister just after Kennedy's death. The sister also is played by a strong character actor, Doris Roberts, who later played the mother on the sitcom "Everybody Loves Raymond."

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "RUBY AND OSWALD")

MICHAEL LERNER: (As Jack Ruby) Well, at least tonight they'll be together.

DORIS ROBERTS: (As Eva) Who?

LERNER: (As Jack Ruby) The Kennedys - that wonderful, big family. Look at all the pain and trouble they've had, huh? But they've endured it.

ROBERTS: (As Eva) They're very strong people.

LERNER: (As Jack Ruby) They love each other. They're so close. And right now they're easing the pain for each other - right now.

ROBERTS: (As Eva) That's the best part of a family.

LERNER: (As Jack Ruby) The same with us. We had our share of trouble, us Rubensteins. We're always there to help each other out.

ROBERTS: (As Eva) We did the best we could, but we were always being pulled apart so much. I mean, it wasn't easy to be close like the Kennedys.

LERNER: (As Jack Ruby) Poor Jackie - what she's going through this minute - those beautiful, little kids. (Crying).

BIANCULLI: Terry Gross spoke with Michael Lerner in 1992, the year after his role as Hollywood studio chief Jack Lipnick in "Barton Fink." The title character is a New York theater writer played by John Turturro. He's new to Hollywood, and he very quickly is taken to the lavish office of Lerner's Jack Lipnick.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "BARTON FINK")

LERNER: (As Jack Lipnick) Is that him? Is that Barton Fink? Let me at him. Let me put my arms around this guy. Let me hug this guy. How the hell are you - good trip? My name is Jack Lipnick. I run this dump. You know that. You read the papers. Lou treating you all right? Got everything you need? What the hell's the matter with your face? What the hell's the matter with his face, Lou?

JOHN TURTURRO: (As Barton Fink) It's not as bad as it looks. It's just a mosquito in my room.

LERNER: (As Jack Lipnick) Place OK? Where'd we put him?

TURTURRO: (As Barton Fink) I'm at the Earl.

LERNER: (As Jack Lipnick) Never heard of it. Let's move him to the Grand or the Wilshire. Hell, he can stay in my place.

TURTURRO: (As Barton Fink) Thanks, but I wanted a place that was a little less...

LERNER: (As Jack Lipnick) Less Hollywood. Sure. Say it. It's not a dirty word. Say whatever the hell you want. The writer is king here at Capital Pictures. You don't believe me? Take a look at your paycheck at the end of every week. That's what we think of the writer. So what kind of pictures does he like?

JON POLITO: (As Lou Breeze) Mr. Fink hasn't given a preference, Mr. Lipnick.

LERNER: (As Jack Lipnick) So how about a part?

TURTURRO: (As Barton Fink) Well, to be honest, I don't go to the pictures much, Mr. Lipnick.

LERNER: (As Jack Lipnick) That's OK. That's OK. That's OK. That's just fine. You probably walked in here thinking that was going to be a handicap, thinking that we wanted people who knew something about the media, maybe even thinking there was all kinds of technical mumbo-jumbo to learn. You were dead wrong. We're only interested in one thing. Can you tell a story, Bart? Can you make us laugh? Can you make us cry? Can you make us want to break out in joyous song? Is that more than one thing? OK. The point is, I run this dump, and I don't know the technical mumbo-jumbo. Why do I run it? Because I got horse sense, damn it - showmanship. And also - and I hope he told you this. I am bigger and meaner and louder than any other [expletive] in this town. Did you tell him that, Lou?

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)

TERRY GROSS: Now, who did you model the character on?

LERNER: I decided that Louis. B. Mayer was a good image for Jack Lipnick because Louis B. Mayer was rather schizy in terms of on one side - on one hand, he was very paternalistic, very sweet, very charming and on the other hand, quite a monster. And in reading about him, you know, he was the one - he was the guy who really discovered Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland. And he was their paterfamilias. He was their father figure in many respects and is a very sentimental guy. But then he was quite brutal in his business dealings, as well. So I physically attempted to model myself on Louis B. Mayer because I felt that that helped me be be the man, be the character. So what I did was I studied a lot of pictures of his hair, hairstyling, the eyeglasses that he wore. I was very determined to wear a pair of eyeglasses that seemed exactly the kind of eyeglasses that he wore.

GROSS: There's a certain kind of charm that you use in "Barton Fink" that's this real over-the-top, phony charm that - and you know that the person can turn on a dime and really kind of eat you up afterwards. Have you been treated that way, with this phony charm?

LERNER: Well, I don't know. I'm going to question you about that phony charm. How phony is it? I don't know. I think - you know the Yiddish expression haimish?

GROSS: Yeah.

LERNER: Yeah.

GROSS: But explain it anyways.

LERNER: Like, we're all family.

GROSS: Explain it anyways.

LERNER: Well, we're all family, you know? And it's like, you know, so I think I embrace Barton with an overwhelming paternalistic, we are now family. You are now with me, and we're working together. And I think there's a genuineness with - I guess it's contradictory, but I think - or paradoxical. There is a genuineness in the charm, and that is that I do want this guy to work for me. I do want him to - you know, he's - because he's going to make me money, you know? And I don't think the charm gets oily until you begin to hear what I say, you know, some of the things I say. I think there's a distinction between what I say and how I look in the film.

GROSS: The parts that you're getting best known for now are parts like the studio head in "Barton Fink" and, you know, Arnold Rothstein, the gambler in "Eight Men Out" and...

LERNER: Right.

GROSS: ...You know, a mafioso in "Harlem Nights" and...

LERNER: Right.

GROSS: ...You know, the team owner now in the HBO movie.

LERNER: Right.

GROSS: I saw you in a horror movie in which you played the absolute opposite kind of character. The movie was called "Anguish." It came out about...

LERNER: One of the best films I've ever done.

GROSS: It came out about five years ago - very unusual movie.

LERNER: Yeah, yeah.

GROSS: A horror film in which you play the really backwards son of a kind of demented mother who hypnotizes you into...

LERNER: Yes.

GROSS: ...Committing murders.

LERNER: The mother played by Zelda Rubinstein...

GROSS: Yes.

LERNER: ...Who is the - who was the lady - the medium in "Poltergeist," right?

GROSS: Yes. Yes.

LERNER: Yeah, Zelda. We - that was an interesting part. And again, you know, this explains the career of an actor and the turmoil that we live with daily in our careers. I had been advised by my managers at the time not to do that part because it was so unflattering to me because I play a character who is quite repulsive in many respects. But...

GROSS: That's a good word for it, yeah.

LERNER: But it was a great part. It's a great part. And also, it's a terrific, Grand Guignol kind of movie. And over the years, I've had people like Sean Penn and Bob Dylan and - how much more name dropping can I do?

GROSS: That'll do.

LERNER: Come over to me and just say they think this is a terrific film. And they just loved what I did in the film. It's kind of becoming a cult movie. It's playing on all the cable channels all the time. And I'm getting a lot of attention for it.

BIANCULLI: Michael Lerner speaking to Terry Gross in 1992. More after a break. This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF BRAD MEHLDAU TRIO'S "DE DAH")

BIANCULLI: This is FRESH AIR. Let's get back to Terry's 1992 interview with character actor Michael Lerner, who died Saturday at age 81.

GROSS: Let me ask you some things about your background. You grew up in Brooklyn, N.Y.

LERNER: Yes.

GROSS: What kind of neighborhood?

LERNER: Housing projects. Red Hook.

GROSS: And what did your parents do for a living?

LERNER: My father was what you would - he liked to think he was an antique dealer. But in all actuality, he was more like a junk dealer. My grandfather had a store on the Lower East Side of Manhattan where he sold Venetian blinds and, in quotes, "antiques." And my father used to work with my grandfather. And, you know, that was their relationship. My mother, you know, raised the children.

GROSS: Were you ever expected to go into the business?

LERNER: Oh, never. Never. That happened mysteriously. You mean become an actor? No.

GROSS: No. Were you ever expected to go into your father's business?

LERNER: Oh, into my father's business?

GROSS: Yeah.

LERNER: No, I don't think so. The real business in the family was my older brother, who is 11 years older than I am. And he owned a delicatessen, a kosher deli in Brighton Beach in Brooklyn called Zei-Mar. It was there for about 30 years. And when I went to Brooklyn College, my undergraduate time at Brooklyn College, I used to work in the deli. And when I went to Lafayette High School, I worked in the deli. And I think that, possibly, there was thinking that I was going to take on the deli business and be - you know, because I was a counterman for many years in delis in New York. I've been fired from very good delis in New York.

GROSS: What were you fired for?

LERNER: Well, I got screwed up in making triple-decker sandwiches. I used to get the Zero Mostel sandwich and the Red Buttons sandwich screwed up.

GROSS: (Laughter).

LERNER: The Sixth Avenue - this is a true story. The Sixth Avenue Deli in Manhattan. Yep.

GROSS: Oh, that's great.

LERNER: Yeah.

GROSS: So what was the difference between the Zero Mostel and the Red Buttons?

LERNER: Well, I think one had corned beef and one had pastrami. And I used to...

GROSS: (Laughter).

LERNER: I used to screw it up, you know? And there was - I do remember vividly there was a Peter Lind Hayes-Mary Healy double decker.

GROSS: (Laughter).

LERNER: And I didn't know who they were. But, you know, I found out who they were.

GROSS: Oh, they should name a sandwich after you now in one of those delis.

LERNER: Wouldn't that be nice? Well, you know, I love the Carnegie Deli in New York. And the guys there - you know, as I'm getting to be more, you know, better known over the years, I mean, they're treating me real good now. I mean, when I walk into the place now, they put down, you know, linen on the table. So maybe eventually, they'll name a sandwich for me - would be nice.

GROSS: So you said you originally...

LERNER: Yeah.

GROSS: ...Wanted to be a sportswriter.

LERNER: Yes. In New York, growing up, I was a sports quiz kid. I was a little fat kid who just knew everything about baseball. 1951, Stan Musial hit five home runs and a doubleheader. And there used to be a program on Channel 13 before it was PBS - Channel 13 in New York was really from New Jersey. And there was a Bert Lee Jr. show. And I was a quiz kid on that show when I was about 13, 14 years old. And I studied sports writing with Bert Lee Jr. And I don't know if the names Gussie Moran, Marty Glickman mean anything to you, but there used to be a program in New York, a sports program - we're talking about the '50s now, 1950s. And I was a guest on that show quite a bit.

GROSS: So what got you interested in acting?

LERNER: Escape. Escape from, I think, the narrow confines of the way I had been brought up, in terms of living in the housing projects in Brooklyn, which was very rough. And for some reason, you know, I don't - I really remember playing a donkey in a high school play. I don't even remember the name of the play. But I do remember playing Willy Loman at the age of 18 at Brooklyn College - and graying my hair and putting on all these lines, these old age lines, and stuff - and then looking in the mirror, and my father standing in back of me and looking at me as I was taking my makeup off after the play and saying, Michael, you're an actor, aren't you? And I don't know. I became an actor.

I wasn't - I was quite good academically. And I think - I have a master's degree from graduate school in Berkeley. And then, you know, I went on a Fulbright for two years. And I think a lot of people expected that I would be a teacher. And I did teach at San Francisco State for about a year. And I was going to have an academic career, an English professor. And for some reason, I didn't want to do that. I like insecurity. I thrive on it.

GROSS: Have you always been able to make a living acting since you started?

LERNER: Amazingly, yes. Yeah.

GROSS: Has it always been taking roles you wanted to take? Or are there a lot of roles that you took just to pay the rent?

LERNER: Oh, no. There are quite a number of parts in the early days in Los Angeles that I took to pay the rent. I mean, I did everything from "Starsky And Hutch" to the - oh, I did a film recently that didn't do that well called "Newsies." And there was all these teenage kids in this movie. And they knew me. All these kids knew me not from Arnold Rothstein, not from Jack Ruby, not from playing Pierre Salinger, not from "Barton Fink." They all knew me as the bicycle salesman in "The Brady Bunch."

GROSS: Was that a regular part?

LERNER: No, no, no, no. It was a one-time appearance. Can I tell you something that I find very amusing?

GROSS: Sure.

LERNER: I don't know. Maybe your listeners will. When I first came to Hollywood, you know, I come with a lot of baggage. I'm 25 years old, and, you know, I have a lot of schooling behind me and all that. And I have a meeting with Aaron Spelling on the pilot of a TV show called "Starsky And Hutch." Do you remember that show?

GROSS: Yeah.

LERNER: And...

GROSS: It's a cop show.

LERNER: Two people - right, right. And I'm going to be reading for the part of Starsky, and I am slightly overweight, OK? And it's between me and Paul Michael Glaser, an actor named Paul Michael Glaser. And I remember that I wore a girdle when I went in to meet Aaron Spelling and tried to impress him with all my academic credentials. And he whispered to me. He said, Michael, Michael. No, you don't do that. You don't do that. You know, you don't want to intimidate anybody.

GROSS: Oh.

LERNER: I wound up playing Fat Rolly in that show, by the way.

GROSS: (Laughter) So he told you not to try to impress people with the fact that you were smart or had studied.

LERNER: Yeah. Yeah. I don't do that too much.

GROSS: Was that a lesson? Did you never do that again?

LERNER: It's true. Yes. For about 20 years, I kept quiet about it.

GROSS: You said in a New York Times interview that your dream was to play a sympathetic, romantic leading man.

LERNER: Yeah, lumpenproletariat. Yes.

GROSS: That's still your dream.

LERNER: Absolutely. Absolutely. I'd just like to play not a larger-than-life character. I'd like to play somebody who's simple, who's got problems with his family. And, you know, in the whole world of European film, the kind of people like Philippe Noiret and Jean Gabin - there's, you know, the middle-aged guy who is every man, who is - you know, can be skinny, can be fat, can be in between. But he's the leading character. He's the person that you care about. He's not a romantic, sexy person, necessarily. And in European films, that tradition has seemed much stronger than in American films. Do you agree with that?

GROSS: Oh, come on. It's nearly absent right now in American films.

LERNER: Yeah. I mean, the closest you get to it, I guess, is somebody like Gene Hackman.

GROSS: Yeah. Yeah.

LERNER: You know, the unusual leading man.

GROSS: Yeah.

LERNER: But, I mean, I'd like to play characters that are - you know, have the problem. And the movie's about them.

GROSS: Yeah, sure.

LERNER: You know? The problem with the kind of parts that I often get offered are that they're very vivid, small parts, cameos, you know, or smaller roles. And, you know, in "Barton Fink," I'm on screen maybe 15 minutes.

GROSS: Yeah.

LERNER: And I would just like to have parts in film that I used to have in the theater, which are just more substantial.

BIANCULLI: Michael Lerner speaking to Terry Gross in 1992. The veteran character actor, who was nominated for an Oscar for his supporting performance in the Coen brothers movie "Barton Fink," died Saturday. He was 81 years old. Coming up, film critic Justin Chang reviews "Showing Up," the new movie directed and co-written by Kelly Reichardt. This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF AARON DIEHL'S "EPILOGUE")

DAVID BIANCULLI, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. Three of this year's Academy Award-nominated actors - Michelle Williams, Hong Chau and Judd Hirsch - appear together in the new comedy "Showing Up," now playing in theaters. It's the latest from the director and co-writer Kelly Reichardt, and it stars Williams as a struggling sculptor being pulled in many directions as she tries to meet a looming deadline. Our film critic Justin Chang has this review.

JUSTIN CHANG, BYLINE: "Showing Up" is the fourth movie that Kelly Reichardt and Michelle Williams have made together, and I hope there are many more to come. Their collaboration has given us some of Williams' most quietly memorable characters - a young drifter living out of her car in "Wendy And Lucy" or a 19th century pioneer heading west along the Oregon Trail in "Meek's Cutoff." "Showing Up" is a lighter, funnier piece of work. It's pretty much the first Reichardt movie that could be described as a comedy. But like all her films, it's a model of indie realism made with a level of rigorous observation and rueful insight you rarely see in American movies.

Williams plays Lizzy, an introverted Portland, Ore.-based sculptor who makes clay figures of women. She has a local show coming up, and she's racing to finish her sculptures in time. But the universe isn't making it easy for her. She works full time in the office at an art college, where her boss is none other than her mom, who, like almost everyone else, doesn't take Lizzy's creative pursuits too seriously. And so Lizzy has to do her sculpting in her spare time in the apartment she rents out from her friend Jo, terrifically played by Hong Chau. Jo is also an artist and a more successful one. Her elaborate mixed media installations have all the wow factor that Lizzy's lovely but modest sculptures don't. It only adds to the tension that Jo isn't the most attentive landlord. At one point, Jo is putting together a swing with an old tire in the backyard when Lizzy shows up to ask about getting her broken water heater fixed.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "SHOWING UP")

HONG CHAU: (As Jo) Hey, Lizzy. Check it out - been hoping to find a good tire for this tree for ages.

MICHELLE WILLIAMS: (As Lizzy) Jo, the water situation is getting worse - barely gets lukewarm now, just a few minutes of lukewarm and then cold.

CHAU: (As Jo) That sounds serious. I'm on it - just got to get through this week first. I shouldn't even be here right now. I've got so much to do.

WILLIAMS: (As Lizzy) I do, too. And I don't know what I'm supposed to do without hot water.

CHAU: (As Jo) Lizzy, I told you you could use my shower.

WILLIAMS: (As Lizzy) I want my own water working.

CHAU: (As Jo) My show is open on Friday. I'll be free to deal with it after that.

WILLIAMS: (As Lizzy) I have a show too, you know, I'm just - you're not the only one with a deadline.

CHAU: (As Jo) I know, but I have two shows, which is insane.

CHANG: Reichardt and her co-writer Jon Raymond perfectly nail the passive-aggressive vibe of Lizzy and Jo's relationship without overdoing it. There's real nuance to both characters. You can understand why Lizzy resents Jo's flakiness, and you can also see why Jo doesn't go out of her way for someone as frosty as Lizzy. Things get a little more complicated, but also more poignant, when Jo rescues a wounded pigeon in their yard and she and Lizzy take turns nursing it back to health. This isn't the first time Reichardt has given an animal a prominent role in her movies, as she did in "Wendy And Lucy" and "First Cow." And we learn something about Lizzy from the careful, attentive way she looks after the bird, even while juggling her deadlines - namely, that she's used to making sacrifices for the sake of others.

Lizzy spends a fair amount of time checking in on her artist brother who has mental health issues and who's treated by their mom as the tortured genius of the family. She also mediates tensions between her parents, who are divorced. Her dad is a retired potter who's going through something of a late-in-life crisis. He's played by Judd Hirsch, who has, it happens, played the uncle of Williams' character in Steven Spielberg's recent "The Fabelmans." That movie would make a great double-bill with this one. Williams' two characters could hardly be more different, but in each movie, she plays a woman who essentially puts her art on hold for her family's sake. The fact that most of her family members in "Showing Up" are also steeped in the art world doesn't make as much of a difference as you might think.

Reichardt's movie is all about the challenge of finding the time, the space, the money, and the energy to pursue your calling. It's also about how making art can be both a joy and incredibly hard work. Lizzy's story is interspersed with almost documentary-like sequences of the art college where she works. We see students painting, weaving, dancing and building installations. There's a nicely personal feel to these moments, informed by Reichardt's own years teaching at Bard College and other schools.

But she lingers most of all in the scenes of Lizzy finally getting some time to herself at her workbench, molding her clay, setting her figures aside to dry, and then filling in the details with paint. Watching Lizzy lose herself in her craft for minutes on end, I was reminded of just how rarely the movies show us, really show us, an artist at work. We get a lot of biopics about creative geniuses, but nothing like the richness of texture and insight that Reichardt gives us. It hardly matters that Lizzy may not be destined for fame because you believe in her and her work at every moment. She's a wondrous creation, and so is this movie.

BIANCULLI: Justin Chang is film critic for the LA Times. He reviewed the new film "Showing Up," starring Michelle Williams. On Monday's show, actor Keri Russell, best known for playing the lead on the TV series "Felicity" and for starring on "The Americans" as Elizabeth Jennings, a Soviet spy living undercover in the United States. Russell got her start on the all-new "Mickey Mouse Club" when she was 15. She now stars in the new Netflix political drama "The Diplomat." I hope you can join us.

FRESH AIR's executive producer is Danny Miller. Our senior producer today is Roberta Shorrock. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham with additional engineering support by Joyce Lieberman, Julian Herzfeld and Al Banks. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Amy Salit, Phyllis Myers, Sam Briger, Lauren Krenzel, Heidi Saman, Therese Madden, Ann Marie Baldonado, Thea Chaloner, Seth Kelley, and Susan Nyakundi. Our digital media producer is Molly Seavy-Nesper. We'll close the show with this track from the new album, "Stage And Screen," by guitarist and vocalist John Pizzarelli. The album comes out next week April 21. For Terry Gross, I'm David Bianculli.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "JUST IN TIME")

JOHN PIZZARELLI: (Singing) I was resting comfortably face down in the gutter. Life was serene. I knew where I was at. There's no hope for him, my dearest friends would mutter. I was something dragged in by the cat. Then, just in time - I found you just in time. Before you came, my time was running low. I was lost. The losing dice were tossed. My bridges all were crossed - nowhere to go. Now you're here, and now I know just where I'm going. No more doubt or fear - I found my way. For love came just in time. You found me just in time and changed my lonely life that lovely day.

Transcripts are created on a rush deadline, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of Fresh Air interviews and reviews are the audio recordings of each segment.