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Home > People Index Page > Michael Nouri
The Time Between
Armed with his Usual Positive Outlook on Life,
Actor Michael Nouri Heads for Broadway in Victor/Victoria
by Mervyn Rothstein
When you meet Michael Nouri, three words
come to mind: tall, dark and handsome. His craggy good looks are the
kind that in an earlier era would have earned him the designation
"matinee idol." You may have seen him in the movies as Nick Hurley,
the romantic lead in Flashdance; on prime-time television as
Kip, the self-enamored actor divorced from Susan Dey on "Love and
War," or as Lucky Luciano in TV's The Gangster Chronicles. This
fall you can catch him on Broadway, costarring and singing with Julie
Andrews in Victor/Victoria, the Broadway musical version of
Blake Edwards' 1982 hit comedy.
Nouri portrays King Marchand, a supermacho Chicago gambler who finds
himself, much to his consternation, falling in love with the title
character, a down-on-her-luck singer who pretends to be a man so she
can impersonate a woman. It's the role the ruggedly handsome James
Garner played in the movie, and it's a good match: the dark, curly
hair (now fairly salt and pepper), the smile of ingratiating charm,
the trim and muscular physique, the easygoing demeanor and the
self-effacing sense of humor.
Nouri is sitting in a restaurant off the lobby of a Manhattan hotel,
his home for the moment, during rehearsals for
Victor/Victoria. It is early May, and he and the show are going
on the road to try things out in Minneapolis and Chicago. At summer's
end, they will return to New York for previews beginning October 3 and
the scheduled October 25 Broadway premiere, and for what everyone
hopes and expects will be a long run at the Marquis Theater.
"We have some of the best people in the business working on this
show," Nouri says. "Blake Edwards, who is directing it and wrote it,
is really doing it the right way. It has been a dream of his to do
this since the movie. He [originally] wanted to do it with Robert
Preston, who died a few years after [in 1987]. And for one reason or
another it didn't work out until this year. But now it's a very
luxurious situation. The last musical I did, South Pacific at
the Long Beach Civic Light Opera in California [with Sandy Duncan in
May 1994], had five weeks of rehearsal. For this one, we have five
months. And then," he smiles, "there's this wonderfully talented woman
who I predict is going to have an amazing future: Julie Andrews."
Working with Andrews, he says, has been a revelation. "The first time
I kissed her, it was something of an out-of-body experience," he says
with a laugh. "I thought to myself, I'm kissing Mary Poppins. What am
I doing? I could get arrested. But really, she is one of the most
energetic, gracious and positive people I've ever met. It always
astonishes me to watch people who can dance and sing and act. I can
act. I can sing. I don't dance--don't ask me. I move all right, but to
see somebody who does it all is really something. And the amazing
thing about her is she doesn't know she's the legend. She doesn't know
she's the diva. And she doesn't behave like a diva. What matters to
her is the work, getting it right. Someone once said of her that she
doesn't seem to know she's Julie Andrews."
He has many important moments onstage with the former Ms. Poppins, key
among them a duet, "Almost a Love Song," one of the 14 new songs
written for the show by the late Henry Mancini and Leslie
Bricusse. Members of the press heard Nouri and Andrews perform the
number in early spring in a mini-preview at the rehearsal studio, and
there was a one-word consensus: "Wow!" Other members of the knockout
cast include Tony Roberts (in the Preston role) and Rachel York.
Nouri not only loves working with his co-star; he also loves his
role. "I really like playing somebody who has his reality stood right
on his head," he says. "It's wonderful to play such a character,
because you get to go somewhere with the role, to play different
aspects of yourself. I get a chance to ask myself what it feels like
to be in total control of a situation, and then to go into a tailspin,
to be thrown into complete chaos. And then I ask myself, how do I pull
myself into control again?"
Nouri is confident of the musical's success; he has taken an apartment
on Central Park West, a continent away from his permanent home in
Pacific Palisades, California, a house on a hillside overlooking the
ocean. He does not expect to return to the West Coast for 18 months,
but he has brought with him a reminder of his California life, his
constant companion, an 8-year-old golden retriever named Chauncey.
Chauncey, the offspring of prize-winning English show dogs, is a
cheerful and understanding friend, Nouri says. "He goes running with
me every morning in Central Park. But it's his first visit to New
York. I'm used to the city. For Chauncey, everything was new: the
sounds, the sights, the smells. For a while he was overstimulated."
One smell that Chauncey was already familiar with, however, was that
of his owner's cigars.
"It all began when I was a teenager growing up in Alpine, New Jersey,"
the 49-year-old Nouri says. "I had to read Hemingway's The Old Man
and the Sea for high school, and in the course of learning about
the book I found out that Hemingway spent a lot of time deep-sea
fishing and smoking Cuban cigars. This sparked some very rich
fantasies in me. My mom and dad were out of town at a convention--my
father was in life insurance, so he would go to these annual
conventions. And in those days, you could go down to the corner cigar
store and for probably 50 cents buy an H. Upmann Cuban cigar. So
that's what I did. Spending 50 cents for a cigar in those days was
exorbitant. It was a luxury. But I sat in the living room reading
The Old Man and the Sea and smoking an H. Upmann cigar."
"I've never really had an appetite for anything but Cuban cigars,"
Nouri says, holding in his hand a well-aged Montecristo No. 2. "To me,
cigars were synonymous with Cuba. Not long after I smoked that
H. Upmann, Cuba became forbidden territory. And for me, that made it
even more intriguing and desirable. I'm very desirous of things that
are unobtainable. But truthfully, getting Cuban cigars has never been
a problem for me. It's just a question of whether you want to go
through the anxiety of bringing them in illegally. And for me it was
always worth the anxiety. I mean, there's anxiety in walking down the
street, and there's very little payoff except getting to your
destination. So I figure, hey, the anxiety of bringing in some Cuban
cigars through customs is a relatively small price to pay for the
reward."
His favorite cigar, he says, is any cigar given to him in
friendship. But his particular favorites include the Montecristo
No. 2. "It all depends on my mood. I choose the No. 2 when I want a
lot of smoke. And you can control the amount of smoke you get by the
cut that you make. I also like the Diplomatico No. 2, which is a
counterpart to the Montecristo. It's virtually the same cigar. After
lunch, I like the Cohiba robusto, because it's like, boom! It also
gives you a lot of smoke. It's a good wakeup call after a big
lunch. After a wonderful, long dinner, when I know I'm going to have a
long time to smoke, I like a double corona--Hoyo de Monterrey, a
pre-Castro Punch Super Selection No. 2--or a Cohiba
Esplendidos. They're all different, with subtle nuances of spice,
dryness and richness."
In his California home, Nouri keeps his cigars in an armoire that he
has had specially converted to a humidor. "It holds about 5,000
cigars," he says. "I had it lined in Spanish cedar and put little
openings in the shelves so the moisture can get up from the humidifier
on the bottom. It's a perfectly controlled environment for my little
cigar babies." He has not, however, brought many of them to New
York. "I'm singing," he says, "and I cut back when I'm singing. So
when I need one, I just hit up some of my friends."
For Nouri, smoking a cigar is an event of "enjoyment, appreciation and
relaxation. When I was in my 20s, I met Zino Davidoff in Geneva, and
he gave me a copy of his book The Cigar Connoisseur. It gave me
an appreciation of what a cigar is all about. I had never known what
went into the making of a cigar, that in fact it takes a minimum of
two years to produce one, from the time the seed is sown until you're
cutting it and lighting it. And of course, it's all done by hand."
The process, he says, inspires admiration. "I have a great respect for
what goes into the cigar, so necessarily the circumstances under which
I smoke one reflect that respect. At the risk of sounding pretentious,
I have to say that I have a certain amount of reverence for the
event. There's something ceremonious about it. After all, I wouldn't
open a fantastic bottle of wine at a baseball game. I very seldom
smoke a cigar while walking down the street, unless there's no wind at
all. I like to reflect, contemplate, appreciate what went into the
making of it all."
Nouri sees a certain symbolism in a good smoke. "It reminds me of the
quality of life I strive for," he says. "I love quality in everything,
whether it's watchmaking or clothes or shoes or a theatrical
performance. Because it's easy to crank anything out. It's easy to
mass-produce anything. We live in a knockoff society, a throwaway
society, where quality really stands out."
Cigars, for Nouri, also symbolize fellowship and friendship. "When I
sit down to smoke a cigar," he says, "it's usually with some really
great buddies. And we talk about our cigar experiences, our trips to
Cuba, our dreams of going to Cuba. Or we talk about something
completely different, like J.D. Salinger. Or life. Or women."
(Speaking of women--which he most definitely likes to do--he prefers
that they be cigar-friendly. Sometimes, they are more than friendly. A
former romantic interest is India Allen, an actress, film producer and
the 1988 Playboy Playmate of the Year, a regular cigar smoker
who was profiled earlier this year in Cigar Aficionado.)
Occasionally, when he and his friends get together, they talk about
another subject very much on smokers' minds these days: "the flak we
get for smoking cigars."
With the growth of restrictive smoking laws, that flak has
increased. But Nouri prefers to avoid it. "It's impossible for me to
enjoy a cigar if I know that somebody in the environment is being
offended by it," he says. "That's contrary to the whole
experience. It's anathema to the event. So I'll go to a cigar smoker
or to a cigar-friendly place so I don't have to deal with all that
stuff. The cigar can easily be used as an instrument of
aggression. That's not what it's about for me."
Sometimes, however, before he has even lighted a cigar, he encounters
complaints from people who are anticipating that he will do so. "I use
the occasion to try to enlighten them about the glory of cigars," he
says. "I assure them I'm not going to light one up, and I tell them
something about how long it takes to make one. And it's interesting to
find out that the phobia so many people have about cigars has nothing
to do with firsthand experience of smelling cigars. It's as irrational
a prejudice as any other. Most people, in fact, are pleasantly
surprised at how good a fine cigar smells. They say they hated cigars,
but this one really smells good; it doesn't smell like a cigar. And I
tell them that this is what a real cigar smells like."
Nouri smiles again. He rolls the Montecristo No. 2 appreciatively
between his fingers. He looks, and talks, like someone who is very
happy with his life. And indeed he is. It is, he says, "like waking up
into a dream every day."
That dream of becoming an actor began four decades ago in Alpine, New
Jersey. "Though I didn't know it was my dream until my junior year in
high school," he says. "I was at a boys' boarding school and I was in
a production of Gilbert and Sullivan's Trial by Jury. I played
the judge. I just loved it. I discovered I had a voice, a big voice,
and that my hamminess could make people laugh. And I love making
people laugh."
There was at first, however, not much support from his family. "My
role model, my dad, was a businessman," he says, "and his definition
of practicality was a nine-to-five job and supporting a family. So he
did not encourage me to pursue my dream. With the best of intentions,
he encouraged me to be practical, though now there is nobody more
proud than he is that I pursued that dream and succeeded."
The turnaround came when Nouri briefly went to work for his father. "I
showed up late every day," he says. "I'd wait for the coffee wagon to
come around. I couldn't wait for lunch. I would live from break to
break. Then I would leave early. Finally, I went into his office. It
was no secret to either of us that this wasn't working. I think I was
an embarrassment to him with his employees."
Nouri left and made for the streets of New York. He got a job as a
waiter at Churchill's Restaurant, "a nice little burger bar on Third
Avenue; I don't remember how much I was making, but it was clean
money, because I wasn't giving up my soul." He started going to
auditions, even though he had no formal training. He made his first
trip to the West Coast, looking for movie work. And, he says, "I
conned my way into the business.
"I lied my way into the office of Freddie Fields, who at the time was
one of the most powerful agents [in Hollywood]," he recalls. "I had
heard his name, that he was one of the best. So I lied about having an
appointment with him, and somehow I got into his office. He let me
know that he knew I didn't have an appointment, but he gave me five
minutes. And I, with all the bravado of someone totally ignorant of
the obstacles and difficulties in this business, announced that I was
going to be a big star and make both of us a lot of money."
Fields was amused. "He actually assigned me to a rookie agent, and we
drove over to Paramount Studios that afternoon to meet with a director
named Larry Peerce, who was going to direct Philip Roth's book
Goodbye, Columbus, which was going to star Richard Benjamin and
an unknown actress named Ali McGraw. I auditioned and flew back to New
York. A couple of days later I got a telegram saying they wanted me to
play Ali McGraw's boyfriend. It paid $750 a week for two weeks'
work. It was heaven. It showed me that what it all comes down to in
this business--or in any other business--is chutzpah, just
chutzpah. If you're passionate enough and you want to do it badly
enough, then you become resourceful, you find a way to do it even if
it means breaking the rules. Very often it's the rule breakers who
make the biggest impression."
After his first movie, he went back to waiting tables. But then came
his first Broadway appearance, in 1968 in a comedy called Forty
Carats. His part was small, but he also understudied the male lead
and, later in the run, took over the role, playing opposite a Broadway
legend, Julie Harris.
Then, however, came a crisis. In the early 1970s, he says, "I set out
on a spiritual quest in search of myself and became involved in
meditation for three years." He lived on ashrams, pursuing
self-knowledge. "It was a very rich time in my life. I discovered
serenity within myself. I had been going through a tough time. I had
had my heart broken in a relationship. I was disillusioned. I had
experienced a modicum of what to me at the time was fame: being on
Broadway, having my picture out in front of the theater, making real
money. I knew that wasn't the answer. So I became a troubadour of
sorts, living out of a funky old Volkswagen bus. To make a living, I
sang, wrote songs, played the guitar. Then, gradually, I made a
reentry into the world, started pursuing my career. I resumed acting
with the understanding that I didn't have to renounce the world to
have peace of mind."
He began to land roles on television series. He played Giorgio
Bellancini on CBS's "Beacon Hill" and Steve Kaslo in the CBS soap
opera "Search for Tomorrow." He was Dracula in the NBC "Cliff Hangers"
serial "The Curse of Dracula" in 1979, Salvatore "Lucky" Luciano in
NBC's "The Gangster Chronicles" in 1981, Joe Rohner in producer Steven
Bochco's "The Bay City Blues" in 1983. And in the movies, of course,
also in 1983, there was Flashdance.
Now he is back on Broadway in a leading role for the first time in
more than two decades. And he is starring in a show that he believes
is more than a musical; it also has, he says, "a potential for
healing."
"What we're really dealing with is the issue of homophobia," he
says. "My character is someone who is dead sure of what his reality
is. He is high machismo, he disdains homosexuality and homosexuals,
and suddenly he finds himself enamored of, and then head over heels in
love with, someone whose sexual identity is, to say the least,
ambiguous. The show is an example of that old adage: First you make
'em laugh, and then, while their mouths are open, you pop in the pill
of truth. The pill is really a mirror for us, a mirror in which we can
look at our prejudices, our homophobia."
Providing a mirror on society is a prime function of the arts, he
says. "We always need mirrors to see ourselves, and to me that's what
the arts are about. Politics does not give us a really objective
reflection of who we are. Neither, in my opinion, does organized
religion, though perhaps that's its intention. It's the arts that does
it."
When Nouri looks in his own personal mirror, he says, he is very
much aware that the part of his life that occurs when he is not on
stage or screen is considerably more important than the time he spends
before the public. "It's the times in between, the commas, that
count," he says. "It's the pauses that create the literature. They are
as much a part of the literature as the thought behind a written
line. In Asian art, in any art, the space between the colors is
profoundly important. In speech, the space between the spoken words is
the breath, the breath of life. That is the foundation of everything."
One way he occupies himself is as an ambassador for the National
Multiple Sclerosis Society. He began that work 10 years ago when his
wife (they are now separated) came down with the disease, and he
continues to devote time to the cause. "I work as a spokesman, and I
try to increase people's awareness," he says. "I just do what I can."
Over the past three years, he was a regular on the CBS sitcom "Love
and War." "It was one of the hardest things I've ever done," he
says. "I lucked into working with a very talented cast and great
writers and producers like Diane English. I learned a great deal, but
it scared the hell out of me. It's creating a play in five days. For
some actors it may be easy, but for me it was very tough."
Performing, he says, is also very tough. "There are problems in any
career, but as long as your self-esteem is intact you can say you'll
ride it out. But when your self-esteem is affected and you're doubting
yourself, things can be difficult. An actor is his own product. He or
she is the marketable product. And your self-esteem is always
affected. It can go both ways. It can be deflated or it can be
overinflated. Both are losing propositions."
In the past, he says, he "spent a lot of time doubting, doubting,
giving myself a lot of dumb information. And that was a voice that did
not serve me well." But things have changed, he says. "Through
growing, and through being with loving, supportive friends, I came to
understand that I could have whatever I wanted."
He laughs, and points to the Montecristo No. 2 that he had returned to
the table and that has been resting there, patiently awaiting the
proper moment. He picks it up again. "Like a great Cuban cigar," he
says.
Mervyn Rothstein is an editor at The New York Times, and a
frequent contributor to Cigar Aficionado.
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