The Wrong Kind of Person

Erika Milvy

Dry, wry, and seemingly unhinged, actor turned commentator Charles Grodin is known for his curmudgeonliness. He once incited an army of Letterman devotees to raise their pens in protest when he bawled out the late-night host for blowing off their interview to wait at home for the cable guy. They didn't get the joke. This month he's hoping San Franciscans will get that his new play, The Right Kind of People—about infighting on a Fifth Avenue co-op board—is not really about Manhattan real estate. Erika Milvy talks with Grodin about his encounters with his co-op board and CNBC.

Why is your play premiering here at the Magic Theatre?
Bias and discrimination are everywhere, wherever there are people trying to get into a private institution who aren't like the people making the decisions. It could be in a liberal place like San Francisco. People like to be around those just like them. 

So who were the right kind of people in your building?
I think I was asked to be on the co-op board because they wanted somebody with a name and no scandal attached. Belatedly, they realized that, as one member said about me, "he'd let anyone into the building." They had these amazing objections—things like "So-and-so gets his clothes off the rack." At first, I really thought they were kidding.

They wanted to keep someone out because he bought off the rack?
That was their objection. I said, "I get my clothes off the rack," and somebody said, "Yes, we know." You'd think we were electing a president. There were so many objections that early on I thought, My goodness, this is a play!

What was the most preposterous thing you heard, as a playwright-slash-spy?
If you have a dog, it can't stand any more than 21 inches to the shoulder. In the play, nothing is made up about the co-op board
—even the insurrection in which they get overthrown. It just sounds made up. I took a lot of notes at meetings, and they thought I was being a good board member.
 
Your CNBC show was canceled. Corporate censorship or right-wing conspiracy?
I don't know. Some executives did tell me I made sponsors nervous. When it came to expressing opinions, I never thought about the ramifications—I had Bobby Kennedy on attacking PCBs in the Hudson River that were put there by General Electric. The network didn't appreciate that, since General Electric owned it.

You now do political commentary for CBS News radio. You've written politically minded books and essays. Which forum works best?
I don't know that anything works. I just keep doing it because it's better to try. I think Mel Brooks wrote a song, "Hope for the Best, Expect the Worst." 
You really are a do-gooder. People think of you as so prickly and cantankerous.
Yeah. They're two extremes. It's the combination of comedy and an Actors Studio conviction that leads to the public thinking I am an unpleasant person.