Steve Guttenberg Quotes Chapter and Verse From His Life in His Engaging Tales From the Guttenberg Bible

When Steve Guttenberg went to join the Screen Actors Guild, a secretary offered him a startling statistic: Only 5 percent of members make their living as a working actor. When he sought an agent, his first prospect gave him what he thought was helpful advice: Run for the elevator and never look back. Thankfully, the ambitious kid from Massapequa, New York, didn’t listen. Tales From the Guttenberg Bible, now receiving its world premiere at George Street Playhouse in New Brunswick, New Jersey, endearingly chronicles the years leading up to its subject’s moment in the sun — the time in the 1980s when he became one of the biggest stars in Hollywood against all odds.

For several years, Guttenberg was ubiquitous on the silver screen, anchoring major franchises like Police Academy and Three Men and a Baby while also honing his craft in critically acclaimed pictures like Barry Levinson’s Diner. He ascended to fame without losing his natural charm or forgetting where he came from. Serving here as playwright and onstage narrator, Guttenberg doesn’t shy away from showing the ways the deck was stacked against him. He lacked formal training. He was not always what you’d call a natural. And he came up at a time when identifiably Jewish leading men were still a rarity.

But what Guttenberg possessed in spades — and what the script proves time and again — was chutzpah. Coming to Hollywood fresh out of high school at 17, he talked his way onto the Paramount lot by pretending to be Michael Eisner’s son. He walked away from Tinseltown to attend college, only to be called back with a starring role in The Boys From Brazil. In a series of similarly structured scenes, the audience watches Guttenberg biff audition after audition, only to be told later that he booked the part. Gravitas goes for a lot in show business, and Guttenberg clearly has it.

Along the way, Guttenberg meets a fascinating cast of characters, from bottom-feeding talent managers to the world’s most revered actors. Director David Saint has recruited a treasure trove of talent to enact these ancillary figures, with Arnie Burton, Dan Domingues, and Carine Montbertrand convincingly shifting between 90 roles across the play’s brief running time. Costume designer Lisa Zinni delineates characters with smart accents: a pastel-pink scarf tied around Domingues’s neck to represent Steve’s actor godfather, Michael Bell; a flamboyant caftan draped over Burton’s suit to signal the larger-than-life film producer Allan Carr.

Some of the schtick involving the supporting actors changing roles feels tired, like having them run through scenes spouting lines such as “I’m too old for this!” Burton is often assigned to the stereotypically gay parts, and the exaggeration he is asked to play at certain points brushes up to the line of homophobia. A long aside about an experience with Caitlyn Jenner (using her former name) is poorly judged and should be excised from future productions, as it adds nothing to the proceedings except the potential to make some audience members uncomfortable.

Still, the few regrettable moments don’t take away from the primary point at the show’s core: After 40 years in front of the camera, Guttenberg has remained a fundamentally decent human being. He tells the audience near the end that he crafted the show as a tribute to his beloved father, who always encouraged his son even if he didn’t fully understand his career goals. Guttenberg’s father and mother (played sweetly by Burton and Montbertrand) pop up regularly to remind him that he can always come home if he gets tired of fame — at a certain point, he takes them up on their offer. There is even more rich material for Guttenberg to mine in the genuine closeness of his typical Long Island Jewish family.

One thing you might learn if you come to see the show: Steve’s surname is actually pronounced GUTT-enberg, which was deemed too Semitic when he was breaking into the business. The more Anglicized pronunciation he adopted allows the play’s clever title to make sense, but you never question that Tales From the Guttenberg Bible tells an authentic, homegrown Jewish story. Steve Guttenberg knows who he is.