The Book of Jack

Abbott Press

Chapter One

I would turn seventy soon, and seventy is a multiple of seven. Ever since I read Passages by Gail Sheehy, I knew I was in for some major shifts in my life and career. Sheehy was dead-on about things happening in seven-year cycles. I went into the army at twenty-one; I was married at twenty-eight and broke into radio as a disc jockey that same year. Got divorced at forty-nine, and my radio career changed for the better in roughly seven-year increments. So I was ready for the next one. And sure enough, I was cast as the voice of Teddy in Steven Spielberg's movie A.I. Artificial Intelligence.

I had worked for Steven doing voice-overs on several previous occasions but had never met him. I performed a few incidental voices on An American Tail: Fievel Goes West, a full-length animated feature film. I did three voices on his animated TV show Family Dog, which was the first animated episode of his TV series Amazing Stories. When his British company produced Balto, I played the part of Nikki, an animated sled dog that was one of three dogs who provided comic relief. For that, he flew my wife, Arlene, and me, and a couple of actors named Danny Mann and Robbie Rist, to London—not once but twice. Somebody apparently didn't get it right the first time. And in the production of Hook, during the fight scenes between the pirates and the Lost Boys, it turned out there were no audible grunts, oofs, and ouches as one might expect—particularly if you had grown up watching American cartoons. So a group of British actors and I went onto a soundstage at Todd-AO Studios and did what can only be described as oof-overs.

I even did a job for Steven's DreamWorks partner Jeffrey Katzenberg when The Prince of Egypt was being animated. The animators generally take a few years to finish a feature-length film, and sometimes the investors putting up the money get a little antsy. The backers needed to see something of what the show was going to look like, so a few other voice actors and I went onto a big soundstage and voiced a short segment.

But Teddy was different. Teddy was to be a major character in a huge Spielberg-directed feature film that had been given to Steven by Stanley Kubrick's wife after Kubrick unexpectedly died. I felt this one could wind up being another monster hit like E.T.

Teddy was a robot toy—a two-foot-two-inch-tall teddy bear. Steven's wife, Kate Capshaw, told me they had listened to over one hundred audition tapes before they heard mine, and as soon as they heard my voice they knew I was the one.

I drove through the main gate at Warner Bros. Studio on Barham Boulevard in Burbank, and suddenly I developed a case of nerves. Butterflies! How ridiculous, I told myself. It was just another job, and I had done hundreds over the years since reinventing myself after eighteen years as a disc jockey. But it wasn't really just another job. In this one, I would actually meet Steven Spielberg face to face for the first time and work directly with him on the set—truly every actor's dream.

I had a drive-on. That is, I had a pass so I could drive onto the lot, and a parking spot next to my trailer. I had a trailer. Damn! I parked my Mercedes SL500 in the assigned spot and enjoyed the moment with a smile.

I walked onto a huge soundstage at Warner Bros. and was escorted into a room where sat Steven Spielberg; child actor Haley Joel Osment; Haley's father, Eugene; Jeffrey Katzenberg; and the two producers of A.I.: Kathleen Kennedy and Bonnie Curtis.

"Steven, this is Jack Angel," someone said.

Steven's face lit up as he extended his hand and said it was nice to meet me. It was as if he had clicked on the high beams, as his eyes sparkled with unusual intensity. That was just a precursor of coming events over the next three months.

I said, "Well, if that's you, and I'm standing here, this must all be real."

Everyone laughed. I suppose at some point in their own lives they had all had that same feeling when meeting show-business royalty.

Steven then introduced me to Haley and Eugene.

When Haley's movie The Sixth Sense was in theaters, my neighbors, along with several other people, insisted that I see the movie. They said, "The kid looks just like you!"

So now I said, "Haley, everyone says we look alike. Now personally, I think you're a gorgeous kid, but if what they say is true, you're gonna wind up looking like this," I said as I pointed to my face. Everyone laughed.

Steven jumped in quickly and said, "Well, let's see. Jack, say, `I see dead people.'"

Again, everyone laughed.

After a bit more small talk, I was escorted to the Warner Bros. postproduction soundstage to record my lines. Since Teddy was a talking computer toy, all his lines would be fed into him through a computer, and I had to record all of his lines wild—out of context. Steven said, "Just do what you did in your audition. That was great." The specs given on the audition copy were for a deep voice, much like the voice of Eeyore in Winnie the Pooh, but Teddy was not to sound dumb.

There were about two pages of Teddy dialogue, and we added grunts, yawns, snores, and other assorted noises that we thought the bear might make in the course of the movie. The whole session lasted no more than an hour.

In the script, if anyone referred to him as a "super toy," Teddy insisted rather emphatically, "I am not a toy." So when I snored, and then as Teddy awoke, I made him say, as if he were waking up from a bad dream, "I am not a toy."

Everyone seemed delighted with the ad-lib. When Steven heard it, he thought it was so funny that he actually made a scene of Teddy waking up and saying the line. Unfortunately, as happened to so many scenes that were shot, it only made it as far as the cutting-room floor.

Since all the lines were recorded without direction, I was really just flying blind as to how to deliver them. Steven said he wanted me on the set every day so that when any particular scene was scheduled to be shot, I'd be there in case a line had to be rerecorded in the proper context. And I was happy to be there. Did I say happy? Let's face it: I was thrilled. I ended up being on the set every day for three months, whether on the Warner Bros. lot or on location. I had my own trailer and pretty much nothing to do except watch the show. That is, watch the master moviemaker at work.

Chapter Two

During that great mass exodus of Europeans from their various homelands to...