I am speaking here today with the legendary Tracy Reiner;
writer, producer, actress, and member of one of the most lauded
families in Hollywood. Daughter of the iconic producer and
actress Penny Marshall (actress from Laverne and Shirley fame,
and the first major female film director of all time), niece of
the iconic writer, producer, director Gary Marshall (creator of
Happy Days), and stepdaughter of the iconic writer, producer,
director Rob Reiner (creator of the masterful Stand By Me), Tracy
Reiner is a talent in her own right, having appeared in over
fifty film and television shows including
‘Valentine’s Day,’ ‘The Princess
Diaries,’ ‘The Princess Diaries 2- Royal
Engagement,’ ‘Riding in Cars with Boys,’
‘Apollo 13,’’Pretty Woman,’
‘Frankie and Johnny,’ ‘When Harry Met
Sally,’ ‘Beaches,’ ‘Die Hard,’
‘Big,’ ‘The Sure Thing,’ ‘The
Flamingo Kid,’ and her most known role in the T.V. show and
film of ‘A League of Their Own’ as Betty (Spaghetti)
Horn among many more. If there was ever Hollywood royalty, Tracy
Reiner would be it.
But Tracy Reiner the gifted actress is not even half as
fascinating as Tracy Reiner the human being. If her family broke
records (and they did), Tracy Reiner broke molds and shattered
stereotypes. Fiercely confident, fast (I never think about
calling her unless I am one hundred percent alert or I will be
l-o-s-t), fascinating (she has some of the best Hollywood stories
ever), and brilliant, this incredible woman is not merely a kid
raised by the Hollywood greats, she is greatness in her own
right. Her knowledge about Hollywood, politics, religion, and
things often hidden is quite mind blowing. Talking with Tracy
Reiner is not merely a conversation, it is an experience. She is
a quite rare, amazing human being, and it is an honor to bring
you here my interview with this extraordinary woman.
An Exclusive Interview with Tracy Reiner
The Hollywood Sentinel: Tracy, you obviously were born in to the
entertainment industry. Can you take us back to the beginning
please and tell us where you started out?
Tracy Reiner: I started out in a house in New
Mexico, not born in to show business, but born in to government
and technology. My family in New Mexico all worked at the
government facilities; Los Alamos, Sandia National Labs, Kurtland
Air Force Base... so I came here (to Los Angeles) when I was
eight, right when my Mom and Rob were becoming very successful
because my Dad thought it might be a better set up for school, he
thought I might have more possibilities here. My parents had me
when they were nineteen- so there was a time where my
grandparents had custody of me- so before I moved to Los Angeles
I spent time between New York and New Mexico with each set of
grandparents. I did advertising and dancing school in New York,
and the labs in New Mexico.
One grandmother was the dancing school teacher for the Junior
Rockettes (the famous dance troupe of showgirls), until she
separated and did her own- The Marshallettes, and so she and my
mother and my aunt and all the other neighborhood mothers were
recruited to dancing school and costumes. And my grandmother (on
mothers’ side) had a photographic memory, so she would go
to Broadway plays and she would memorize music, and she would
come back and play it on the piano, and she would teach everyone
to dance. And so by the time I came here (to Los Angeles), I was
terrified of all these big personalities! When I started out in
New Mexico, everybody was very reserved, very private, very
Jehovah’s Witness there, and there were no holidays, they
were just very, very, very strict! Not in a bad way strict, just
completely different than coming here (to L.A.) in 1974 and your
parents are like the biggest cartoons on television at the time
with Laverne and Shirley… and All In the
Family…
Hollywood Sentinel: (laughs)
Tracy Reiner: And everything was so huge, that
everything was a party! And the times that I would visit here was
always a holiday, so it was just a dreamland to me. There was a
lot more television shows (in L.A.), and my Mom was sort of a
junk food freak and she would get like fritos and sodas for
breakfast and I would always go home completely sick, but I
thought it was the greatest time here, so when I finally moved
here, there was a whole new world here that I was never asked to
participate in. Like, I didn’t know the personality rules
that were going to show up.
Hollywood Sentinel: I’ll bet!
I remember going to the Reiner’s house, and they happened
to have the Landau’s and Brooks over, Mel Brooks (actor,
singer, comic legend) and Martin Landau (Oscar winning actor who
was good friends with James Dean) and (his wife) Barbara Bain
(fashion model, dancer, actress – Mission Impossible) and
all their kids, and I had never seen charades. And I think they
knew that I had never seen charades. So if you can imagine these
giant bravado personalities playing this very comfortable family
game of charades and I had no idea what they were doing, and I
was mortified… terrified it was so scary! But they all
laughed over the years, because I didn’t know what
‘Jewish’ was (as a little girl), I didn’t know
so many things, and they watched me assimilate. And I am sort of
a good example of how someone can learn to do things. Some of it
is really coaching, and this game prepared me for things
really.
Hollywood Sentinel: That’s great.
Because my next field is entertainment, it’s not
advertised, like casting directors- there aren’t jobs
listed (for them much) really- it’s a word of mouth thing,
you have to learn, there’s no real training, you can sort
of think you are going to learn at school and acting classes and
that, but they don’t tell you that (in Hollywood), ninety
nine percent of your performance is based on your behavior and
your comfort level. And they tell you that it’s an art
form- and it is in a way- but what it comes down to is your
ability to be comfortable in a room full of people and talk. So
for me it was a big overall lesson. I had to learn how to talk
with them for real, and then I could learn how to talk with
simulated text in a theatre sense. So being big and bravado
isn’t always an innate thing. I was shy. When I was
thirteen, I didn’t talk.
The Hollywood Sentinel- Bruce Edwin: Really?! That’s
incredible! When you were going to school, did you go to a
private school?
Tracy Reiner: I went to both an alternative
school called SY Jackson in New Mexico, out here (in Los Angeles)
I went to Colfax Avenue School, and then I went to Portola Junior
High, and then for high school I went to two different high
schools; Cal Prep which was a lot of industry kids. I went to
school with the Jackson kids, Stevie wonder’s sister, a
bunch of different people who had an interesting home life, and
then I went to the Lycée Français de Los Angeles,
the big international French school, on Overland. (other famous
alums include Molly Ringwald, Claire Danes, Tatum O’Neil,
and Jodie Foster among others).
The Hollywood Sentinel: Cool. Do you speak French?
Tracy Reiner: I do. (Graduates of the school are
required to master the French language). I speak French and
Italian pretty well, French I was taught, Italian I learned.
The
Hollywood Sentinel-Bruce Edwin: That’s great, I think
French is such a beautiful language, Italian too. There is such
great cinema out of both of those areas. So you got a degree in
what?
Tracy Reiner: They didn’t have a major for
it at the time, but it was in ‘The History of
Storytelling.’ I was given some great advice by my
stepfather and his moms boyfriend when I was about 18, and her
mom’s boyfriend was Art Garfunkel (actor, singer, and part
duo of the famed group Simon and Garfunkel), and they sort of
explained to me that one thing I needed to learn about this town,
about L.A., is that it’s like a big typewriter, and before
you go start simulating real life for a living, you need to go
have a life. And because I grew up here, I went away to college,
I went to Bennington, and then I went to the New School for
Social Research in New York City, and I went to a bunch of
different schools. The new school accepted my matriculation, they
agreed that my idea of the history of storytelling was valid, and
so they now have that as a major. Brown does too.
The Hollywood Sentinel: That’s
great!
Tracy Reiner: And basically I studied
everything; religion, history, storytelling, mythology, art
history… I found the connection to all of them. I found
they were all connected, and I thought OK, maybe I’ll be a
writer when I’m older…and I worked at restaurants,
and I worked at Saturday Night Live, for three seasons, and I
worked at Indochine, in New York (a famous restaurant frequented
by many celebs).
The Hollywood Sentinel- Bruce Edwin: When you were around that
age- ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen- did kids know who you were?
Were kids like, Oh that’s Tracy Reiner, she’s famous,
or her parents are famous?
Tracy Reiner: No one knew unless someone told
them, if their parents told them, and then it was only when we
would travel and go out to dinner that people would recognize us,
and they would go, “We’re really sorry to interrupt,
we really don’t mean to interrupt!” - but here we go!
Hollywood Sentinel: (laughs) But you did interrupt!
Tracy Reiner: And my parents were amazing and
gracious and willing to say hi to people, and I didn’t do
‘that’ well, I was sort of like. “No,
don’t talk to me!” Like Robert Deniro… But now
it’s wonderful, it’s nice, I go to Disneyland and
they’re like – “It’s Betty
Spaghetti!” And I’m only known anymore with
teenagers…
The Hollywood Sentinel: That’s so cool.
What did that life experience do for you as a writer, producer
and director? Did you get a vision out of that, that you wanted
to convey that you think is unique?
Tracy Reiner: What I learned was that most
people are like, if you are going to be talented someone is going
to discover you, and that it’s a matter of somehow being
seen, and that’s not true. What I in fact learned was that
it’s not, you have to be soooo in love with what you do
that you really figure out what it is until you almost do not
like it, and then come back and make us believe you really want
to do it! And so I had to really take off, and be with my own
friends. I traveled and worked in Europe first and we were all
offered to work at fourteen and fifteen, at the Paramount casting
office. I had six cousins, so there were seven of us, so what do
you do with seven girls and a boy?! My grandmother had us all
dancing at old folks homes, and on the Jerry Lewis Telethon, and
we were called the Marshallettes, and we all started out dancing,
and as we got older, my family was running all these shows at
Paramount, they had three or four shows up, so they put us to
work!
Hollywood Sentinel: Wow!
Tracy Reiner: My family is from the Bronx, and
both sides of my family are very, very work ethic based. And so
we all knew how to work the cash register by the time we were
sixteen, we all had regular jobs, we all had our SAG cards at
fifteen so we could have insurance, and learn what that is, so
right now, all seven us work in areas of production to this day.
Hollywood Sentinel: That’s amazing.
Tracy Reiner: Once you’re thirty five in
this business, you had better have a couple of things you do
because it’s not the most supportive industry. It tries to
be, but it’s very hard to get a job with a level income.
It’s not the fall that kills you, it’s the sudden
stop! It’s not like. “Oh, I’m famous, and then
I’m not famous,” it’s the point where everyone
is searching for work right now, and so to be prepared for that
in your field of interest, when you’re young (is
important).
Check out this classic clip of Tracy and her Mom on the classic
hit television show ‘Laverne and Shirley.’
Tracy Reiner: I couldn’t imagine just
acting, there are so many facets you have to know, it’s not
just a tight little family any more now, it’s not just six
thousand members of The Screen Actors Guild, there is a lot more
in the industry itself because all of the technologies division,
it’s now a huge corporate industry you know, so we were all
sort of prepared to adapt to that change.
To be continued.
© 2011, The Hollywood Sentinel. All rights reserved. No
part of this article is to be reproduced in whole or in part
without direct written permission from the publisher.