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she finally blurted out. Eli said no. “Martin Balsam!” She yelled out the name as if she’d just won at bingo. Eli said no. “Peter Falk!” No, said Eli. “Efrem Zimbalist Jr.!” No. “Ben Gazzara!” No. Finally the woman gave up. “Who are you?” she demanded. “I’m Eli Wallach.” The woman clutched her heart; a beatific smile came over her face. “My favorite!” she said and walked away.

    Tony Perkins told me about a time when he was sitting in the back of a cab—it was during a lull in his career—and saw the driver scrutinizing him in the rear-view mirror. After a while the cabbie, unable to contain himself, said, “Excuse me, but didn’t you used to be Tony Perkins?”
    My favorite anecdote involving me took place years ago when I was on location, making a film. We’d stopped to shoot in Nashville for a couple of days, and one night a group of us went to dinner at what we heard was a good Italian restaurant. In the middle of the meal the maître d’ came over to me and said in a thick Italian accent, “I saw you in the movies last night.” “I don’t think you did,” I answered. I hadn’t done anything in a while, and nothing of mine was in theaters anywhere. “Yes I did,” he said again. “Last night I saw you in the movies.” “I don’t think so,” I said, wanting to get back to my dinner. “Nothing of mine is playing in town,” I told him and turned away. Not taking the hint, the maître d’ said, “I never forget a face. I saw you last night in Diary of a Mad Housewife .” “I wasn’t in Diary of a Mad Housewife ,” I said, starting to get annoyed. “Yes you were,” insisted the maître d’. “Look,” I said, now a bit steamed. “I know what I was in and what I wasn’t in, and I wasn’t in Diary of a Mad Housewife .” “Yes you were,” the maître d’ repeated. “No I wasn’t!” I said, churning. “Yes,” he said. “I’ll tell you where.” “Okay,” I said, giving in, and he went on: “I saw you sitting on the steps of the theater before the movie started. You were talking to a boy who was about twelve years old.” And he had me. I had
gone to see the movie the night before with my son Adam, and we had sat on the steps of the theater to talk for a few minutes before the film began. “You got me,” I said. “So what are you doing in town?” the maître d’ asked me, now that we were pals. “I’m a traveling salesman,” I said, “just passing through.”
    It’s a strange life. But I’m in a good place in it. I’m a character actor. I don’t get mobbed; I can go anywhere and not feel as if my privacy is going to be intruded on. When I am approached in public these days it’s most often by people who have liked something I’ve done, and the exchanges tend to be fun and respectful. And once in a while I’m given a better seat on an airplane.

CHAPTER EIGHT
    During the year at Second City in New York, and then throughout my run in Enter Laughing , even though everything was going exceedingly well professionally I had no life outside the theater. For all the good I did anyone I could have been hung up in a closet somewhere. In one memorable week three different people suggested that I should go into analysis. It was a wake-up call and I listened.
    I had no idea what to expect from analysis. I didn’t know anyone who’d ever experienced it. During the first month I told the doctor a dream I had.
    “It was terrible,” I said. “My brother Bob fell into a bear pit and the bars around the cage were too high for me to get in and save him. My poor brother. He was killed by the bears.”
    “Who threw him in the bear pit?” the doctor said.
    “Not me,” I answered.
    “No?” the doctor asked. “Who had the dream?”

    It was as if I’d been hit in the head with a two-by-four. I had the dream. There was someone inside. There was something going on within me that caused things to happen, things that I generated, in my personal life as