Key Points
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Rob Reiner almost helped Larry David get his screenplay Prognosis: Negativemade. Instead, he worked on his directorial debut, This Is Spinal Tap, and the rest is history.
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The connection between Reiner and David helped Cheryl Hines get an audition for Curb Your Enthusiasm.
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Emperor of Nothing: The Making of Larry Davidis available for purchase wherever books are sold.
Larry David, Rob Reiner, and Cheryl Hines are more connected than the casual comedy fan may think.
Blake J. Harris’ new book, Emperor of Nothing: The Making of Larry David,dives deep into the mind of the man behindSeinfeldand Curb Your Enthusiasm. Before his career skyrocketed with the series, he was working on a dark comedy film called Prognosis: Negative.
The film centered around a protagonist, Leo Black, who was supposed to be a fictionalized version of David when he lived in Hell’s Kitchen, New York.
“Like Larry, the character was a neurotic hypochondriac who was plagued so deeply by feelings of remorse that it made committing to anything all but impossible. Especially romantic relationships—which led to the underlying question that powered Prognosis: Negative: How can a man with deep-seated commitment issues survive in a world where he’s constantly pressured to settle down and live happily ever after?” Harris writes.
David had one name in mind that was talented and a producer: Rob Reiner, who was “at an interesting crossroads.”
Reiner was already known for his Emmy-winning turn on All in the Familyas Michael “Meathead” Stivic.
“One would imagine that after 180+ episodes as a top-tier supporting actor, Reiner’s next step would be to find a TV show of his own to star in. But he had something else in mind,” Harris writes.
“‘After All in the Familywent off the air,” Reiner says, “‘I wanted to make films. I wanted to direct . . . [but] at the time, people in television were looked down upon by movie people. You were second-class citizens if you did television.'”
While transitioning from television to film and from actor to director, Reiner grappled with finding the right project.
“And the project he wound up working on—his directorial debut—was a pretty risky venture: a fake documentary about a fictional rock band that Reiner co-wrote with three friends and then filmed over the course of only five weeks,” Harris writes.
“Even riskier, the so-called script that Reiner and his friends had written didn’t actually contain any set-in-stone dialogue; rather, it was just a series of scene outlines that were then brought to life through improvisation,” the author continues. “All this to say, there was a lot of uncertainty around Reiner’s upcoming mockumentary, This Is Spinal Tap.”
The satire rock mockumentary has since been recognized by the Library of Congress and the American Film Institute. It also verified Reiner’s directing chops, and he began to get bigger and better offers.
However, when he read Prognosis: Negative, he told David that he had the perfect person to direct the film — which, was not what David had in mind when pitching it to him.
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“Sadly though, the lesson that Larry would ultimately learn with Prognosis was hardly a new lesson at all. Rather, it would just be the latest twist on what he already knew to be true: Good things are never as good as they appear to be,” concludes Harris.
David and Reiner’s connection wound up being crucial years later in 1999, when Hines was performing at the Groundlings Theatre and was asked to audition to portray David’s wife in a project that would become Curb Your Enthusiasm.
“At the time of this call, Hines was in the small minority of people who actually knew how important Larry David had been to Seinfeld, though not because of any direct, firsthand experience,” writes Harris, adding that Hines “left out one crazy detail” about how the offer came up.
“The crazy detail was that for the past two years, Hines had been working as a personal assistant to Rob Reiner—the esteemed filmmaker whose production company (Castle Rock) had produced Seinfeld—and his wife, Michele,” Harris notes.
Hines’ responsibilities ranged from running errands for the Reiners to helping them organize social events. David would wind up at these events, as a friend of the late couple, explains Harris.
“‘Because I [had been] Rob’s assistant for a while, there were certainly times when I remembered writing Larry’s name for an invitation,'” Hines says. “‘So I knew he was an important person.'”
“I was a little confused,” Hines recalled, per Harris. “But my agent said, ‘Look, you’re probably not going to be right for the part. But just go and do the best job you can. And maybe there’s another role that they’ll have you in mind for.'”
“‘As soon as Cheryl started,’ Larry says, ‘I felt like, ‘Oh yeah, this is perfect.’ It was a very simple improv, but the way she did it—the way she just ‘managed’ me . . . She had a way of dealing with me that was just hilarious. And she was such an easy presence. Somebody who I just felt so comfortable with immediately,'” Harris writes David saying of her audition.
For her role on Curb Your Enthusiasmas Cheryl David, Hines nabbed two Emmy nominations throughout the show’s 12 seasons.
Emperor of Nothing: The Making of Larry Davidis available for purchase wherever books are sold.
Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly
