The setting: The backlot of Universal Studios Thursday in the shadow of the Hollywood hills within feet of the props department.
The scene: Northwestern’s football team gathers near a re-creation of the special-effects pond Charlton Heston used to part the Red Sea when he portrayed Moses in the movie “The Ten Commandments.”
The only thing spoiling a perfect Hollywood moment: When linebacker Mike Warren was late to change his clothes because he was being interviewed by reporters, there was no gofer on the set to say, “You’re wanted in wardrobe, Mr. Warren.”
Moments later, in a bit of scripted Hollywood hokum, the Wild- cats performed a stunt for the cameras in which they pretended to be stuck in their tour tram on the wrong side of the pond. Then came the cue of smoke and thunder for Heston, Northwestern’s most famous alumnus, to miraculously part the Purple Sea as he proclaimed, “Fear not Wildcats, I shall not abandon thee.”
The Hollywood connection with Northwestern is special, though in terms of sports there wasn’t much to brag about for a long time.
In fact, in the days of 1956 graduate Garry Marshall, “NU” stood for Nothing Unusual. Nausea Unlimited. Not Useful. Nice Underwear.
As a fledgling sports writer, Marshall–who later created such TV hits as “Happy Days” and “The Odd Couple”–would fill his column in the Daily Northwestern with such gems. It was how his journalism student’s mind wandered as he sat alone in the Dyche Stadium press box, contemplating a recently completed fiasco on the field below.
He can laugh about it now; it’s ancient history. To be truthful, he could joke about it then too. Those old one-liners are remembered with glee as Marshall and other L.A. alumni rhapsodize over Northwestern’s improbable journey to the Rose Bowl for the first time in 47 years.
Marshall is but one of the many Northwestern alumni who have forged successful careers in Hollywood and are reveling in the team’s Rose Bowl berth. So many graduates work in show business here that they’re sometimes called the Northwestern Mafia. Recently, they even formed the Northwestern Entertainment Alliance.
Northwestern has a distinguished reputation for training actors, including Heston, Warren Beatty, Tony Randall, Julia Louis-Dreyfus and David Schwimmer. But graduates who care about sports-bragging rights always felt somewhat embarrassed that their alma mater was at the bottom of the football food chain.
Marshall even attributes his start in comedy to the laughable Northwestern football teams of the early 1950s.
“It’s because of the sports that I got into this field,” says Marshall. “Those columns were the earliest feedback that I could make somebody chuckle. There were no teams to write about, so I wrote jokes.”
The Wildcats were so bad, he once wrote, that by the time they finished singing “The Star-Spangled Banner,” they were 14 points behind.
They were so bad that a Northwestern player wandered into the other team’s huddle, and they let him stay.
They were so bad that to save money, the team decided not to take the extra-point kicker to the road games.
Only recently, with the team’s success, have alumni admitted to themselves how humiliated they felt for so long.
“It turns out that winning does matter,” says Richard Benjamin (Class of ’60), who starred in such movies as “Goodbye, Columbus” and “The Sunshine Boys” and directed “My Favorite Year” and “Made in America.”
“We’re all feeling this thing we’ve completely suppressed. Winning is really good. We didn’t know that because we didn’t have any of it.”
Hollywood types have even altered their usual movie-deal cocktail patter to more crucial matters.
“It’s not, `Can you get me a job?’ says Benjamin. “Now it’s, `Can you get me tickets?’ “
Fast-thinking alumni around the country claimed all of Northwestern’s allotted tickets weeks ago, leaving even some celebrities out in the cold. At last look, Louis-Dreyfus, who plays Elaine on “Seinfeld,” and her producer-husband, Brad Hall, still were chasing after tickets.
The Rose Bowl has turned into the great equalizer for Los Angeles alumni like Paul Kaplan (Class of ’88), a TV writer who landed tickets for 50 friends. “I had to finagle. I can’t really say what I had to do,” says Kaplan.
“I talked to an actor whose brother-in-law might have a set. Anything. That’s how we’re doing it,” says actor Dermot Mulroney. “You’d be amazed how useless recognizability is.”
When ticket connections fail, anyone who really wants to go to the game can resort to brokers charging as much as $500 a seat. Mulroney said he would pay that much to see the Wildcats at the Rose Bowl.
“The only thing I would miss is sneaking a keg into the stadium the night before to hide it in a trash can,” he said. “That was half the fun of going to an NU game.”
Win or lose, Hollywood alumni already have their eye on Northwestern football star Darnell Autry, a theater major who almost transferred to Arizona State. His sticking around to help Northwestern make it to the Rose Bowl could yield rewards far beyond playing-field glory.
“He could meet a lot of show people out here,” says Marshall.
“If he plays brilliantly, he’ll be made into a handsome leading man. If he drops the ball and stumbles, we’ll put him in a comedy.”
But that wouldn’t be funny to many Northwestern alumni, including Marshall, who remembers when he and his fellow editors at the Daily Northwestern published a huge headline in 1956 that read “Quit the Big Ten.”
“Now, 47 years later, they’ve proved us wrong,” says Marshall. “Who cares if they lose. We’ll wait another 47 years and do it again. But we will win.”
