NONFICTION
Memoir reveals there is more to Handler than ‘Sex’
Actor Evan Handler is no Russell Crowe. He’s no Denzel Washington, Sean Penn or Jude Law, either. No, he’s a short, dumpy, bald guy whose most memorable physical attribute is probably his questioning eye brows.
Despite as lengthy a television resume as anyone currently doing time on the tube, he’s hardly what one would call a “star.” Yet his new memoir, “It’s Only Temporary: The Good News and Bad News of Being Alive,” is more amusing, emotionally involving and downright incisive than the dozens of “deeply personal,” ego-soothing, headline-grabbing autobiographies currently throwing elbows for space on the bestseller list (cough, Barbara Walters, cough).
As I picked up Handler’s book, I wracked my brain trying to determine just who he was. Then it occurred to me, like a bolt of nyuck-nyuck-lightning: he played the great Larry Fine in the shockingly well-made TV film on the Three Stooges in 2000. And he was Hurley’s disappearing friend Dave on “Lost.” But for most viewers, he’s probably best known for his appearances on “Sex and the City,” David Duchovny’s “Californication,” “24” and “The West Wing.”
So why has he written a memoir? Because he has a story to tell — a very strong one that in lesser hands could be maudlin and dreary. But Handler’s air of self-deprecation and bemusement makes it truly memorable.
“It’s Only Temporary” begins in a windowless apartment in Manhattan’s East Village, as Handler struggles with something understandably embarrassing for him: “I’m standing over the sink, in the most cramped region of a poorly designed space, holding a scrap of fabric embedded with human hair. My own head is only partially covered with clumps of billowy wisps resembling what you’d find on newborn babies, or people with eight toes in the grave. I’m twenty-eight years old. I’m preparing to put on a wig.” He explains: “My hair expired in April of 1988. I’m in the bathroom in January of 1990. I’m trying to grow accustomed to a routine that I wish I wasn’t.”
Handler lost his locks — which, as a picture on the book’s cover shows, were quite flowing — following a near-deadly diagnosis of acute myeloid leukemia. It was an “incurable” illness, and yet, Handler survived after an ordeal of chemotherapy, remission, recurrence and more remission. That he lived is impressive; that he emerged with
such wit and talent, and a strong acting career, is remarkable.
His illness forms the book’s core, but “Temporary” is not simply an “illness story.” More than that, it is an actor’s journey through stage, screen and the messy aspects of life. We are there for Handler’s romantic dalliances (here is one great line: “I then spent the second anniversary of my marriage proposal to Patricia with Abbey Leigh,” an Australian beauty he met while filming the Stooge biopic), his successes on Broadway (he landed a lead role in John Guare’s “Six Degrees of Separation” over a young actor named Ben Stiller) and the biggie, the role that Handler says he owes his “minor celebrity status” to, the role of Henry Goldenblatt on “Sex and the City.” (My favorite moment in the book might be Handler’s reaction to a New York Daily News article on the men of “Sex” featuring ratings from a panel of 15 young women on whom they’d most like to sleep with. “The good news is I didn’t come in last,” writes Handler. “I didn’t come in next-to-last either.”)
There is a level of humor and pathos in Evan Handler’s “It’s Only Temporary” that is simply wonderful, very much in the Woody Allen, Larry David school of frustrated romanticism. It elevates his memoir to something that is sweet, droll and very, very funny. I’ll be keeping my eyes peeled for Handler’s unforgettable visage while channel-flipping, and you should, too. He’s earned it.
It’s Only Temporary: The Good News and Bad News of Being Alive By Evan Handler Riverhead 240 pages, $24.95
Christopher Schobert is a Buffalo freelance critic.
