The Observer

At 6:30 one morning, a bulldozer arrived to tear down The Actors Studio West. I was living inside it.

So I walked outside barefoot and stood in front of the bulldozer to face a hostile foreman.

That wasn't courage.

It was Tuesday.

- from The Observer

From Vietnam to Hollywood, a Marine turned actor survives chaos, danger, and fate to discover the life he never planned.

Inside these pages:

• A Purple Heart

• An acting class with Lee Strasberg

• Years of observation inside the Actors Studio

• Being chased out of Hollywood at gunpoint

• Defending a violin at 3 a.m. in New York City from two armed men with knives

• Moving from one movie and television set to the next

• Saving The Actors Studio West from demolition

• An undercover operation against West Hollywood City Hall

• Lifelong friendships with Barry Primus, Ray Walston, Shelley Winters, and Martin Landau

• Living inside the Actors Studio

• Meeting his soulmate-and living happily ever after

He didn't plan any of it.

Fate cast him. Melissa caught him.

But The Observer is more than a memoir.

It is also a rare behind-the-scenes exploration of Method Acting and the world that shaped generations of performers.

Included are:

• Fourteen Method Acting procedures taught, tested, and lived in real time

• A look into Lee Strasberg's legacy and the inner workings of the Actors Studio

• Interviews with Shelley Winters, Ray Walston, Barry Primus, and Adrien Brody

• The People vs. The Method, a three-act mini-play that puts the Method itself on trial, with Robert De Niro, Jerry Lewis, Lee Strasberg, Stella Adler, Sanford Meisner, David Mamet, and Laurence Olivier appearing as witnesses, skeptics, ghosts, and provocateurs

Part memoir, part acting manual, part oral history, and part theatrical inquiry, The Observer explores a life lived in the spaces between chaos, craft, and the revelations that come from watching the world with open eyes.

Experience what it was like for one man who began as a nobody-and ended up a very special nobody.