Steve Guttenberg on assisting during the Pacific Palisades wildfire, and caring for his personal hero

On January 7, as the Palisades Fire exploded, a man interrupted a reporter’s live shot. It was Steve Guttenberg, one of the biggest movie stars of the 1980s and ’90s. He had been moving cars – abandoned by people around Pacific Palisades trying to escape the encroaching fire – so that emergency vehicles could get through.

“What’s happening is, people take their keys with them as if they’re in a parking lot. This is not a parking lot,” he told KTLA. “If you leave your car behind, leave the key in there so a guy like me can move your car so that these fire trucks can get up there.”

He can’t remember how he got to safety. 

Many days later, with much of his hometown reduced to ruins, he was still there to help protect his and his neighbors’ homes. He showed me a part of Sunset that had been stacked with cars. “Yeah, couldn’t get through,” he said. “So, I was moving some of these cars over there. And then, a lotta these cars just didn’t have keys in them. Locked.”

I asked, “What is it in you that is compelling you to stay here?”

“You know, it’s not often in life that you feel like you can make a difference,” he replied. “And I really feel like I can make a difference. Like, I’m able bodied, I’m strong, I have a heart, and I care. And this is what I’m supposed to do today.”

If you know Guttenberg, you know he’s a helper. Seven years ago, he put everything on hold to care for someone with whom he was deeply in love: his father.

I noted, “I’m gonna try to get through this interview without crying because I lost my dad.”

Guttenberg asked, “What was your dad’s name?”

“Douglas.”

“Hi, Douglas!” Guttenberg said. “You know, when you say a person’s name who’s passed, they come around. I believe they’re not always with you, ’cause they’ve got other things to do. But Douglas is here, and so is Stanley, my dad.

“My dad was the greatest,” he said. “He was the first man who ever held me, first guy I ever looked in his eyes. And I fell in love with my dad.”

Guttenberg has written a book about his journey as a caregiver for the man he calls his hero. It’s called “Time to Thank.” “My dad and his dad weren’t close,” he said. “My grandfather was cold. He wasn’t a kissing, hugging type of dad to my father. So, my dad was the opposite.”

A “kissing and hugging dad” who worked jobs that weren’t exactly touchy-feely. “He was an Airborne Army Ranger. He was a New York City policeman. He was a power lifter and a weightlifter. And he did handstands for 20 minutes.”

Guttenberg’s dad was a hands-on parent, so it was to Steve’s surprise that when he wanted to move to L.A., at only 17, to try to become a movie star, he was allowed to do it. “My parents gave me $300 and said, ‘You got two weeks.’ And I got a Kentucky Fried Chicken commercial. And my parents let me stay another two weeks. And I got a little movie [“The Chicken Chronicles”]. And I got more commercials. Then, I actually stayed a year, before I quit and went back to school.”

He wasn’t in school for long when Hollywood beckoned him back. “I was at a party in my suite at Albany State, and got this call from my agent. Everybody was a little … inebriated!” he laughed. “And my agent said, ‘I got an audition for you. It was called “Boys From Brazil.” And it was gonna be starring Greg Peck and Larry Olivier and James Mason, Uta Hagen.’”

“It’s hard to turn that down, right?” I said.

“Yeah! I asked my dad. My dad said, ‘You know, just go down and do the audition. if you get it, you’ll decide. And I got the job.”

Guttenberg says it was Laurence Olivier who taught him humility, but it was his dad who helped him get his big break in a little film about a bunch of misfits joining the police force. “I told my dad that I had a screen test coming up for this movie, ‘Police Academy.’ And he said, ‘Oh, you should wear my police academy shirt.’ I remember going to the screen test, and I was up against another actor who was really talented,. And the director said, ‘Hold on here: Did you make that shirt, boy?’ And I said, ‘No, that’s my dad’s real police academy shirt.’ And half a day later my agent called me and said, ‘You got it.’ And maybe it was because of that cadet shirt that my dad gave me.”

Guttenberg would go on to become one of the busiest actors of his generation, with more than 100 films and TV shows under his belt, including “Diner,” “Three Men and a Baby, “Cocoon,” and “Short Circuit.” All the while his dad was there ready to bring him back to reality, often calling before the rest of L.A. got out of bed. Guttenberg says he never missed that 6:00 a.m. call.  “No, I always had to be home at six o’clock. Even if I got home at 5 to 6:00! I had to answer that phone. He was my anchor.”

So when his dad was diagnosed with kidney failure while living in Phoenix, Guttenberg got in his car, driving 400 miles every week to care for his father. “The drive really gave me time to think, and time to thank,” he said.

Steve and his siblings even become home dialysis techs, but only he couldn’t accept the inevitable. “I gave him a hug. And something didn’t sound right. And we had a nurse with us, and the nurse put a stethoscope to him. And she said, ‘He’s gone.’ And I said, ‘No!’ And I started doing CPR on him. I just couldn’t accept it at that moment.”

Asked when he could finally let him go, Guttenberg replied, “I probably let him go a year later. It’s hard to believe that he’s gone. I still think that he’s here.”

“He is,” I said. “Just say his name.”

“Stanley!”

And right now, Guttenberg thinks his father is sending along some helpful advice. “I feel my dad’s around, yeah, I really do. I feel my dad is here with me. And I think he’s also saying, ‘Steven, enough. Get outta there.’”

So far, his own home is standing. But Steve Guttenberg says it’s time to listen to his dad. “You know, the truth is, no matter how big your house is, no matter how much money you have, how expensive your car, at the end of it, you’re walking down the street with a little suitcase of a few things that you saved, and you’re looking for someone to tell you where to go.”

READ AN EXCERPT: “Time to Thank: Caregiving for My Hero” by Steve Guttenberg

      
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Produced by Anthony Laudato. Editors: Steven Tyler and Lauren Barnello.