The Friday Afternoon Club: A Family Memoir

by Griffin Dunne

The career-killing movie I perversely signed on to was about a man who talks to his penis, called Me and Him. The penis, of course, talks back, gratefully off camera, in a voice only my character could hear. Being number one on the call sheet, I had penis approval and total control over what my member should sound like. In a dreamworld, I wanted my dick to sound like Jack Nicholson. The casting director approached him, and for about ten minutes Jack actually considered prerecording all the penis’s lines before wisely turning it down. We settled on an actor with a gravelly voice who was available to be on set every day, leaving room should my dick and I decide to spontaneously improvise. Rebecca Miller, the daughter of Arthur Miller, and later a gifted writer-director in her own right, was hired as my love interest. The author of Death of a Salesman read his daughter’s talking-penis project and forbade her to be in the movie for her own good. The actress who replaced Rebecca would play a far bigger part in my life than just being my costar. When Carey Lowell was cast, our offscreen affair began the first week of shooting. After the picture wrapped, she went on to be a Bond girl in License to Kill, and I pined for her until she returned from Europe, and when she did, we picked up where we’d left off and fell truly in love. Three months into our bliss and reckless lovemaking, I accidently got Carey pregnant.