Lawrence Wolf

Lawrence Wolf

Timeless


Who was Lawrence Wolf? There are many people who can and will speak about his talents which were many – an actor, a poet, a musician an antique collector, a person who fought against racial and political injustice. For me, and my family he was a husband and father – beautiful at both.

I find it impossible to convey the feelings I have for a man I fell in love with in a single day and with whom I spent the next 42 years. He struck a match, the world lit up and my life was never the same. I cannot explain this deep love but he was just so beautiful. He stood by me whatever my whim. I was a classical flutist, who decided to become a doctor, a psychiatrist and the parent of our two children, Adam and Peter, now young men. We traversed the world together, and the man who was afraid of heights found himself in the Canadian Rockies, and the man who could not swim cruised to the Arctic. Most importantly he brought humor and joy to every day. Our home was filled with laughter. He has my heart and he always will. Christmas eve he whispered his very last words to me. "I love you." I said the same. He died on our most treasured day and time, Christmas morning.

Who was Lawrence Wolf in the world? Many people.

Veteran character actor Lawrence (Larry) Wolf was born in New York City, studied acting with Stella Adler and is best known as an ensemble member of filmmaker Robert Downey Sr.'s legendary catalog of satirical films. The two most notable, Putney Swope and Pound, are avant-garde and shocking today even more so when they were created. In Pound, he was Robert Downey Jr.'s acting partner in the five-year-old's first onscreen speaking role, Wolf's anguished Mexican Hairless lamenting to Downey Jr.'s not-so-innocent puppy in a film in which clothed and unmasked humans play canines languishing in a dog lockup, waiting to be gassed that night. And in Putney Swope, his character Borman 6, a German auto tycoon with suspicious political leanings, resonates eerily.

In an article in Show magazine about the film Pound, writer Bob Sarlin observed:

The best actor/director relationship I have ever witnessed is the one between Downey and Larry Wolf, the hairless hysteric who is capable of bringing the most blasé crew to howls of uncontrollable laughter. . . . Each man respects the intelligence and judgment of the other and could probably work interchangeably as actor and director or teacher and pupil. For a scene, Downey illustrates with his body bent down to Wolf's height, hands gesturing frantically toward the ceiling, as Wolf watches critically, like a straight director. The scene finished, Downey's only comment is a little self-composed playlet in which he stares at Wolf. . . as if to say "this man is out of his mind." Then he passes judgement: "I don't know what it means, but it's great."

And in a 2016 interview with The Village Voice, Robert Downey Sr. said:

Interviewer: Who's the best actor you've ever worked with? Besides your son, of course.

Downey: There's a bald-headed guy in a lot of my films called Larry Wolf. He's the best. I didn't have to say much to him. He says, "I got it!" And then he goes and does something else. He's great.

Wolf has appeared in numerous other films, commercials and television shows, including two pilots that never made it to air: The Great Gondoli, an NBC pilot in which he played a ventriloquist with two dummies (one sounding like Mae West, the other like W. C. Fields). He also wrote and directed the award-winning short film Billy Butterfly in 1971, for which he won first place in a film award show.

Wolf is also a musician and has been singing as the lead singer of The Electric Chair Rock band, another collaboration with Robert Downey Sr., Wolf provided lead vocals to such tongue-in-cheek originals as "Bow Wow Wow" and "Cremation Blues." And as alter ego Vegas lounge singer Johnny Slime, he performed a satirical rendition of the Lord's Prayer that prompted Saturday Night Live to call him upon seeing it. But, as luck would have it, the entire
production staff was replaced right at that time, and Johnny Slime never graced the SNL stage.

In a conversation I had with Larry I asked what he would do if he were born again – would he be an actor? He said that he would be a singer – a jazz singer. So Larry Wolf is a fan. A music fan. A performer, a singer, an actor, an artist, a poet, but also a fan.

"I specifically remember hearing 'Perdido Street Blues' by a quintet headed by Johnny Dodds, a clarinetist Heaven had dibs on. That record became my favorite blues recording for years to come. Later on, I found another blues recording that tied for first place, 'West End Blues,' with Louis Armstrong and Sidney Bechet heading the band. To this day, I can't figure out why that kind of music affected me so immediately and so deeply. Reincarnation? Who knows?"

He tells another story: one day, during those same teenage years, he saw an advertisement that one of his idols, soprano saxophonist and clarinetist Sidney Bechet, was going to be performing at the Apollo Theater in Harlem. He went to an afternoon performance. The theater was half-empty, so he chose to sit in one of the box seats. After the opening film, the stage show began. Trumpeter Henry "Red" Allen and his orchestra began performing – Larry waited in anticipation. No Bechet yet. But as the orchestra began to play "September Song," an usher came into his box seat and told him he would have to move, because Mr. Bechet would be performing from that seat. As he reluctantly complied and began to leave, Bechet himself walked in. "Let the boy stay," he growled warmly.

"Bechet stood within inches of me. The usher left, then in the darkness of the theater, a bright spotlight shone down on Sidney and me. I was both uncomfortable and joyful. He joined in with the band and began to play a transcendent solo of 'September Song.' Everyone should experience such heaven on earth."


"I was buds with other creative types in both the East and West Villages. There was a great neighborhood movie theater, the Charles, on Avenue B off 12th Street. Two friends and I opened an art gallery called EIDOS on the balcony level there. Once, when we had a group show, I hung a work of my own, a color rendition of Bugs Bunny. I attached an insanely high price tag because I didn't really want to sell it. One day, we noticed it had been stolen. We never found the thief, but I was proud that someone liked it well enough to steal it."


Larry returned to the world of music and singing in earnest when he began work with producer Adrianne Duncan on the material that would eventually comprise Mood Swings. Initially, their sessions were informal meetings exploring the songs that Larry loved with just Adrianne's piano and Larry's voice; they soon realized they had a singular musical camaraderie and that Larry's ability and style were worthy of a full production. Thus was born Four Cats and a Canary, Larry's supporting band.

"Though it's hard to characterize the genre, that's on purpose. I thought the title, Mood Swings, was not only amusing as a double entendre, but also a title that would allow me to cover a wide range of songs I like. If my singing sounds different in certain songs, that's because I thought the singing style fit those songs. I think of vocalism as being another musical instrument, so I try to tailor the sound to what I believe the song calls for. Song choices came from a variety of inspirations. For example, Georgia is Adrianne's birthplace, and she suggested 'Georgia On My Mind'. It turns out I happen to love that song, and once I felt I could offer my own take on it, I agreed. I think it turned out pretty well."

In Mood Swings, for the first time, a totally new kind of music. In assembling a band that features world-class clarinetist John Tegmeyer and other A-list musicians, he evokes his childhood adulation of Sidney Bechet and that serendipitous meeting in the Apollo, the feeling of taking each record out of its paper sleeve and hearing the dusty crackle of the needle before the notes began to sound, the wonder of the indescribable feeling this unknown music gave him. His rich life as an actor informs each lyric and characterization; his lifelong appreciation of a vast art form informs his careful curation of repertoire and the passion with which he sings.

Larry Wolf is a fan, but a fan who puts his own stamp on the music he holds so close to his heart. Mood Swings is an expression of that lifetime of appreciation, experience and, above all, youthful wonder.

Visitations
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He drinks because it is today,
To make it melt and float away
To soften skin and toughen bone,
To liquefy the falling stone…
To fill a glass for yesterday.
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I pressed my nose against
A winter window
When the snow was piled higher than
A six year old boy.
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Sometimes I get a glimpse
Of what could be.
A place that I don't live in
Come to visit me.
Sometimes I get a glimpse
Of what could be…
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Lawrence Wolf