Perhaps the most interesting aspect of Tony Roberts' new memoir Do You Know Me? is that suggested by the title itself; that is to say, the parts of the narrative that have to do with people recognizing Roberts, particularly in the latter stages of his career. Highly prolific, he is arguably most recognizable from his roles as Woody Allen’s onscreen friend, especially in Annie Hall, but he has appeared in a whole slew of other films, both good and bad, such as Serpico and Million Dollar Duck. The highlights of his acting career, however, have mainly taken place on the stage, and Roberts brings to light the contrast between the kind of fame that comes from acting on the stage and the kind of fame that comes from acting in films. As he says of the theatrical work he has done, “the work only exists as a memory in the minds of the people who saw it.” He brings up a number of episodes in which people recognize him, but don’t know who he is or where they have seen him and the strange self-doubt that this may cause.
And as much as for his face, Roberts is equally recognized for his distinctive voice with which he has also recorded over fifty audio books and a number of voice-over commercials, all of which add to the idea that an actor has the ponderous existential fate of wandering in and out of people’s lives and leaving them with something that is both part of the actor and not. There are the prismatic personae presented in the various performances and then there is the actual person behind those performances.
Roberts contemplates these notions with feathery prose as he navigates through the course of his long and still-active career in an anecdotal style that brings into the fold his acting teacher Alvina Krause, Woody Allen and Blake Edwards, to name but three of many. In a career full of ups and downs, Roberts mostly focuses on the ups and, for the most part, affably glosses over the bad bits, leaving the reader feeling fairly sticky-sweet but honestly wishing to hear somewhat more about the lows as well as the highs. Like a stone skipping across a pond, Roberts touches briefly upon financial crisis caused by “unscrupulous money managers,” injuries, and acting in a NYC shrouded in the grim haze of 9/11. It is not a pessimistic dwelling on the valleys of his career that the reader might long for, but more telling about the climb back out. It is the transition that is missed.
Though generally too quick about it, Roberts does tie these trials back into his work and discusses how his career was affected by these instances and others, particularly with regards to a serious head injury later in his career that put him in a coma and caused a lot of memory loss. All in all, through tracing a multifaceted career that ranges from Amityville 3D to Samuel Beckett’s Endgame, Robert emerges as an actor who is unceasingly passionate about his craft and fondly reminiscent of backstage adventures and misadventures both.
Do You Know Me? Is currently available in hardcover from Amazon.com and audiobook from Audible.com.
