Brat

In a reflective preface, actor and writer Andrew McCarthy explains that this memoir examines a period he willfully ignored for years: a brief stretch of youth when he came of age inside a particular pop culture environment. He identifies a central tension that drove that era: a powerful wanting coupled with an equally strong desire to pull away and hide.

McCarthy frames the story with the late-January 1986 premiere of Pretty in Pink at Mann's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood. It was his fourth movie and first premiere. Shortly after the lights went down, he fled the theater and spent the screening drinking vodkas alone at a restaurant across the street. At the after-party, he gave an incoherent on-camera interview while drunk. The movie was about to become a hit, and success, he reflected, would land hard upon him.

McCarthy grew up in Westfield, New Jersey, the third of four brothers. His father was charming in public but fearsome at home; he once told his son, "I love you because I'm your father, but I don't like you" (16). His mother, who carried a deep loneliness from her own childhood, was attuned to McCarthy's inner life and one afternoon took him to a Broadway matinee of the musical Pippin, an experience that opened a new world. After transferring to a prep school and being cut from the basketball team, McCarthy auditioned for the school musical Oliver!, won the role of the Artful Dodger, and felt liberated onstage for the first time. When he announced his intention to study acting, his father snapped, "No son of mine is going to be a fucking thespian" (24), but his mother insisted they would support his choice.

McCarthy enrolled at NYU in the fall of 1980 and began training at Circle in the Square Theatre School. His most important teacher was Terry Hayden, an aging disciple of Lee Strasberg's Method acting, a system of exercises drawing on personal experience to produce authentic emotion. Terry recognized raw potential and told him to "stick around" (44), warning that his charm could be his downfall. McCarthy also befriended Eddie, a former high school teacher from Texas who introduced him to New York's downtown bar and music scene and whose fashion sense McCarthy would later channel into his film wardrobes. During his second year, he haunted revival movie houses, sneaked into Broadway shows at intermission, and earned his first professional stage credit when a playwright invited him to take over the lead in a play at Playwrights Horizons, a prominent off-Broadway theater.

A casting notice led McCarthy to audition for a feature film called Class. A videotaped audition went poorly, but because no one in the room knew how to fast-forward the VCR, producer Marty Ransohoff saw the tape and called him back. Paired with actor Rob Lowe for a chemistry read, a joint audition testing how two performers play together, McCarthy won the lead. On set, he was overwhelmed by the camera's demands until Terry Hayden's colleague suggested he use sensory exercises to transform the lens into something comforting, his childhood dog. Near the end of filming, his father asked to borrow McCarthy's entire $15,000 salary. McCarthy signed over his checks; the money was never returned, and his father's financial demands would escalate throughout his career. Class received terrible reviews.

After more than a year of unemployment, McCarthy was cast in Heaven Help Us, a coming-of-age story set in a 1960s Brooklyn parochial school, where the camera operator told him near the end of the shoot, "You became a pro on this one, Andy" (125). His drinking escalated during this period; he studied Montgomery Clift's films and used the actor's alcoholism to rationalize his own.

Director Joel Schumacher cast McCarthy in St. Elmo's Fire as Kevin, a prematurely jaded aspiring writer. The studio resisted, and McCarthy nearly torpedoed his chances by slouching through a meeting with a Columbia Pictures executive, saying almost nothing. Schumacher fought for him. To prepare, McCarthy worked with acting teacher Tony Greco on daily Method exercises, conjuring a stuffed bear from childhood while humming a lullaby his mother used to sing, dropping his defenses so he could access the vulnerability beneath Kevin's sarcastic exterior. Cinematographer Steve Burum told him after filming, "I'd say you made your career on this one" (145).

Filmmaker John Hughes had written Pretty in Pink for Molly Ringwald but saw no reason to audition McCarthy until pre-release buzz from St. Elmo's Fire earned him a courtesy read. Afterward, Ringwald told Hughes, "That's the kind of guy I would fall for" (149), and Hughes trusted her judgment. McCarthy did not read the full script until the plane to Los Angeles and was dismayed to discover his character stands Ringwald's character up at the prom. When test screenings revealed audiences wanted the couple together, Paramount ordered a reshoot. McCarthy, then performing on Broadway with a shaved head, was fitted for a cheap wig and flown overnight across the country. The new ending, a kiss in silhouette before car headlights, became iconic.

Meanwhile, a New York magazine cover story by journalist David Blum, based on an evening out with McCarthy's St. Elmo's Fire costars Emilio Estevez, Rob Lowe, and Judd Nelson, coined the phrase "Hollywood's Brat Pack," a media label for a cluster of young 1980s actors. McCarthy was not present that evening, yet because he starred alongside these actors and headlined Pretty in Pink, the label attached to him permanently. Actors began avoiding ensemble youth films, effectively ending the genre cycle.

Fame intensified. Strangers gave him things, women pursued him, and established figures reached out. He starred in Mannequin, a surprise hit, but then entered a steep decline. On Less Than Zero, he felt miscast, attempted to act while on cocaine, and nearly gave himself a heart attack. His father threatened to jump off a roof if McCarthy did not send more money; McCarthy told him to jump. Two other 1987 films, Kansas and Fresh Horses, also failed. McCarthy describes alcohol as "a primary affliction in and of itself" (193), independent of fame or family strain.

He found reprieve in Weekend at Bernie's, temporarily stopping drinking and basing his character on his old friend Eddie. French auteur Claude Chabrol, a founding member of the French New Wave cinema movement, then invited him to Paris to play American writer Henry Miller. Chabrol became a paternal figure, but McCarthy relapsed while shooting in Tuscany when a costar offered him a beer. Three years of heavy drinking followed until, at 29, he hospitalized himself for detox and began a life without alcohol or drugs that has continued to the present.

In the years that followed, McCarthy reinvented himself. A solitary five-hundred-mile walk across Spain on the Camino de Santiago, an ancient pilgrimage trail, revealed fear as a defining force in his life and launched a career in travel writing. He began directing for television. He visited his dying father, told him he was sorry he was not the son his father wanted, and held his cold hand; neither man resolved their past, but they put its burden down.

McCarthy reflects that the Brat Pack never truly existed as a cohesive group, yet the label enlarged all their statures, evolving from stigma into warm nostalgia. The films touched something deep in a generation, helping people feel seen and less alone.

The memoir closes on a West Village street, where McCarthy spotted Terry Hayden, now 98, being helped into her apartment. He knelt before her and told her that everything he became was made possible by her belief in him. Terry grabbed his fingers and replied, "And now you have gotten on your knees and repaid that debt… Now, go. Go!" (217). McCarthy stood, feeling he had received a sacred blessing.