Daniel Stern felt 'really bad' for Macaulay Culkin, was 'almost killed' by cocaine onscreen
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Sorry Harry, the other half of the Wet Bandits is singing like a canary.
Daniel Stern, who played every Millennialâs favorite bumbling burglar in âHome Aloneâ and its sequel, has chronicled his decades-spanning career in his memoir âHome and Alone,â out now (as of 5/21). Sternâs debut tome will be considered âsilver tunaâ for fans of the actor, who also starred in âCity Slickers,â âDinerâ and narrated âThe Wonder Years.â
Stern, 66, writes of struggling with dyslexia and dropping out of high school at 17. When he moved to New York to pursue acting, the Bethesda, Maryland-native slept on a mattress salvaged from a brothel/drug den shoved into a closet that he rented for $70 per month. He relives scuffles with his co-stars Mickey Rourke and Patrick Dempsey and explains why he agreed to âCity Slickers II,â which currently has an audience score of 31% on Rotten Tomatoes.
âBy the time I finished reading the script, I was having real doubts about whether I should do it,â Stern writes. âThen my agent called and said they would pay me two point one million dollars. I immediately shut off my brain and said yes. What am I, stupid?â
Put your crowbars up and clink to the biggest revelations from âHome and Alone.â
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Being âalmost killedâ while snorting real cocaine in âHonky Tonk Freewayâ
Stern remembers while playing a drug dealer on âHonky Tonk Freeway,â that âthe main source of entertainment on the set was cocaine.â
âThis was 1980, and cocaine was rampant,â Stern writes. âI had never tried it because I could never afford it, but on this movie, everyone was doing it â the director (John Schlesinger), producers, actors, prop guys, drivers â carrying around little vials with tiny spoons attached, filled with white powder, and whiffing it up all day long.âStern recalls Schlesinger being âabusive,â âworking the rare water-skiing white rhino to death. ⊠And he almost killed me too.â
Though the actors used ground B-12 vitamins as cocaine in scenes, Stern says when Schlesinger couldnât get some fast enough, he handed Stern his personal stash of cocaine.
âAt first, I thought, âCool,ââ Stern admits, excited about method acting and free drugs. âBut I almost didnât make it home,â because they couldnât get the filming of the scene right. âWe did take after take, each time John getting more pissed, and each time me taking a big whiff of cocaine,â Stern writes. âI finished his first vial, so he gave me his backup. I must have done fifteen hits, one after another, and my heart started racing like it never had before. I didnât want to die, but I also didnât want John to yell at me.â After the scene wrapped, Stern says he âsmoked a pack of cigarettes and didnât sleep for two days.â
Why Stern felt âreally badâ for Macaulay Culkin amid âadult pressureâ: âHe didnât know how to play tagâ
When Stern read John Hughesâ comedy about a family who forgets their child during a holiday trip, it was the first time heâd âread a script that made me laugh so hard that I got stomach cramps.â
Soon Stern would be stomping on Christmas lights made of sugar and being smacked in the face with a foam iron. His gravest injury in real life was a bloody nose, spurred by hitting his schnoz twice on the McCallisters' doggy door.
Stern remembers his young co-star Macaulay Culkin being âas sweet a kid as he appearsâ in the first film. While shooting the 1992 sequel, âHome Alone 2: Lost in New York,â Stern picked Culkin up for a playdate in the park with his own children and felt a pang of sadness.
âHe was a sweet kid but had lived a very different life than my kids,â Stern writes of the child actor, now 43. âHe didnât know how to play tag or throw the ball around. He was more of an indoor kid and had a lot of adult pressure on him from show business and parents and such.
âWe realized he had formed a friendship with Michael Jackson, because when we picked him up, his hotel room was stacked, literally from wall to wall and ceiling to floor, with toys,â Stern continues. âEvery conceivable toy, as if someone went through Toys âRâ Us, took one of each, and dropped them in his room. All a gift from Michael Jackson. It made all of us feel really bad for Mac. My kids had experienced a taste of the distortions that fame can bring, but seeing what Macâs life was like put things in a different perspective.â
Every 'Home Alone' moviedefinitively ranked for ya filthy animals
Running up a $7,000+ bar tab on ânothing personalityâ Donald Trump
Before Donald Trump leveraged his reality TV status all the way to the Oval Office, he made a cameo in âHome Alone 2.â At the time of filming, Trump owned New Yorkâs famed Plaza hotel, the backdrop for much of Kevinâs Big Apple mischief.
Stern says when the two met, the future president Trump lacked conversation skills and was âkind of a nothing personality.â Stern writes that he saw Trump again while at the hotelâs bar The Oak Room, with the filmâs stuntmen Leon Delaney and Troy Brown.
âDonald spotted us and proclaimed so everyone could hear that he would be picking up the tab at our table,â Stern writes. âWe all raised a glass to him in thanks and he left the bar, feeling like the host-with-the-most. We drank until there was no more booze left in that bar. We stayed until four in the morning, closing time in New York, and bought round after round of drinks for the entire bar. To this day, Leon and I dispute how much the final tab was, but it was at least seven thousand dollars. We still feel really good about that.â