I recently received a check in the amount of three dollars and change for my role as “Young Manetta” in the Billy Crystal and Robert De Niro film “Analyze This.”
The film shot in 1998, when I was working as a feed producer at FOX News Channel. News had always been my so-called “waiting on tables” job while I pursued my acting career.
Even in 1993 when I worked the overnight shift as a desk assistant at CBS News (better education than any J School), I was acting in a play called “Tony N Tina’s Wedding” Off-Broadway.
I played Tony’s brother Johnny. That’s me on the far left. Those were heady times. I had my picture on a billboard in the famed Shubert Alley, did Entertainment Tonight and Extra and generally tore up the city.
The hours were harsh. I’d get up around noon after sleeping for about three hours. I’d hit the Hot and Crusty on 87th and Broadway for a cup of joe (these were days before Starbucks), then I’d go to acting classes or auditions during the day.
At the time I was studying with Tony Greco of the Actor’s Studio, as well as Robert Neff Williams of the Juilliard School. My agents back then were the incomparable David Elliott and Michael Raymen of Don Buchwald and Associates.
I used to do little extra roles in big budget movies like “Last Action Hero” and soaps like “As The World Turns,” “Another World” and “Guiding Light.”
After classes, auditions or work I’d hit the TNT theater in the West Village by 645pm and do the show until about 10pm, six nights a week. After the show I’d hang around a bit but I always liked to get to the CBS Broadcast Center by midnight so I could crash on a couch in CBS News Radio anchor Ed Crane’s office before starting my shift at 1am. It was a vicious cycle.
Once I fell asleep standing up at a printer in the newsroom. One of my coworkers told me I looked like a two-by-four, slowly falling to the ground. I caught myself just as I was about to smack my jaw on the edge of a desk.
Eventually I booked several national commercials, and I felt whole. I mean, there I was doing a really famous play and working at CBS News, and just twelve months earlier I was a 
page making six bucks an hour and working at Le Bar Bat as a barback so that I had money to eat and pay the rent (that’s me in my page uniform with Dan Rather and Bill Clinton – notice my white socks). You’d think I would have been happy with my progress just one year later? Nope. I wanted more.
You have to remember, back in the days before the World Wide InterWebs was so ubiquitous, it really was like Nicole Kidman says in Gus Van Sant’s “To Die For:” “You’re nobody in this country until you’re on television.”
My first spot was the little brother in a Healthy Choice Pasta Sauce ad (“Hey you got anymore back there?”). I followed that with The Olive Garden (“When you’re here, you’re family”),
a Target spot directed by the creators of “Stomp” – the Off-Broadway play still running at The Orpheum Theater (that’s me in the middle with Stomp master Luke Cresswell), a Power Puff Girls commercial as the karate instructor (“If he has a tail tie him up with it”) and the pizza guy in a Papa Gino’s ad (“Ummm, Jennifer?”).
By the time I filmed “Analyze This” I was working at FOX News Channel. I got the call from Grant Wilfley, a New York City casting director who asked, “Michael, are you available to meet with Harold Ramis and Robert De Niro tomorrow at 10am for an audition?”
Well, what do you say to a question like that? You say, “Okay.”
The part was originally slated as the young De Niro character but it was really the role of young Dominick Manetta, the character played by Italian-American character actor Joe Rigano.
That’s Joe on the left with Mickey Rourke. Notice his ear. I’ll get to that in a minute.
When I showed up for the audition, I was dressed as a 1950s mobster. Black suit, skinny tie and a fedora. Meanwhile, the guys I was up against looked more like they were auditioning for “The Sopranos.” They wore jeans and black mock turtle necks and big gold chains hanging around their necks. For a minute I was wondering if I were at the wrong audition, but before I could even ask I was swept into the studio.
Famed producer Jane Rosenthal was there, along with the comedy writer and Ghostbusters and Stripes star Ramis, and of course, the man himself, Robert De Niro.
Casting director Ellen Chenoweth called me to the table and Ramis, who was apparently having a difficult time finding a Roman Catholic church as a location, said rather randomly, “Michael, do you know that ever since the movie ‘Bad Lieutenent’ you can’t film a movie in a Catholic church in New York City?” I said I didn’t know that and just like that, I was gone.
“Thank you very much for coming down Michael.”
All the while De Niro stared at me without as much as a grunt. I felt like I wasted my time and never expected to get a the call, but sure enough, I got the part.
My scene opens the film. Robert De Niro narrates about a big meeting of the heads of all the families in Apalachia, NY that was busted up by the feds. Gangsters go running through the woods, and cut to my scene. “My father and Dominick are running through this cornfield and they hijack this goddamn tractor.” 
Yeah, that’s me driving the tractor in my zoot-suit through the cornfield. “All the way to Poughkeepsie.”
My name actually appears on the screen during the credits longer than I did in the actual scene, but who the hell am I to complain?
On the way to the filming I rode with Ramis and his son, who was visiting the set that day. I asked Ramis if my choice of wardrobe for the audition had anything to do with me getting the part.
“Honestly?” he said. “You really want to know why you got the part? It’s because the guy you’re playing Joe Rigano, has really big ears. And you do too.”
And that was that. There I was thinking I made this great choice as an actor. All that training and character wherewithal got me my big shot on the big screen. Meanwhile I have the Straka ears to thank. So thanks Dad.
It seems like a whole career ago when I shot that film, and in fact, it was. I did some pretty cool stuff before and after, like the time I flew out to Hollywood to audition for Robin for the third Batman film. Chris O’Donnel ended up with the role after Michael Keaton and Tim Burton quit. That’s another great story I’ll tell another time.
Eventually I became a vice president and executive producer at FOX News Channel, and it was a long time before chairman Roger Ailes stopped referring to me as “that actor guy.”
In 2010 after 14 plus years, after being an exec, columnist and an on-air contributor in a spot called ”Grrr!,” which became a book published by St. Martins Press – and an entertainment and MMA reporter on FOXNews.com – I parted ways with “The Most Powerful Name In News” for my own show on HDNet called “Fighting Words with Mike Straka.”
It was the first sit down, one-on-one interview program for the mixed martial arts set. I did about thirty two episodes and turned season one into a book, “Fighting Words: In Depth Interviews With The Biggest Names In Mixed Martial Arts.”
Now comes a new chapter in my career.
Spike’s MMA Junkie Live is the show that I tried to do at FOX News with FOX Fight Game but I could never drum up the right amount of support from the powers that be (yes it’s ironic that it would be FOX Sports that eventually did the network TV deal for the UFC).
This is the show that the sport of MMA needs; a live studio show in the heart of New York City in a historic studio. It’s weird to think that an MTV studio would have HISTORY, but it does.
- Nate Quarry, Craig Carton, Mike Straka
Overlooking Times Square, the MMA Junkie Live show will broadcast from the same iconic place where Courtney Love heckled Madonna and New Kids On The Block sold 100m albums and where Jon Stewart did his first talk show.
MMA Junkie Live will be a show with solid journalism and frank conversation led by host Craig Carton and our fight analyst, former UFC middleweight contender Nate Quarry.
To say I’m excited is an understatement, but there’s a serious task at hand. This is MMA news for adults. Our sport is all grownup. It’s about time our coverage does too. This is it. So make sure you tune in on February 23, 2012 at 11pm ET on Spike.
And don’t miss TapouT Radio on SiriusXM (Sirius ch 94 XM ch 208) with my co-hosts Punkass and Skrape. We’re on every Thursday at 2pm ET and Saturdays leading up to every UFC on FOX event. It’s a one of a kind show, but don’t take my word for it. Listen in.
And yes, my ears had a lot to do with me getting this part, except because they hear well, not because they’re YUGE!
