Twenty-One, Going on 15 (or 50)

By Gerald Clarke

Matthew Broderick is biking to stardom

There are several reasons for Matthew Broderick to celebrate 1983. He won praise for his first movie, Neil Simon's Max Dugan Returns. He received absolute raves, as well as a Tony nomination, for playing the adolescent Simon in the dramatist's autobiographical hit, Brighton Beach Memoirs. "To Matthew," says a note from Simon on the actor's dressing-room wall. "After watching me on the stage, I never knew I was so cute and so talented." Critics are already applauding his portrayal of the computer genius who nearly starts World War III in War-Games, which could easily become one of the summer's blockbusters. Broderick's agent has already jumped his asking fee from $50,000 a picture to a round six figures--$750,000.

All of that, of course, is very nice and much appreciated by Broderick, who turned 21 in March. He started thinking about being an actor when he was two, and until quite recently no one would hire him for anything. But what really puts fire into his basset-hound brown eyes is not the chance for big money or even the enthusiastic applause he receives every night in Brighton Beach Memoirs. It is a bike he parks backstage at the Alvin Theater.

To call this lean, gray machine a bike is a bit like calling a panther "pussy" or the Queen "Liz." It cost $700, has 15 speeds, with wires in odd places, and it floats on balloon tires that would make an ascent up Everest seem like a jaunt through Central Park. "You can go off the curb or hit a pothole, and you don't even feel it," boasts Broderick. "It's like a Cadillac. It's the most expensive thing I ever bought, and I did it on the spur of the moment. I asked Elizabeth Franz, who plays my mother in the play, if I should buy it, and she said: 'Why not?' I really love it. It's built to last forever. Look! It's even got the name of the designer [Tim Neenan] on it, like designer jeans."

Such wide-eyed enthusiasm has prompted one of Broderick's colleagues to remark, "Matthew is really 21 going on 15." Or perhaps 50: he is a fascinating combination of young and old, innocent and wise. "From the minute he was born, he was almost the most grownup member of my family," says his mother Patsy. "He's very commonsensical, and he's got a very strong ear for what is going on in a room. He can read people just right. He started off savvy."

His father was the late James Broderick, a fine actor and the star of the long-running TV series Family. Patsy is a playwright turned artist, and there was almost always someone interesting for Matthew and his two older sisters to talk to in their big four-bedroom apartment, overlooking Washington Square in Greenwich Village. Shy when he was growing up, Matthew for a time gave up his dream of acting, but the role of Snout in a high school production of A Midsummer Night's Dream hooked him. Before that, both parents said not a word about acting; after that, they gave him every support, his father contributing a careful critique of his son's every appearance.

Matthew's first professional stage part was in Harvey Fierstein's Torch Song Trilogy, in which he played the adopted homosexual son of a former drag queen. Slightly built (5 ft. 8 in.), Broderick looks no more than 17. Fierstein, who was the star as well as the author, kept telling him to hurry his lines. Broderick resisted, and the two yelled and fought. "Harvey used to push me against the wall -- he's strong as a bull -- but it freed me up a lot as an actor to play against him. He has a nice freedom on stage." Says Fierstein: "You couldn't get him to rush a line. He had to do it his way. That's his star quality. He is a complete and total personality." Indeed, in all his roles so far Broderick has projected an amiable aloofness. He seems to stand back, observing the craziness of everyone around him. Coupled with that is something even his father could not have taught him -- charm. It is hard to imagine Broderick playing a villain.

Other people, including Film Director Herb Ross, saw his star quality in Torch Song. Ross put him in Max Dugan Returns; the same day Broderick read for Brighton Beach Memoirs as well. Suddenly the young actor, who had been desperate for any work, was trying to find time for everything.

All the while, like a terrible, tragic counterpoint, Matthew's father, whom he adored, was dying of cancer. James Broderick learned of his illness the day Matthew opened in Torch Song. Later, during the filming of Max Dugan and WarGames, Matthew would fly to New York City from California every weekend to be at his father's bedside. The elder Broderick died last November, a few hours after Brighton Beach went into rehearsal."It was important to Jimmy that Matthew get a good start," says Patsy. " 'What matters is the play,' he said." She adds, "Matthew has grown up a lot in the past year. It's been instant adulthood."

He has had a couple of fairly serious girlfriends in the past two or three years, and Broderick talks of starting a family of his own. But for the moment life goes on much as it did before Torch Song. He still lives at home, and after the performances of Brighton Beach, he, his mother and a high school friend will often sit up late and watch old TV programs, particularly The Honeymooners. "Jackie Gleason is god," says Broderick with some awe. A steady income has enabled him to pursue an interest in astronomy. On a clear night he will sometimes take one of his three telescopes up to the roof of his apartment building; from there, even with the lights of Manhattan around him, he can see the moons of Jupiter.

Then, of course, there is always the bike, that Pegasus of the Potholes. It means a lot, and after extolling its virtues to one reporter, he went home and sadly told his mother, "He didn't understand about the bike."

-- By Gerald Clarke This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.