Gary Dretzka
Noah Forrest
Leonard Klady
David Poland
Douglas Pratt
Ray Pride

If Jeff Garlin looks a bit happier than usual these days, it’s because the stars in his heaven have come into alignment and are shining on him at a most opportune moment in his personal and professional life.

Forget that Curb Your Enthusiasm returns to HBO this week for its sixth season, and his film I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With opens this week in select cities. What’s got the Chicago native grinning from ear to ear is knowing his beloved Cubs have entered the home stretch perched on top of the National League’s Central Division, and his equally beloved Bears are about to begin their defense of the NFC crown.

Like millions of other fans in the Windy City diaspora, Garlin has had his heart broken too many times to begin packing his bags for aWorld Series or Super Bowl trip. And, yet, hope springs eternal.

"I’m a Chicagoan, which means I’m eternally optimistic," said Garlin. "Right now, I’m living and dying with each game."

The gregarious 45-year-old multi-hyphenate comedian-actor-producer-director knows the territory. He once shared a Wrigleyville apartment with Conan O’Brien, and was one of the fans interviewed in the documentary, Wait 'Til Next Year: The Saga of the Chicago Cubs.

These days, Garlin must content himself with following the exploits of his favorite teams via cable and satellite television. Thanks to the miracle of MLB Extra Innings and NFL Sunday Ticket, Garlin can watch nearly every game live, or let TiVo it for him. When this reporter mentions he grew up in Wisconsin and, therefore, is a diehard fan of his teams’ enemies, Garlin volunteers the precise number of percentage points separating the first-place Cubs from the second-place Brewers.

Later, he admits to being fascinated by the Vince Lombardi biography, "When Pride Still Mattered." We agree that a book or movie about the rivalry between the legendary Packers coach and "Papa Bear" George Halas would be a very good thing, indeed. (He’d be a shoo-in to play former Bears coach Abe Gibron.)

I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With borrows the title, if little else, from the one-man show Garlin created in the ’90s. The comedy was shot on location, in and around Old Town, New Town, Wrigleyville and Lincoln Park, not far from Second City and such comedy clubs as Zanies. You can practically smell the Gold Coast hot dogs and the varnish of spilt Old Style on the floors of the bars along Clark Street.

Unlike most movies set in Chicago, this one doesn’t genuflect before the city’s majestic skyline, the flashy stores on Michigan Avenue, the miles of sandy beaches and such trendy outposts as Wicker Park and River North. No one who’s lived there for more than five minutes needs an aerial shot of Lake Shore Drive to distinguish Chicago from Cleveland or San Francisco.

The city’s heartbeat, which sounds very much like a passing El train, pulsates through bungalows, three-flats, storefronts, parks and corner bars. It used to resonate throughout the Wrigley Field bleachers, but that was before Tribune Co. turned them into a profit center and men with ties could order Eli’s cheesecake in luxury boxes. The Bleacher Bums of yesteryear could no more afford a day -- or night -- at the ballpark than they could the presidential suite at the Drake.

Technically, Garlin grew up in the Near North suburb of Morton Grove. His family moved to Florida when he was 10, but took their allegiances with them. While at the University of Miami, he studied filmmaking and began performing stand-up. His return to Chicago was inevitable.

"I lived in Florida, and now reside in Los Angeles," Garlin emphasized. "But I’m a Chicagoan."

In addition to working the comedy clubs and being anointed Second City’s "fat guy" -- after Chris Farley left for New York and Saturday Night Live -- he began committing his stories to paper and ink. He has since acted in several sitcoms and movies, performed HBO specials and been nominated for several Emmys as a producer and director.

Unlike the theater version of I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With, which Garlin says was autobiographical, his movie has far broader appeal.

Garlin plays an underemployed actor, James, who, at 39, still lives at home with his mother. He’s fully aware of the fact that his appetite for food and low self-esteem have had the combined effect of keeping him from achieving three primary goals. James wants to land a great part, lose weight and find a soul mate, a.k.a., someone to love and share cheese, absent any recriminations.

Like Garlin, James would seem to be a perfect match for any role -- Marty, for instance -- that might gone to such portly actors as Jackie Gleason, William Bendix and Ernest Borgnine. Alas, times have changed, and 20-year-old hotties are being hired to portray characters who were conceived as being considerably larger, several times more deserving of our pity and infinitely more lonely … or, so James imagines.

While James realizes women might be far more willing to date him if he lost 50 to 100 pounds, he continues to duck out of Overeaters Anonymous meetings to grab a snack. It’s not that he morphs into a toadstool when in the company of attractive women -- including a teacher, counselor and ice-cream-parlor waitress, played by Bonnie Hunt, Amy Sedaris and Sarah Silverman, respectively -- it’s just that he’s far more comfortable in the company of food. A cake can’t crack wise, after all, or remind him of his inadequacies.

"I created characters for specific people, like Sarah and Bonnie," Garlin said. "Everyone was encouraged to improvise, but they didn’t do it much. I’m good at dialogue."

The faces of many of the cast members will be familiar to Chicago theater-goers and viewers of Curb Your Enthusiasm. They include those of David Pasquesi, Scott Adsit, Dan Castellaneta, Tim Kazurinsky, Richard Kind, Mina Kolb, Larry Neumann Jr., Joey Slotnick and deejay Steve Dahl. In addition to Hunt, Silverman and Sedaris, Garlin and his casting director wife, Marla, also were able to recruit Paul Mazursky, Gina Gershon, Aaron Carter, Elle Fanning (Dakota’s sister) and Roger Bart.

I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With had a 10-year gestation period, with the primary stumbling block being, "financing, financing, financing." It finally debuted at last year’s Tribeca Film Festival.

As Jeff Greene, Larry David’s agent in Curb Your Enthusiasm, Garlin could be from practically anywhere in the U.S. His code of professional ethics would seem to derive more from stints in the William Morris or CAA mailrooms, than any school or office in the Midwest.

"Jeff is affable, but reprehensible," Garlin allows. "Larry isn’t affable. At the end of the day, however, he wants to know he stood by his principles."

The biographical notes included in his profile on the imdb.com website say that the 6-foot-1 actor’s hobbies include "eating puddin' and taking naps." Maybe, so, but when pressed he admits to having no hobbies, beyond reading and taking walks. His resume would suggest he’s been constantly on the job for the last 15 years.

"It’s weird," he says. "I do what I love, but I don’t consider myself a workaholic. I work and go home. That’s all."

Why can’t "livin’ and dyin’" with the Cubs and Bears be considered a hobby?

September 4, 2007

- Gary Dretzka

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