Ken Wahl Looks Back on 'The Wanderers' 45 Years Later |

Actor Ken Wahl is probably best known for his role as one of New York's finest alongside Paul Newman in 1981's Fort Apache, The Bronx; and, especially, his Golden Globe-winning performance as Organized Crime Bureau (OCB) undercover agent Vinnie Terranova on the critically-acclaimed '80s series Wiseguy. But he's pragmatic enough to admit that neither of those parts — or any of the others he's taken on — would have come his way if not for his portrayal of gang member Richie Gennaro in 1979's gang film The Wanderers, currently celebrating its 45th anniversary.

"Corny alert," laughs Wah in an exclusive conversation, "but I'm telling you, The Wanderers was truly a dream come true in every aspect. The fact that Phil Kaufman, the director, had this ability to see something in me that I didn't see in myself ... I mean, I was just winging it, trying to make a better life for myself. I came from nothing and had no education, no connections, no money ... no nothing. And I thought, 'What have I got to lose? I'm going to try this out.' Something inside me felt that it was something I could do."

A feeling that he's never been able to explain, especially when considering that he had no family connection to the theater, film or television worlds. "Not even close," says the actor, who has been retired from for a number of years due to broken neck he suffered,. "We're just all working class people for as many generations back as we can find. But the fact that Phil Kaufman took a chance on this kid that literally came right off the street with no experience ..." His voice trails off for a moment, before he fairly explodes, "I mean, I never even did a school play!"

He elaborates on that and a lot more in the following interview.

WOMAN'S WORLD: When you did decide to give acting a try, it was with some very strict personal conditions, right?

KEN WAHL:I gave myself 18 months. If nothing happened by then, I wasn't going to waste my life waiting tables or being a bartender for 20 years. I knew a couple of guys like that, waiting for a guest spot on Will and Grace or something, but I said, "I'm going to give it a year-and-a-half; I'm going to go balls-out and do the best I can." But I also realized that there's a lot of things out of my control, so I'm going to take care of the things that are within my control and go nuts. And if it doesn't work out in that time, I'm going to go back home, go to a trade school, learn to be an electrician or a plumber or something like that where at least I could get into a union and make a decent living.

It's a plan I was going to stick to, because the thought of being 35 or 40 years old and still waiting tables while waiting for a break made mr physically ill. That was not what I wanted life to be. So had I not gotten The Wanderers, I don't think somebody else would've taken a chance like that on me, especially for the lead part. I might've gotten some little part somewhere, but if there's no Phil Kaufman, there's no Steve Cannell and Wiseguy, there's no nothing. I would've just been another working class guy like everybody else in my family. Not saying there's anything wrong with that—I sound like Seinfeld—but it's just not what I wanted to do. So I had that strong drive, and I don't even know where it came from.

WW: Phil Kaufman takes a chance on you with The Wanderers, but given your lack of experience, how did he treat you on set?

KW: At least to me he never showed any qualms; he never came to me and said, "Now look, kid, I'm going to give you a chance. Don't let me down" or anything close to that. He showed me nothing but the fullest confidence, which then in turn gave me confidence. And then I said, "Phil, I'm putty in your hands, man. You shape me. I don't know anything about this." So maybe that was one of the things he found appealing was that he could mold this person into whoever he needed him to be. But I've got to tell you that he wasn't overly strict about direction. He said, "Just do your thing, and if we need to make adjustments, we'll make adjustments."

He made me feel so comfortable and confident and we just did it. By the second week, I felt like I was in the groove. He was also very smart about the schedule: the first couple of weeks were real easy things, simple things, not real emotional things. He helped ease me into it and I couldn't have asked for anything better. Sorry if that sounds corny, but it's the God's honest truth.

WW: One of the keys to The Wanderers is, of course, the gang itself and the chemistry between them. How tough was it to be on set and suddenly have to have an instant chemistry like you've known these guys all your life, especially when the acting thing was so new to you?

KW: Being that my character was the leader of the Wanderers, I took it upon myself to get those guys together and we spent every waking moment together during the entire shoot and two of the other three guys became friends of mine in real life afterwards. And because it was so intense and we did everything together, we even took our jackets from wardrobe, which they nervously allowed us to do. They did have doubles, but not triples. Being a neophyte at all this, I thought, "It will be better if we become well-known to each other, because we're supposed to be well-known to each other as characters, so let's make it as real as possible." And they were right on board with that and we just palled around the whole time at work and after work.

As far as how the chemistry comes off on film, we have no control over that, obviously. The audience is going to think what they think, but the part that I could control was the idea of us trying to be a gang. So there were the four main Wanderers and even some of the lesser ones. I guess there were about seven or eight of us that hung out all the time.

Being a neophyte at all this, I thought, "It will be better if we become well-known to each other, because we're supposed to be well-known to each other as characters, so let's make it as real as possible." And they were right on board with that and we just palled around the whole time at work and after work. As far as how the chemistry comes off on film, we have no control over that, obviously. The audience is going to think what they think, but the part that I could control was the idea of us trying to be a gang. So there were the four main Wanderers and even some of the lesser ones. I guess there were about seven or eight of us that hung out all the time.

WW: And you had a continuing friendship with Tony Ganios, who played Perry LaGuardia, and Jim Youngs, who was Buddy Borsalino, to the point where you would get them work in later years — Tony showed up on Wiseguy multiple times.

KW: For whatever reason, I was much more fortunate than those guys. It's unfair, but that's the way it works sometimes. Tony and Jimmy and I all started together in the same way and the same area and we all got paid the same. Everything was exactly the same when we started, but for whatever reason, I was more fortunate than they were. So because of that, I am just so grateful that I was able to help them during their journey that they went on. And now that Tony's gone, it made me really reflect on that and I was just grateful that because of my good fortune, I was able to help them by giving them jobs and financial assistance and things like that.

WW: The '70s was an interesting time for these kind of gang movies, with The Lords of Flatbush in 1974, and then there were both The Wanderers and The Warriors in 1979.

KW: There was actually a real battle between The Warriors and The Wanderers that a lot of people don't know about, even though they're vastly different movies. There was the perception that you've got these two similar New York gang movies coming out in 1979 and there was a big push between the two movies to see who was going to be released first. But the perception was wrong. The Warriors was present day and very stylized, and The Wanderers took place in 1963 and they couldn't be more different. So Paramount, which handled The Warriors, pushed to be released earlier than us, but in the same year, and they did great box office and we didn't, because we were the second one to come out. When Warner Brothers saw the box office of The Warriors, they figured they missed the boat and didn't do as big a release as they originally planned. I've got to give Paramount credit there; Warner Brothers kind of fell asleep at the switch. To be fair, though, it wasn't like it was one of their top shelf projects; there were all these new guys and they didn't really care that much about it.

That was during the original release. None of us had any idea what a cult movie it was going to turn into in the years hence. So that part of it was disappointing, but that was all after the fact. During the shooting, it was just fantastic.

WW: How do you view Richie as a character? He's a tough one to get behind sometimes in the sense that he's fascinated with Karen Allen's character of Nina Becker, but there's a sequence where he's at a party with his pregnant girlfriend, her Mafia father and his brothers are upstairs, and he's ready to mess around with Nina.

KW: He's a typical 17-year-old kid who doesn't know crap about anything; who's willing to risk it, because all he sees is this new girl that he's hot for. And I get it; I was in a similar situation when I was that age. I snuck into a girl's bedroom whose father was in the Outfit — that's what they called it in Chicago — and he was talking to his brother-in-law about killing a guy by rigging a ferris wheel at a local carnival, putting a guy in there and have him fall out and get ground up into the gears. So they're planning this while I'm in this girl's bedroom and I was having a coronary at 16-years-old and got the hell out of there. And Lucy, that was her name, is, like, "Don't go!" She wants to make out and I said, "You're out of your mind," and I crawled out of there. You know, "Nothing's working here, baby!" All I'm seeing is my thing being ground up in a Ferris wheel. No thanks! My hormones weren't raging that much.

So at least I did have the sense to get out of there even with the beautiful girl, but Richie didn't have any of that. He's at this party, everything's happy, everything's good and he's drinking a little bit, so his judgment isn't great on top of his just being a 17-year-old idiot. And they're playing strip poker in the bedroom and the girls are in their skivvies and he's getting all worked up. All his judgment went out the window.

WW: What's so interesting about The Wanderers is that the film's setting of 1963 is such a time of transition, with the assassination of JFK and Nina's obvious fascination with going to see Bob Dylan at the end.

KW: Richie and his gang are the Fifties and Nina is definitely part of the Sixties. He follows her to Folk City where she listens to Dylan. I love the shot that Phil set up where Richie's following her into the club, but he stops because there's a big bouncer there who knows he's underage, so instead of going into the club to talk to Nina. He stands outside and looks in and in the window are bars, so it looks like a prison cell. Phil did this real slow push in and cuts back to Nina all happy with her beatnik friends, listening to Bob Dylan when nobody knew who Bob Dylan was yet, singing "The Times They Are A-Changin.'"

That's really what the whole movie is about. Richie's world and his power is over. And now it's the Sixties. It already was, but when you look back at history, the Sixties were the same as the Fifties up until Kennedy got assassinated in November of '63.

WW: Given The Wanderers was your first film, what was your reaction when it was released?

KW: I can remember seeing the first preview screening of The Wanderers and it was just unbelievable. Most of the audience was in their teens and early 20s, and they went wild. Just absolutely wild. It was just such a surreal experience. And until the day I die, I will be grateful to Phil and Rose and Peter for giving me the opportunity, because I've always told Phil, "If we switched places and I were you, I would've never hired me."

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