Roughly 41 years ago, my dear friend, Michael Chinich, a kindred spirit if there ever was one, a man whom I used to visit in “The Black Tower,” the executive offices of Universal, asked me if I would do him a little favor.
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Michael was casting and producing a youth comedy for a close friend of his, John Hughes, a gigantically successful writer and producer of youth comedies. Michael and John and I had been having intense conversations about political issues in Michael’s office at Universal. John had heard my voice from the hall. He thought I sounded like the perfect high school teacher’s voice. He was one of the only Republicans in Hollywood. He knew I was one also. He liked what he heard.
John asked Mr. Chinich to approach me about calling the role in his new movie. It would be off camera. I told Michael Chinich that I would be happy to do it. So, about November 16, 1985, I went over to Stage 15 or 16 at Paramount, where we were shooting what came to be known as Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. I had a slight cold and my voice was nasally.
I started to take to the role. The stage EXPLODED in laughter. John Hughes asked me if I would do a scene from out of my head about a current economic issue. Only this time, I would be on camera and in my standard professorial garb: Silk tie. Ivy League shirt. Brooks Brothers checked jacket. Tortoise shell glasses.
It so happened that all America was involved in a real-life drama about something called “Supply Side” economics. It was a phrase coined by my illustrious father, the Super Economist Herbert Stein. It was well known to me. I started to talk about the economics of the Great Depression, starting in 1931. I talked for maybe 10 minutes, at most. My monologue included searching for the missing Ferris Bueller. Students froze with boredom. One fell asleep drooling on his desk.
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I ended by noting that the president, George H.W. Bush, had called “Supply Side” voodoo economics, a phrase also likely borrowed from my Pop.
The student extras and the cast and crew exploded with laughter and applause. It was almost a riot. Matthew Broderick asked me if I had done any Broadway. (Of course not, I said truthfully.) John Hughes thanked me and so did Michael Chinich.
I drove out of Paramount and called my wife, then a lawyer at Paramount. I have just had the best day of my life, I told wifey. “Better than the day we got married?” she asked.
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“Of course not,” I said, and the day was over.
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