Chris Grabenstein peppers the conversation about his uncommon career path with the thought that he's been lucky, but luck may not actually have played that large a part. Talent, doggedness, and an ability to search out opportunity are what come to mind.
He is now an award winning mystery writer but back in 1979, 24 year old Chris moved to New York like so many other hopefuls, set on the TV industry.
"I thought I would get a job as a NBC page," he recalls ,"and work my way up to producer, or become an overnight sensation on Saturday Night Live."
The Comedy Years
Chris began doing improv and joined the First Amendment troupe which included such future luminaries as Bruce Willis. He was also doing the rounds of the comedy clubs, where "the managers wanted you to come at 3:00 in the morning and entertain the 3 drunk Shriners left in the audience."
Comedy, however, didn't pay, so four days a week Chris labored at Citibank and periodically dashed off to auditions and rehearsals.
"The hard part was that I would do this incredible stuff on the weekend, but every Monday I'd have to wake back up and go to Citibank and go right by 30 Rock. I'd see all these people my age going in and working on their careers in television and I'd say 'I'm really just a banker whose doing comedy as a hobby.'"
Chris soldiered on though, buoyed by glimpses of opportunity. "Whenever we would do our improv show - I think we got $10 a night - agents and people like Robin Williams and Barbra Streisand came and we got written up in with glowing reviews."
In 1980, little more than a year after landing in Manhattan, the ultimate opportunity arose. Saturday Night Live called and asked Chris to audition.
"This was the moment I'd dreamed about since 1975, when the show premiered. This guy led me into a tiny, maybe 10 x 10 office, and he sat behind a desk and he said , 'ok, do some of your material for me. 'And I said, 'well I really don't do material, I do improv."
The casting director wanted to see stand up comedy, not the improv that most SNL performers had cut their teeth on, and which was Chris forte. But this was a rare season without Lorne Michaels producing and Chris didn't fit the new agenda. In one short moment, a dream disappeared.
Chris continued to juggle his day job and his passion. In his nonexistent spare time, Chris co-wrote a Christmas movie. Only the tiniest percentage of scripts that are written get produced, but he "got lucky" - meaning he had persistence and patience. "It took three years to sell - it kept being sold and unsold. We learned an awful lot about show business, because the producer kept trying to stab us in the back." The movie, called "A Christmas Gift", premiered in 1986 and starred John Denver. It still airs.
One produced TV movie does not a career make, however. Saturday Night Live seemed a far off dream.
Chris recalls, "It started to get grimmer and grimmer. I finally got cast in a commercial for Federal Express after 5 years of auditioning. They had me walk back and forth in the background for two hours carrying a big box. Behind the camera I saw these guys laughing. I thought, those are the guys that wrote this commercial - and they are having much more fun. I think that was the day I decided to get out of being an actor."
"I got lucky, because I read a book about improv and there was one little chapter about guys who used to work at Second City who were forever being called into advertising agencies to audition and none of them ever got cast, but the advertising guys were ripping off their improv. So I realized there's a connection between improv and advertising. Maybe some of these skills will help me get a job in advertising," Chris thought.
Breaking into the ad game
He had already sent out close to a hundred resumes to various ad agencies and been roundly rejected because, at age 29, he was already considered too old for any of the creative jobs. But he tried again and this time he tucked in his comedy reviews from the NY Times.
The strategy worked. The prestigious agency J. Walter Thompson called. At the time, the creative director was a young guy named James Patterson, the future extremely famous novelist. He was looking for fresh blood and thought he might find it in improv performers.
Patterson had written a questionnaire comprised of 8 funny questions, which he ran in the NY Times. They got 2000 entries and hired 8 people. Chris was the first one aboard.
"So I got very lucky," he says.
His reaction to the new job was, "Panic. It was a big pay cut and I was going to have to work 7 days a week, 12 hours a day. But I thought it was a new start - and I was about to get married for the first time."
Newlwed Chris was thrown into the ring. "They work on the gladiator principle, where they have everyone working on everything and only one team will win. But I was lucky in that I guess I was pretty good at it and my performance background was a big help because you have to act out your storyboard in front of people." Three years in, Chris had created an award winning campaign that was shown at the Cannes Film Festival. He was on his way.
Moving up as he went from agency to agency, Chris was promoted all the way to Executive Vice President, working on major national campaigns for the likes of Burger King and Seven Up. (His most famous creation is Trojan Man.) But in 1995, he was hit with a huge personal challenge. His young wife was diagnosed with cancer and began a four year battle with the disease.
When she lost that fight, Chris threw himself into his work, flying all over the world. "When you go through grief," he says, "when someone you really love dies, it’s almost as if who you were dies too."
The constant work provided solace, but Chris was about to get another shock.
One of his accounts, Kentucky Fried Chicken, had been in a slump for a few months. It wasn't long before the agency hired a younger hotshot for their important client. It was clear to Chris that his days were numbered. He was shuffled off to a far less desirable area and by 2001, bored and frustrated, he was out.
Using a skill set to start anew
"I was fortunate that I had a little bit of a cushion." He and his wife had always looked at his huge salary like "baseball money" - meaning they both knew it wouldn't last. He had saved enough to make it through about a year.
Chris got remarried that same year and soon began anew in other ways. He started writing screenplays again, winning awards but quickly realizing it was not for him.
Then, "I thought maybe I could try writing a book. I had the discipline of writing that you learn in advertising." His first try got him an agent and a lot of great feedback.
Chris took a page from his mentor, James Patterson."He had created a great protagonist and a sort of hook where the books were all titled after nursery rhymes. So I thought, 'I’m gonna write a detective book next.'"
He plunged into "Tilt A Whirl" and had just completed it when his agent told him that a small publisher was looking for mysteries. “I just finished one!” he realized. Three weeks later he got an offer. The book became the first in his highly successful John Ceepak series (all named after carnival rides).
Since 1995, Chris has published 8 thrillers and mysteries, and 4 ghost stories for middle school readers, winning awards and acclaim along the way.
Now 56, he supports himself as a writer and loves his life. What advice does he offer?
"When you look back, it can all look easy, right? Well, yes, when one door closes another opens. But it's hell in the hallway, so be prepared for the hallway." And rather than relying on the luck Chris feels he's had, some would say he did his homework, paid his dues, and never gave up.
This is one in a series of articles about career changers.
Source: telephone interview with Chris Grabenstein 9/28/11
visit site www.jamespatterson.com 10/5/11
Nancy LeBrun - Nancy LeBrun is a multiple Emmy award winning writer and producer, working in non-fiction television and new media.
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