Actor Mike Myers talks about his father

By John M. Glionna, Los Angeles Times, June 11, 1999

PHOTOGRAPH by the Los Angeles Times

LOS ANGELES — Mike Myers has this conflict over bacon.

The 35-year-old Canadian, a comedian-turned-actor and creator of such well-observed characters as heavy-metal slacker Wayne Campbell, Dieter Sprockets the sexually confused West German talk-show host, and the swinging, snaggle-toothed British secret agent known as Austin Powers, knows the stuff is bad for him.

Still, he can't help himself.

"I adore bacon, and I know it's supposedly horrible for you, but it's so darned tasty. I defy anybody to not find bacon tasty," says the slightly built Myers, sitting down outside a Hollywood movie studio commissary to a noon-hour meal of eight toasty strips, all washed down, of course, by an extra-large bottle of Perrier.

"But for me, bacon means something much more. Just the smell of the stuff brings back happy, happy sets of memories."

For Myers, the aroma evokes images of his late father, the eccentric British-born Encyclopaedia Britannica and insurance salesman with a sweetly warped sense of humor, whose idea of a perfect meal was a cup of tea and a bacon sandwich smothered in British HP steak sauce.

The father of three boys, Eric Myers was the arbiter of all that was funny in his family's suburban Toronto home. At night, often after midnight, he would wake his sleepy-eyed sons to come downstairs and watch the old spy movies and motley cast of British comedians on the tube -- from Inspired by those memories, youngest son Mike Myers in 1997 introduced theater audiences to a cool-cat, bell-bottomed British spy with bad teeth and a big-time libido, the kind of naughty little character that would have made his father laugh out loud.

"Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery" was a Polaroid snapshot of Myers' boyhood film influences, an insider's cinematic wink at those offbeat British comedies that flickered from the TV set inside his living room back in the 1970s.

Thanks to Myers' rubbery-faced comic presence, the daft espionage spoof achieved cult-like status, drawing raves not only from his target teen-age and twentysomething audiences but also among more discerning middle-aged moviegoers. Almost overnight, it popularized a retro-rich Austin Powers vocabulary that includes such one-liners as "Oh, behave!," "Saucy!" and various forms of "shag," a 1960s British euphemism for having sex.

Myers says he dedicated the movie to his father, who died in 1991 after a battle with Alzheimer's disease. Of all his characters, he says, "my dad would have definitely appreciated Austin Powers the most."

In the newest Austin adventure, "Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me," the psychedelic super-sleuth travels back to 1969 London in search of his mojo, or sexual libido, that's been stolen by his baldheaded nemesis, Dr. Evil. The squinting, pinky-sucking Evil also is played by Myers -- who shares co-writing and producing credits on the project. After the success of the first film, theater owners and other industry insiders expect the sequel to be among the summer's biggest hits.

All the excitement, frankly, mystifies Myers.

"I had no idea that anybody would respond to Austin Powers at all," says Myers. "I thought it was one universal in-joke that no one would get -- because they didn't grow up in my house."

Executives at New Line Cinema, maker of both Austin Powers projects, not only "get" the joke, they're banking on it to serve as the basis for a healthy new movie franchise, with tie-in partners ranging from Starbucks to Volkswagen.

For Myers, the success of his slapstick spy represents a satisfying professional comeback of sorts after the four years between the second "Wayne's World" and first Austin Powers projects -- a period in which he made no films, and even took a year off.

"As far as my career goes, I've never really had a plan for it. Things always just come out of nowhere," he says. Indeed, Myers' career has the less-rehearsed feel of a comic's improvised sketch.

Take his critically praised role in last year's otherwise unremarkable film "54," in which he played Studio 54 nightclub co-owner Steve Rubell, Myers' first dramatic part. "It just sort of came across, and I read the script, and a couple weeks later we were shooting it," he says.

The same goes for the unreleased independent film "Pete's Meteor," a dark drama in which Myers plays a supporting role as a luckless small-time neighborhood drug dealer who inadvertently causes the death of his best friend.

But perhaps Myers' most unscripted move came in 1994, when he dropped out of public sight, taking time to "do some nesting" with screenwriter wife Robin Ruzan. What followed were days of traveling, reading books, seeing plays, practicing chords on his new guitar, playing pickup hockey games in the middle of a weekday afternoon.

Myers says his decision came after witnessing actor friend Rob Lowe's blissful family life and getting some advice from fellow "Saturday Night Live" alumnus Bill Murray, who raved about his mid-career break to study French for two years at the Sorbonne.

But the main reason for the time off came in response to his father's death from Alzheimer's in 1991, just as his youngest son was peaking in his career as an "SNL" regular, before the release of the first "Wayne's World" movie.

Perhaps Eric Myers' greatest lesson in humor, his son recalls, is how he learned to laugh at himself through his struggle with Alzheimer's. "It was his reaction to his own forgetfulness," he says. "He would find it funny, and that was the most life-affirming and at the same time most heartbreaking part of it."

On Myers' drawing board is a film based on talk-show host Dieter Sprockets. He's also considering scripts featuring cartoon mutt Scooby Doo and another based on "The Gong Show" creator Chuck Barris, who once claimed he was an operative for the CIA.

He's also looking forward to the opening of the Austin Powers sequel. With a sigh, Myers recalls all the famous people who attended the premiere for the first Austin film and how he broke down crying at the memory of his father, who he wished could have been there.

"I'm getting better," he says. "I don't feel as incapacitated without him. I just feel very fortunate to have a great job where you can do a movie that is a tribute to your father, one where you laugh a lot. Because the experience of my father is laughing.

"I can still hear him laughing now."