Steve Guttenberg on assisting during the Pacific Palisades wildfire and taking care of his personal hero

On January 7, which Palisades Fire exploded, a man interrupted a reporter’s direct shot. It was Steve Guttenberg, one of the biggest movie stars of the 1980s and 90s. He had moved cars — abandoned by people around Pacific Palisades trying to escape the encroaching fire — so emergency vehicles could get through.

“What’s happening is people are taking their keys with them like they’re in a parking lot. This is not a parking lot.” he told KTLA. “If you leave your car, leave the key there so a guy like me can move your car so these fire trucks can get up there.”

He doesn’t remember how he got to safety.

Many days later, with much of his hometown reduced to ruins, he was still there to help protect his and his neighbors’ homes. He showed me a section of Sunset that had been stacked with cars. “Yeah, couldn’t get through,” he said. “So, I moved some of these cars over there. And then a lot of these cars just didn’t have keys in them. Locked.”

I asked, “What is it in you that compels you to stay here?”

“You know, it’s not often in life that you feel like you can make a difference,” he replied. “And I really feel like I can make a difference. Like, I’m capable, I’m strong, I have a heart, and I care. And that’s what I’m going to do today.”

If you know Guttenberg, you know he’s a helper. Seven years ago, he put everything on hold to take care of someone he was deeply in love with: his father.

I remarked, “I’m going to try to get through this interview without crying because I lost my father.”

Guttenberg asked, “What was your father’s name?”

“Douglas.”

“Hello, Douglas!” Guttenberg said. “You know when you say someone’s name that’s passed, they come around. I guess they’re not always with you because they’ve got other things to do. But Douglas is here, and that’s Stanley, my father too.

“My father was the greatest,” he said. “He was the first man to ever hold me, the first guy I ever looked him in the eye. And I fell in love with my father.”

Guttenberg has written a book about his journey as a caregiver for the man he calls his hero. It’s called “Time to give thanks.” “My father and his father were not close,” he said. “My grandfather was cold. He was not a father who kissed and hugged my father. So my father was the opposite.”

A “kissing and hugging dad” who worked jobs that weren’t exactly touchy-feely. “He was an Airborne Army Ranger. He was a New York City policeman. He was a powerlifter and a weightlifter. And he did a 20-minute handstand.”

Guttenberg’s father was a hands-on parent, so it was to Steve’s surprise that when he wanted to move to LA, aged just 17, to try to become a movie star, he was allowed to. “My parents gave me $300 and said, ‘You have two weeks.’ And I got a Kentucky Fried Chicken commercial. And my parents let me stay for two weeks. And I got a little movie (“The Chicken Chronicles”) and went back to school.”

He wasn’t in school long when Hollywood beckoned him back. “I was at a party in my suite at Albany State, and I got this call from my agent. Everyone was a little…drunk!” he laughed. “And my agent said, ‘I got you an audition. It was called “Boys From Brazil.” And it was going to star Greg Peck and Larry Olivier and James Mason, Uta Hagen.”

“It’s hard to say no to that, isn’t it?” I said.

“Yeah! I asked my dad. My dad said, ‘You know, just go down and audition. If you get it, you’ll decide. And I got the job.’

Guttenberg says it was Laurence Olivier who taught him humility, but it was his father who helped him get his big break in a small film about a bunch of misfits who join the police. “I told my dad I had a screen test coming up for this movie, ‘Police Academy.’ And he said, ‘Oh, you should wear my police academy shirt.’ I remember going to the screen test and I was up against another actor who was really talented and the director said, ‘Hold on here: Did you make that shirt, boy?’ And I said, ‘No, that’s my dad’s real police academy shirt.’ And half a day later my agent called me and said, ‘You got it.’ And maybe it was because of the cadet shirt that my father gave me.”

Guttenberg would go on to become one of the busiest actors of his generation with more than 100 films and television shows under his belt, including “Diner,” “Three Men and a Baby,” “Cocoon” and “Short Circuit.” All while his father was there to bring him back to reality, often calling before the rest of LA got out of bed. Guttenberg said he never missed that 6:00 a.m. call, too even though I came home from 5 to 6:00! I had to answer that phone. He was my anchor.”

So when his father was diagnosed with kidney failure while living in Phoenix, Guttenberg got in his car and drove 400 miles each week to care for his father. “The drive really gave me time to think and time to give thanks,” he said.

Steve and his siblings even become home dialysis technicians, but only he could not accept the inevitable. “I gave him a hug. And something didn’t sound right. And we had a nurse with us and the nurse put a stethoscope on him. And she said, ‘He’s gone.’ And I said, ‘No!’ And I started doing CPR on him, I just couldn’t accept it at that moment.

Asked when he could finally let him go, Guttenberg said, “I probably let him go a year later. It’s hard to believe he’s gone. I still think he’s here.”

“He is,” I said. “Just say his name.”

“Stanley!”

And right now, Guttenberg thinks his father is sending some helpful advice. “I feel like my dad is around, yes, I really do. I feel like my dad is here with me. And I think he’s also saying, ‘Steven, enough. Get out of there’.”

For now, his own home stands. But Steve Guttenberg says it’s time to listen to his father. “You know, the truth is, no matter how big your house is, no matter how much money you have, how expensive your car is, you walk down the street with a little suitcase of a few things that you’ve saved, and you looking for someone to tell you where to go.”

READ AN EXCERPT: “Time to Thank: Caregiving for My Hero” by Steve Guttenberg

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Produced by Anthony Laudato. Editors: Steven Tyler and Lauren Barnello.

WEB EXCLUSIVE: Watch an extended interview with Steve Guttenberg