Captain Lou Albano

It's been a few days since we lost the great Captain Lou Albano. What makes the stories great about him, is that everyone seems to have found some part of Captain Lou's great career to enjoy....whether it'd been pro wrestling, Miami Vice, Cyndi Lauper videos etc etc, everyone seemed to remember the Captain fondly, myself included.

 

When I was much younger, my folks announced pretty quickly and pretty randomly that they were getting divorced...almost immediately they seemed to move on, so as a result, every single weekend, we'd be shuttled around from either mom's house, dad's house, my mom's creepy boyfriends backwoods trailer or my dad's girlfriends house with her random buddies living there too....so growing up and never really having a place to call "home" on the weekeend, the one thing I could count on, was Saturday morning pro wrestling at 10am. No matter how awkward or weird the living situation was, I knew I could count on those storylines, those characters for an hour or 2 each week, so as a result, I'd always held that era of wrestling near and dear...

 

So imagine my surprise, when we fast forward to now, and film director JJ Garvine offered me a part in his high school "coming of age" tale called "13th Grade". 13 was great, funny quirky and smart, this was a great part and the cast and crew were really gifted. 2 staples of 80's pop culture were also cast members, we had Dustin Diamond of SAVED BY THE BELL and the great WWF legend (yes I know they call it the WWE now, but I'm keeping it real) Captain Lou Albano. What was funny is that it almost seeemed to be 2 camps....the folks who grew up on SAVED BY THE BELL and the folks who grew up on the WWF. Needless to say, I was a WWF guy, and I couldn't wait to work with Captain Lou....

 So Captain Lou day is on the schedule and we're all moving the film set to the beach, I was a little nervous, because it's tough when you grow up watching someone, and then you meet them, and they're sort of a let down, however, I had hope for the Captain because anytime JJ would talk to him, Captain Lou was SO LOUD on the phone you could hear him six feet away. He sounded like Captain Lou of old! So then it was time to meet him. The guy was a hurricane...he'd just walk in a room and was so full of life, he'd be talking about anything, and you'd be all ears....what I had noticed almost immediately, was his love for everything. He was on cloud nine because he'd just seen his grandkids and was counting down the hours until he got to see them again, he told me this story about how happy it'd made him, years and years ago, he appeared in Brian Depalma's "WISEGUYS" and an Academy Award voter had cast a ballot for his performance there, he loved to talk about his 50 year career in pro wrestling....he was just so full of life and love for everything he'd earned in his lifetime. It was inspiring, he was just so grateful for every little thing. Then cameras started rolling...and the guy just went off, singing dancing, cracking jokes, calling me TIM TRUCK, calling JJ, JJ MONEY, he gave the camera so much funny, that JJ had so much great material, he'd cut together a reel of it and was going to possibly roll it over the credits to the end of the movie.

 

Now I want to share this photo...there were funnier photos to share, but I love this one, because it just shows what a one man party the Captain was....from left to right thats Ric Edevane, Daps, the Captain and me, smiling like a goofball


 

...that smile didn't come off my face all day....especially when I told him that I grew up spending WAY too much time listening to THE WRESTLING ALBUM"....



it was an entire record made up of songs that pro wrestlers would sing, and Captain Lou had a song that went "Captain Lou, Captain Lou, Captain Lou ALBAAAAAANO" I told him I got a kick out of that song, and he not only told me about the band he recorded that song with (NRBQ, I never forget a Captain Lou Story) he actually did the whole song in front of me! He was just that type of entertainer....just giving it his all. At the end of the shoot day, it was time for him to get going, to go and see his grandkids, but he wasn't done with us, he had us all go out to his car, and opened the trunk and it was PACKED with toys, tee shirts, photos, and he unloaded it all to us. He just wanted us to have some souvenirs of the fun we'd had that day. He gave us all huge bear hugs and wished us all the best and like that, he was on his way.

 

So when I'd heard he'd passed, I was bummed, I'd known him for only a brief period, but it felt good to know that there was a guy with so much warmth and life in the world, a guy who'd survived a tough business and only saw his glass as completely full. Now, remember that clip I mentioned? The one where there was SO much funny Captain Lou stuff that this was going to be an "alternate credits ending?" well, JJ dug deep into the vaults and found the cut of Captain Lou just having fun, what is included here is EXACTLY how it was cut in 2005, so you're seeing what we'd enjoyed so much. So please take a few minutes and have some fun with this clip. If for some reason it doesn't pop up feel free and click here, I'm glad to finally have a copy of this, and now, you all do too. Please enjoy it and hopefully get a chuckle out of it.
 

 

JJ mentioned something I'd said after we'd wrapped filming that day, that "Captain Lou, was exactly how I'd hoped he'd be in real life" and that sort of says it all. The world will miss a guy like that. Rest in peace, Captain Lou, it's been an honor, sir.