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Heeeeeeeeere's Joey!

Even if Buttafuoco wanted to do hard-core, chances are it wouldnÕt happen. Jeremy admits his palÕs window of opportunity for a porno payday closed long ago. ÒIt wouldnÕt be worthwhile to have Joey do a film today anyway,Ó he says judiciously. ÒFor the same price, you can get five more gang-bang scenes.Ó

Flagging popular interest doesnÕt augur well for Joey Buttafuoco. Never has that been more clear than this year, when that bible of mainstream taste, People magazine, published the People 400 in its Entertainment Almanac. Slipping off the ÒhotÓ list were such onetime stalwarts as Dana Carvey, Macaulay Culkin, Fabio, the Baldwins (excluding Alec) . . . and Joey.

These days, it seems as if a number of people are trying to distance themselves from Buttafuoco, casting agents in particular. Take Abigail McGrath. In October 1994, McGrath cast Joey Buttafuoco in a low-budget independent film called Cul-de-Sac. Croton-on-Hudson, where it was shot, revoked the shooting permit when it was revealed that Buttafuoco was in the cast; he was forced to sneak onto the set for his scenes. Afterward, quite inexplicably, McGrathÕs career dead-ended. ÒI was shunned and didnÕt work for almost a year as a result of casting Joey,Ó McGrath says bitterly. ÒI received threatening phone calls on my answering machine from people in the business.Ó

A Perversions of Science script called for Òa bodyguard who was a Joey Buttafuoco type.Ó Lisa Beach cast the real thing, instructing him to basically play himself. Asked if there had been any repercussions, Beach falls silent. ÒNow that you mention it, I didnÕt work for six months after I cast him,Ó she says. ÒOh, my God!Ó she screams. ÒItÕs the Joey Buttafuoco curse!Ó

Buttafuoco says he and Mary Jo love southern California. There are Òno hassles in L.A. People arenÕt so hostile.Ó When he moved here, in September 1996, Joey drove a gold Porsche. But when his acting career stalled before it started, the Porsche had to go, along with the four-bedroom rental house with the swimming pool in Agoura Hills, an upscale neighborhood of entertainment lawyers, orthodontists, and plastic surgeons in the San Fernando Valley. ÒButtafuoco thought he was going to get an advance on a movie,Ó says former neighbor Hank Adams. The Buttafuocos have since moved to a decidedly blue-collar section of Canoga Park, a bedroom community in the Valley. Transplanted New Yorkers often describe the area as L.A.Õs answer to the South Shore of Long Island, with its strip malls and teenage girls who speak their own dialect. The couple cultivates their anonymity; their rental house is a modest three-bedroom with whitewashed stucco and blue trim. Still, neighbors are keenly aware of their presence. ÒWhy would he want to live in our neighborhood? ItÕs a very quiet neighborhood,Ó says Mrs. Richard M. Parsons, whoÕs lived nearby for 40 years. ÒHeÕs not going to molest me!Ó ÒPeople say heÕs building another house in a rich neighborhood,Ó says Kevin Leerhuber, a 21-year-old who works at Kmart and lives a few doors down. Doubtful, unless heÕs moonlighting as a construction worker. A check of the area reveals no recent property purchases in either of the ButtafuocosÕ names.

Joey hardly has time for such indulgences as acting class and theater workshop. Five days a week, he says, he runs a body shop in Canoga Park and is rarely home before 9 p.m.

Does Buttafuoco like being famous? ÒNo. ItÕs very intrusive,Ó he snaps. But who gets into acting if they want to lie low? ÒCome on,Ó I prod him. He gives in: ÒIt has its ups.Ó His brow wrinkles. ÒBut IÕm famous for all the wrong reasons.Ó

The sex appeal of Joey Buttafuoco, particularly as it applies to young women, cannot be denied. ÒHe has groupies,Ó says a fellow San Fernando Valley resident. ÒYoung girls drive by the auto-body shop where he works. All for just the hope of catching a glimpse of him. How scary is that?Ó

Ron Jeremy confirms ButtafuocoÕs hunky allure. ÒA lot of porn stars want to do Joey,Ó says Jeremy. ÒHe has a certain charisma about him.Ó Jeremy has been very supportive of his friendÕs efforts to rustle up some acting gigs. ÒHow much talent do you need?Ó he says, with the confidence of a guy who knows whereof he speaks. ÒJoey plays the heavy. A couple grunts, a couple lines, maybe Steven Seagal kicks him in the face. HeÕd love to do roles like that.Ó Dennis Hof, owner of the Moonlight Bunny Ranch bordello and KittyÕs Cathouse in Carson City, Nevada, is another friend. Jeremy, Hof, Buttafuoco, and Screw magazine publisher Al Goldstein pal around together. ÒThe slime pack,Ó Jeremy calls them. Seems that Hof is tight with the Hughes brothers, who did Menace II Society and Dead Presidents. They are working on a documentary with major heat: American Pimp. According to Hof, the brothers Hughes are interviewing every big mack daddy in the business. And, says Hof, Buttafuoco could be interviewed, too: ÒHeÕs a part of the sex business. Whether you like it or not, he associated with it because of him and this young girl, and shooting the wife, and all that.Ó

Mary Jo has been keeping busy working on a clientsÕ bill of rights with Spillane and Karin Huffer, a Las Vegas-based family therapist of 25 years and the author of Overcoming the Devastation of Legal Abuse Syndrome, which identifies a psychological disorder she wants included in the psychiatristsÕ manual known as the DSM. The bill would prevent lawyers from using smear tactics and other strategies to denigrate the opposition. ÒPeople donÕt understand what trauma does to human beings,Ó says Huffer. ÒThey are taken hostage by this trauma and held hostage for years and years. Mary Jo is a woman who is blind in one eye, who has suffered two strokes, who is deaf in one ear, who has a bullet still lodged near her spine. This is not a person who has a lot of options to go out and get lots of jobs. She continues to suffer because sheÕs cast in this stand-by-your-man persona. She and Joey have taken money from that persona because they needed it to pay bills. There remains inside her a whole lot of unfinished business.Ó

Buttafuoco doesnÕt like to talk about Amy Fisher, whoÕs now appealing for a new trial. Buttafuoco calls her ÒsociopathicÓ and Òpsychotic.Ó ÒTo pick up a gun and shoot somebody point-blank in the head, youÕre not there. Clearly, she is definitely disturbed,Ó he says.

Does Buttafuoco feel at all responsible for Mary JoÕs injuries? This question makes him uncomfortable. ÒIÕm a little upset with myself for not seeing some of the signs,Ó he says earnestly. ÒBut I didnÕt. I saw nothing. Today IÕm cautious. I watch everything.Ó

For the record, Buttafuoco vehemently denies any kind of intimate relationship with Amy Fisher. I ask him why, if this is true, he admitted in court to having had sex with her? Buttafuoco shoots me a what-are-you-stupid? look. ÒThey were going to put me in jail for 80 years unless I said I did it.Ó But he admitted he had sex with Fisher on A Current Affair, no? The same patented look: ÒI did it for the check.Ó

ÒI swear on my cats, who are my children, that he did not screw that stupid little psychopath,Ó agent Ruth Webb says in a later conversation, adding, ÒJoey talks too much. He should keep the zipper on his mouth and his pants closed.Ó

Speaking of cash, what happened to it all? The $500,000 from the exclusive Current Affair interview, in which Mary Jo confessed, ÒI know he had an affair, and I donÕt care.Ó

ÒThe lawyers took everything,Ó Buttafuoco says solemnly. The final tab was $750,000. There were also medical bills for Mary Jo -- $300,000 worth. And thatÕs with insurance.

Buttafuoco believes he may outlive his scandal. He explains: ÒA funny thing happened. There was a young boy at the audition tonight. He knew my face and knew I was famous.Ó But he couldnÕt place Buttafuoco. The very thought makes him chipper. ÒThereÕs a whole generation coming up right now who know IÕm famous but have no idea who I am or why.Ó

Pretty impressive. ButtafuocoÕs Hollywood Boulevard bust occurred closer to home and only three years ago. After offering an undercover cop money for oral sex, he eventually pleaded Òno contest,Ó since, he says, he didnÕt want to do jail time in California. Today, he dismisses the incident as Òa total setup.Ó He tells how sneaky cops can be: ÒShe came to my window and knocked on it. I said, ÔYou look like youÕre worth $30.Õ Ò Buttafuoco pauses for effect. ÒThis woman never got in my car. There was never any exchange of money. ThatÕs not what usually happens in situations like that -- Ò The sentence ends abruptly, unexpectedly. He suddenly blurts out: ÒFrom what IÕve heard.Ó

The play-by-play continues: ÒAnyway, I go three blocks, and then Starsky and Hutch, Batman and Robin, they all pull me over and yank me out of the car.Ó Joey heaves the sigh of a man who has spent 198 days in prison.

I stand corrected. Joey Buttafuoco was never in prison. Joey Buttafuoco was in Òthe county jail,Ó he says, most emphatically.

He returns to the story: ÒThey said, ÔItÕs 11:30; we have to make quota. YouÕre going to jail. We want to go home.Õ Ò But you know what really rankled? According to Buttafuoco, he did have $30 in his pocket that night, which, he says, the cops filched when he was in the lockup.

HeÕs also still recuperating from having been Òslam-dunked by the media.Ó ÒPeople donÕt know anything about me,Ó he sneers. ÒTheyÕve been very misinformed. Someday, maybe, that will turn around. The truth will come out. If I was just a regular guy and I read all the crap and inaccuracies that were written about me in the media, I wouldnÕt like me, either.Ó

The fact is that on more than a few occasions, Joey Buttafuoco has slam-dunked the media.

Like the time Spillane tried to get him on the guest list of the Ford Models party at the Château Marmont the day before the 1995 Oscars. No way, said the people at Ford. So he pulls up the night of the party in a limo, jumps out, poses for pictures, jumps back in the car, and drives away. A hit-and-run photo op.

Buttafuoco spins the story: ÒI was in shorts and a flannel shirt. So I said to my driver, I said, ÔDoug, pull over. Watch these assholes come out and take my picture. Yeah, watch them all run when they recognize me.Õ So I get out of my car. They all yell and run like a bunch of jerk-offs. And sure enough, the next day in the paper, it says I tried to crash the party. It was a goof.Ó

Amy Fisher once said Òthat man took me to expensive restaurants and cheap motelsÓ -- so I ask Buttafuoco if heÕd like to have dinner at Coco Pazzo. Coco Pazzo is an expensive restaurant, a spore of New YorkÕs Tuscan hashery. But Buttafuoco is hesitant. You run into a maitre dÕ when heÕs having a bad night, and all of a sudden youÕve got attitude to deal with. Maybe he decides not to seat you. Worse yet, some postfeminist with a $500 haircut and a first-look deal at Paramount flings a glass of wine in your eyes.

But after much conversation, Spillane agrees she and Buttafuoco will meet me at Coco Pazzo. When he pulls up to the restaurant, the valetÕs mouth drops. I canÕt decide whether this is because he recognizes Buttafuoco or because heÕs wondering where heÕs going to hide that car. Buttafuoco and Spillane enter the elegant Philippe Starck-designed lobby of the Mondrian Hotel and proceed to the restaurant. Heads turn in unison. In a town where itÕs cool to pretend you donÕt recognize celebrities, this is fairly significant. The manager later tells me that a woman at the bar called Buttafuoco a Òtotal pigÓ and inquired snidely, ÒWhereÕs Mary Jo?Ó Fortunately, Buttafuoco didnÕt hear any of this.

Halfway through his bistecca Fiorentina, Buttafuoco confides whatÕs really eating him recently: He wasnÕt asked to read for a new tabloid show on E! called Mysteries & Scandals. Former Daily News gossip columnist A. J. Benza was handed the part, and Joey clearly resents it. But itÕs not as if his own film career is going absolutely nowhere: Joey Buttafuoco will appear in the new Woody Allen film Celebrity. True, itÕs only a mere snippet of Joey, excised from his considerable tabloid-TV archive. But it is a genuine cameo. Buttafuoco doesnÕt like to elaborate on this, though. I think he suspects Allen is going to make sport of him. The movie has something to do with being famous. And fame isnÕt always a beautiful thing.

IÕm driving around Canoga Park in a rented Toyota looking for Joey ButtafuocoÕs body shop. According to Cindy Adams, itÕs called PREFERRED CUSTOMERS ONLY. The location is confidential. No advertising, unlisted number. I can understand this: The shop on Long Island (which his father left to his older brother when he died) was the target of a drive-by shooting -- somebody emptied thirty rounds into the place. And Buttafuoco did tell me his clients were Òa lot of celebrities I donÕt want to mention because of their grade of character.Ó Suddenly, I spot him walking out of a garage to his Lincoln, parked across the street. He drives off. I look at the name painted on the side of the body shop. It doesnÕt say PREFERRED CUSTOMERS ONLY.

Turns out Buttafuoco doesnÕt actually own this body shop, as he has implied. But he does work there. Rick Johnson is the shopÕs owner and ButtafuocoÕs boss. He describes Buttafuoco as a model employee who Òdoes good work.Ó Johnson says heÕs been to every taping of The Joey Buttafuoco Show. HeÕs a fan. In fact, he seems fearful that once ButtafuocoÕs show is picked up by a network, heÕll have to find a replacement. John Staiti, a Bensonhurst native who wears a gold chain with a rapper-size letter J around his neck, has breakfast every morning at the local diner with Buttafuoco, who he says is a terrific co-worker and a great friend. ÒJoeyÕs just a regular guy from New York,Ó says Staiti. ÒHe doesnÕt have any movie-star attitude. I call him the Ômovie-star mechanic.Õ Ò

When the movie-star mechanic returns to the garage, he is furious. Not screaming or flailing his arms. But heÕs furious. Very. His voice is calm and measured: ÒIf you mention where I live or where the shop is, I will hunt you down and put a knife in your back.Ó A moment of high drama. Only heÕs not acting.