STEVEN BAUER WALKS THE DRUG WORLD'S DARK SIDE - AGAIN
Ever since starring six years ago as
goon drug dealer Manny Rivera in Brian De Palma's gory Scarface, actor
Steven Bauer's onscreen persona has sometimes threatened to overtake
him. "Without really wanting to be, I was embraced," he says. "Almost
every day of my life since that film, I've had to run from urban drug
dealers. I'm a hero to them. 'Hey, Manny, where's the stuff?'
It was an entry into that world. It gave me a membership card."
Beginning this week on NBC, Bauer,
33, will finally be able to break out of that sordid typecasting, thanks
to his starring role as slain drug enforcement agent Kiki Camarena in
NBC's Drug Wars: The Camarena Story, a three-part miniseries about
the life of the U.S. agent whose murder in Mexico became a rallying point
in this country's war on narcotics.
Camarena's 1985 torture and execution
at the hands of drug traffickers and corrupt Mexican police was notorious
not only for its barbarity, but also for its disturbing aftermath:
There have been allegations of obstruction of justice within Mexico's
government, which only last month convicted and sentenced drug lord Rafael
Caro Quintero to 40 years in prison for masterminding the murder.
"Kiki had the guts to go after the
big guys," says the Cuban-born Bauer. "He grew up in the streets
of Calexico with an insight that I didn't have until I went into the
drug culture." Admitting his own one-time flirtation with cocaine,
Bauer says that "I was carelessly casual about it. It was as natural
as the ingestion of liquor. But it hurt me in more than a few ways.
I behaved irresponsibly when I should have been professional."
Bauer's version of events is corroborated
by his first wife, actress Melanie Griffith, who as a 24-year-old married
Bauer in 1982, five years after her first marriage to actor Don Johnson
fizzled. "We were wild," she says, "but it was more me than him.
He was doing it too, but he didn't have a problem with it. He
tried to get me not to do drugs."
These days, Bauer is clearly on the
right side of the law, to the point that, during research for his role
as Camarena, he accompanied undercover DEA agents to a nighttime rendezvous
with two Mexican drug dealers. "It went much further than [executive
producer] Michael Mann or I expected," says Bauer, who watched helplessly
as the dealers reached for their guns at one point. "I was scared
to death."
In fact, for most of his life the drug
underworld was largely foreign turf to Bauer, the elder son of a Cuban
pilot and his schoolteacher wife who fled Castro's revolution for Miami
with their two boys when Steven was 3. After Scarface he sometimes
found himself "surrounded by drug dealers - the vampires. But
I never saw that side of life until I was in my 20s. I was from the
suburbs. Still, the darker side held a real fascination, experimenting
with drugs or just associating with those people."
Born Esteban Echevarria (later changed
"because it was a real albatross. It immediately said, 'I am
different. I'm not an American'"), Bauer soaked up U.S. culture
- and an early interest in acting - from the movies. After parts
in college theater and a handful of TV roles, he found himself cast in
a 1981 made-for-TV movie, She's in the Army Now, starring Griffith, whom
he had admired since her mid-'70s appearances in Night Moves and The Drowning
Pool.
"We just started spending time together
on the set," says Bauer. "It was pretty quick. I moved into
her place in Malibu." That year the two headed for New York City
to study with renowned drama coach Stella Adler but finally came to the
conclusion that their professional future lay west after all. On
his way to catch a plane back to L.A., Bauer received the providential
call from his agent that eventually led to his success as Manny Rivera in
Scarface. At the time, "I had $8 or $9 in my pocket," he recalls.
"Total."
Though hailed by critics and audiences
for his Scarface role, Bauer's career soon nose-dived after his lead
in the 1984 clinker Thief of Hearts. "People start looking at you
like, 'Maybe it was HIM,'" says the actor, whose two-year marriage to Griffith
was also beginning to crumble. "We didn't really belong together.
There were just too many differences," says Bauer. "We had one purpose
together, I guess, and that was to bring [now 4-year-old son] Alexander
into the world."
"It was tough when Steven and I broke
up," says Melanie. "But we get along great now. He's a wonderful
dad. He and Alexander love each other and spend as much time
together as they can."
Bauer's parental duties should expand
considerably this May, when he and his wife of six months, former model
Ingrid Anderson, 28, expect the birth of their first child. In
the meantime, now that his personal life is in good order, Bauer hopes
that his role as Camarena will resurrect his acting fortunes. "I
think Drug Wars will help get my career back on track because of the power
of television - and the power of this film," he says.
If audience reaction from one potentially
tough critic is any indication, that may not just be hyperbole.
"In the movie, corruption is exposed," says Kiki's sister Myra, now a
DEA office worker in the California border town of San Ysidro. "It's
as if there's a reason for everything. Kiki would have been glad that
all this is happening because of him."
By JOANNE KAUFMAN, TOM CUNNEFF in Los Angeles
The caption with the photo of Steven Bauer and his wife:
Steven "treats everyone in a very special way," says wife Ingrid.
"There are no airs about him."
The caption with the photo of him alone:
"Kiki had courage and conviction," says Bauer, "and I'm drawn
to heroes at this point in my life."
