Home
NEW YORK – Martha Plimpton is a Player.
No, not the Charlie Sheen kind — the capital P kind, who has access to the New York's longest-standing club, a Greek Revival townhouse overlooking Gramercy Park that, since 1888, has housed The Players, a hallowed haven for actors.
There, downstairs in the red-painted Grill, chockablock among the penciled and painted portraits of Players past, is a 1951 sketch of member John Carradine, Plimpton's late grandfather.
"If he was in New York, he spent every single day in the club, usually at the bar," says Plimpton, 40, who joined in the early '90s, fresh off her fame from The Goonies, Running on Empty and Parenthood. Until 1989, when Helen Hayes was inducted, The Players was a gentlemen's club (no, not the kind Sheen is partial to). The Players' collection of theatrical memorabilia — founder Edwin Booth's 19th-century crown from Richard III, for instance — is "reserved for truly legendary people," Plimpton says. "I'm not quite there yet."
Yet, if Sunday goes her way, she'll be a notch closer. Plimpton is up for the Emmy for best lead actress in a comedy for her role as Virginia Chance, the 38-year-old house cleaner helping to rear her granddaughter in Fox's Raising Hope (Season 2 starts Tuesday, 9:30 p.m. ET/PT). She says the show's success is part funny writing, part sign of the times.
"A lot of people in this country right now are living with multiple generations under one roof, struggling to make ends meet," the sprite-sized Plimpton says. The series reflects that "in a way that's not cynical, that's not making fun of anybody." The Chances, she says, are "actually functioning pretty highly. Ultimately, that baby's still alive."
By holding a mirror to society, acting is "good for the world," Plimpton says. "When actors forget that, they're losing sight of the potential of what they can do with their work. It's not just about being famous.
"That's why we need places like this," she adds. "Not just to carry on the legacy, but to inspire."
And the performing arts are firmly woven into the club's frayed carpets and faded wallpaper. The Actors' Equity Association — "our first union" — was founded here. The pictures of boldfaced names of yore — a young Jason Robards, Jose Ferrer as Cyrano de Bergerac — are "in exactly the same place as when I first came here" as a child lunching with her grandfather on Saturdays. Plimpton loves how nothing has changed.
"I like old things," she says, standing in the musty library in a vintage-looking black-and-white shirt dress and black flats. On the Upper West Side, in the apartment she grew up in, "I live like a crazy old pack rat." No white-walled minimalism for her. "I like cluttered, old, dark-wood antiques. I like character."
She also likes her recreation retro: pool and poker. (She keeps her chips here. "They have my initials on them.") Ditto her nibbles. "I don't need artisanal cheeses," says Plimpton, sipping on Pinot Grigio and nibbling cheddar Goldfish in the Grill, which is bar-dark despite the sunny afternoon.
Ironically, the very craft the club celebrates is injecting new life into it: The Players' old-school environs makes it location-scout catnip. Today, a team from Gossip Girl, including a series director, Tate Donovan, is here eyeing the soaring ceilings, crimson-carpeted stairs and chandeliers for a party scene.
Donovan congratulates Plimpton on her nomination. She exhorts him to join the club.
Acting is "an ephemeral thing," Plimpton says. "Actors, they come and go, you know. That's why we have this."
