In San Francisco, The Bartenders Are Still Stars

This is the story of how John Harris got his SAG card. And he owes it all to the Zodiac killer.

Most of us may know that all non-union actors -- usually without exception -- would kill, if you will, to become a member of the Screen Actors Guild. A SAG card is tough to obtain. It's one of those conundrums of real life, that is, you can't get a SAG card without nailing a speaking part, and you almost never get a speaking part without a SAG card.

But John Harris, who's been the convivial, adept, and astute daytime barman at Original Joe's for 19 years, has always had a knack for being at the right place at the right time. Original Joe's, at 144 Taylor Street, is still the jewel of the Tenderloin. It still drips with history, and flows with rivers of marinara sauce. The waiters, some of whom are old enough to have placed bets on seabiscuit, still serve copious plates of stratospherically-caloric Italian fare. The menu, under the watchful eye of owner Marie Duggan, continues to defy all the vagaries of food fashions that come and go over the years. It's truly a fixed point in an ever-changing world.

"My God," said actor Joe Bologna, when I took him there for lunch one day, "the waiters are wearing tuxedos! This is like The Godfather." Jim Belushi always takes the same red leather booth when he's in town.

Joe's still draws cops, and lawyers, reporters, and local characters -- the few that are left in San Francisco. Jack Beamis turned to Bob Mulcrevy at the bar the other day. "Why is it they never tell us that an era is ending?" Jack mused aloud. "That's what I want to know." I figure if we're still around to ask, the era hasn't quite ended yet.

And that brings us to the era of the Zodiac killer who terrorized San Francisco and the whole Bay are in the late 1960s. He was named for the letters that he brazenly mailed to the police and to the Chronicle that included coded messages and astrological signs. It's unclear just how many victims the Zodiac had murdered -- many in lover's lanes -- and with no apparent pattern. He was never caught. But author Robert Graysmith named a suspect, who is now thought to be dead. Graysmith's book, <italic>Zodiac, </italic>has now been made into a movie,
directed by David Fincher, and set for release early next year. A crucial scene takes place in Original Joe's.

"Joe's is really a character in the movie -- and rightly so," Harris says. This place was always a hangout for the homicide cops who were working the case -- Dave Toschi, Carl Klotz, and Frankie Falzon. This was like headquarters." Weirdly, there were stories circulating that the Zodiac himself would come to the restaurant, just to observe the cops close-up. In a scene with Jake Gyllenhaal as Graysmith and Chloe Sevigny as his girlfriend, Melanie, John was fitted for a waiter's uniform, and given a few lines to say in the movie.

Experienced actors immediately complained. You see, they were only extras -- background, as they say these days. -- and as silent as pepper shakers. Afterwards, on the advice of a friend, John decided to go for his SAG card -- and got it. John Harris suddenly had more enemies than the Zodiac. "All these actors are really mad at me," he says, "I mean really mad."

But John Harris cannot be John Harris in the movies. There's already a
SAG member named John Harris. And there's a Jack Harris. So John decided to use his nickname that, believe it or not, he picked up while working for U.S. Army intelligence in his youth. It's McShadow. Meet Jack McShadow.

"I never really wanted to be an actor," Harris aka McShadow explains, "but you never know. In my retirement I could play the guy lying in a coffin or drunk number three at the bar." Oddly, John was in a bar in the Richmond District in 1969 where a real life Zodiac suspect was arrested by what looked like a whole division of police officers. He was the wrong man. After all these years, the Zodiac is still playing a role in the life of actor John Harris.

Jack Beamis, who's fond of asking philosophical questions, might wonder, "Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?" McShadow
knows.

Bruce Bellingham is the author of "Bellingham by the Bay" and is the Arts & Entertainment editor of Northside. His e-mail is bruce@northsidesf.com