The Legend of Lazlo

This transcript is from an interview broadcast on NPR in 1987. [Editor's comments in brackets.]

HARRY GROSS: Good evening. This is Harry Gross, welcoming you to another evening of Fresh Air. Tonight, our guest is Chuck of Arabia.

Chuck claims to be a fairly normal inventor at a large audio equipment manufacturer. But in 1972, Chuck lived in the tunnels beneath Caltech's student dormitories. Soon thereafter, he moved into the misty realm of Caltech legend, where he apparently still lives today.

His legend played a central role in a recent movie about Caltech, called "Real Genius". The movie was directed by Martha Coolidge and starred Val Kilmer. In the movie, a burned-out misfit named Lazlo Hollyfeld lives in the tunnels beneath a student dorm, easily recognized as Dabney House. He has been around "since the seventies", but no one talks to him, or even knows who he is. We also meet laser designer Chris Knight, a fun-loving but cynical senior, and his roommate Mitch Taylor, a painfully naive fifteen year old prodigy. We later learn that Lazlo, Mitch, and Chris are among the ten smartest guys in the country.

Chris and Mitch work in the laser labs of evil professor Jerry Hathaway. Chris invents the perfect mega-laser. But Lazlo proves to him that Hathaway has a plan to turn it into a weapon. Many years earlier, Lazlo too was used by an unscrupulous professor. When he learned that his ideas had been used to kill people, Lazlo cracked up, dropped out, and went underground. The three conspire to do something to avenge Hathaway's betrayal. At the end of the movie, Lazlo, Chris and Mitch manage to destroy both the super-weapon and Hathaway's career. In the process, Lazlo's psyche is purged, and he can finally leave the tunnels and return to the world.

Last month, I spoke with Neal Israel, one of the screenplay writers of "Real Genius". I learned that the Lazlo Hollyfeld character is based on the legend of an actual Caltech student. We tracked down that legend, and at the end of the track we found Chuck of Arabia.

Tonight, we've invited Chuck to tell his side of the story. Good evening, Chuck, and thank you for joining us.

First of all, do you agree that Lazlo Hollyfeld is really you?

CHUCK: Good evening, Harry, and thank you for having me here.

I can't say for sure that Lazlo is really me. I've never spoken with any of the people who wrote the screenplay or made the movie. But when I first saw the movie, I recall thinking to myself "Uh, oh! That's me!"

There are bits and pieces from other Caltech legends mixed in, too. Lazlo was really a composite character. Parts of him came from other Caltech students, while other parts were just the writer's imagination.

Let me give you some examples. In the movie, Lazlo wins a third of the prizes in a big sweepstakes, by "entering as often as you want." This is clearly a reference to a prank a group of students pulled off back in 1975. The details can be found in the book "Legends of Caltech" [on page 71]. The book gave credit to three Page [House] dudes [Steve Klein, Dave Novikoff, and Barry Megdal], so they can all make valid claims to being Lazlo.

Also, there was a perennial misfit named Dave Weinshenker in Dabney. Dave hung around the Caltech campus for years, even taking a custodial job there. He was the quintessential "ghost", always hanging around, with no place to go. He was always pestering newcomers, because no one who knew him would talk to him. I think Weinshenker is an important component of Lazlo's character. He's the part that's friendless, dirty, and pathetic - the archetypal homeless person. [As a post script, Chuck recently visited a friend in Oakland, and was surprised to learn that Mr Weinshenker had taken up residence there, in the living room closet!]

The parts of Lazlo that I think are based on me are: that he lived in the student house tunnels, had been around longer than anyone can remember, was rather reclusive, that he was really smart and really screwed up, and that in the end he got better, and left with the girl of his dreams. While the sweepstakes prank was mere window dressing for Lazlo's life, these traits are all central to his story.

Taken in isolation, none of these traits is unique except the tunnel thing. Lots of Caltech students are really smart, reclusive, or screwed up. It's common for undergraduates to keep hanging around at Tech after they graduate, though I'm somewhat infamous in that regard, having taken ten years to graduate. So it's the combination of all these traits that gives me the best claim on being Lazlo. The parallels are pretty convincing.

And as far as I know, no other student has ever actually lived in the Caltech tunnels.

HARRY: Lazlo seemed to live in a dorm room closet. Is that how you got in and out of the tunnels?

CHUCK: No, that's just Hollywood's imagination. There was a solid concrete slab between the tunnels and any dorm room, so it would have been impossible. The dorm closets had access to a vast tract of "hyperspace", in the walls and above the ceilings of normal space, which was pretty cool. But the tunnels I lived in could only be accessed from the utility rooms in the basement, or from the main campus steam tunnels.

The Caltech campus is completely riddled with tunnels and crawl spaces. When I first heard of them, I resolved to explore them all. I was also a pretty good locksmith in those days, so I had a complete set of master keys, which helped a lot. There were lots of good places to live.

HARRY: How does it feel to be immortalized in a mainstream Hollywood movie?

CHUCK: Well, it's certainly no big deal. I mean, I didn't get any money. I didn't even make it into the credits. They naturally claimed that all the characters were fictitious.

[The movie "Real Genius" ends with the following disclaimer: "The persons and events portrayed in this production are fictitious. No similarity to actual persons, living or dead, is intended or should be inferred." This seems ingenuous. We would have preferred "partially fictitious".]

On the other hand, I'm not sure I'd want any official credit. There's not much cachet in being credited as an official loony genius. I can't imagine ever getting a job offer if I mentioned it on my resume.

So, from a practical point of view, it means nothing. Mostly, it's just an ego boost. It's nice to think that something about me inspires people's imaginations.

HARRY: Are there aspects of Lazlo's personality that you don't share at all?

CHUCK: I think the Weinshenker traits are totally inconsistent with who I am. I like to think I'm a pretty well-adjusted guy, at least for a Techer. I don't think I struck my fellow students as untouchable or seriously maladjusted.

The part about Lazlo losing his marbles in an ethical crisis also seems way off. Lazlo's schizoid breakdown doesn't really reflect the events in my life, or anyone else's that I can think of.

HARRY: I'm sure you realize that most people consider living in a tunnel pretty unusual. Why did you do it?

CHUCK: That was a long time ago. I'm not sure I remember why I did it. It just seemed like a good idea at the time. I remember my mother was appalled when she found out, and begged me to rent an apartment at her expense. But I'd already moved in, and I actually liked it there.

When I arrived at Tech in the fall of 1971, the housing office still had me listed as "off campus". During the fall term, I lived in the Dabney-Blacker basement. There were some rooms that had been used by the housekeepers at one time. When the admissions office increased the size of the freshman class, they ran short of rooms, and sent some of the on-campus wannabees down there until attrition opened up some more rooms in Dabney House. The basement rooms were not very pleasant. They were drafty, dirty, ugly, and out of the social mainstream. At the start of the winter term, I finally got on campus, in a double-occupancy room in Dabney House proper. I liked my roommate as a friend, but I found out that I didn't like having to share my personal space. I think that was a big factor in my wanting to live in the tunnels, to get more privacy and more room.

Also, I was undergoing a massive reassessment of my conservative suburban values at the time. I think living in the tunnels appealed to my desire to throw away the rule book and try crazy things. I did a lot of crazy things in those days!

So at the beginning of spring term, I found a room I liked in the tunnels and moved in.

HARRY: I'm having difficulty imagining what it might be like living in a tunnel. Could you describe your living arrangements?

CHUCK: Well, it was really a room at the end of a maze of tunnels. The room itself was only notable for being very obscure. It was at the end of a tortuous path, and had never been used. From the basement under the old student houses, you could enter a storage room which led directly to the main campus steam tunnels. To either side of that room were smaller rooms, containing student property and junk. Since students would leave this stuff in easily accessible rooms, the rooms deeper in the maze were unused. We called it "the infinite storeroom." I simply searched for the most inaccessible, unused room in the maze, and occupied it.

The room itself was about ten by twenty feet, with an entry way at one end. It was divided by a foot-high concrete ledge. It had concrete walls and ceiling, but the floor was dirt. Two large drain pipes bisected the room at heights of four and five feet, so walking was a bit restricted.

There was a light socket in the center of the ceiling. I plugged an extension cord into it, leading to an outlet strip on the floor. I borrowed some fluorescent lights and some desk lamps from a nearby storage room to light the room. I also furnished it, with two desks, two dressers, two beds, and some bookshelves, all borrowed. It was fairly cozy.

Finally, I applied some sleight of hand to make the room disappear from the normal universe. I simply put a piece of ratty plywood over the doorway. From outside my room, it just looked like a piece of wood resting against the wall. Since the room had never been used, there were very few people who knew there had once been a room there, so the illusion was quite effective.

HARRY: How long did you live there?

CHUCK: From March through August, if I remember correctly, so ... [counting under his breath] about six months total. I was fortunate to have an opportunity to move in with a group of ten students who were forming a new on-campus co-op, at just the time when I had to leave. I only stayed at the co-op for one term. Then I dropped out and moved to a black ghetto in Chicago.

HARRY: What was it like to live underground? Do you recall any special problems or benefits?

CHUCK: On the plus side, I had all the peace and solitude you could hope for. I had no roommates, lots of room, and no neighbors yelling to keep it quiet after hours. It was also close to all my friends in Dabney. I probably wouldn't have spent much time with them if I'd been living off campus.

There were plenty of problems, though. For one thing, it was absolutely dark when the lights were out, and absolutely silent. You felt kind of cut off there, like it was another world. I remember waking up one day, going to class, and finding no one there. It took me a while to discover that I had slept for thirty hours, and arrived a whole day late! [Laughs] After that, I bought an alarm clock. It kept my schedule from going haywire.

Another problem was ants. A few weeks after I moved in, my room was invaded. I located their entrance and exit holes and caulked them, but they found more holes. I tried to crush them all, but they kept coming. Then, one day, they just disappeared. Go figure.

The worst problem by far, though, was humidity. The water pipes in the tunnels were old, and tended to spring leaks. I would call B&G [Building and Grounds staff] to report the leak, but it often took weeks for them to get around to fixing it. In the meantime, the dirt below the leak got totally saturated with water, and with no air circulation, the tunnel's relative humidity approached 100%.

One consequence was that it began to rain every night in my room. When I exhaled, the air became supersaturated from the water in my breath. The water then condensed on the coolest wall of the room. My stuff got drenched! You'd be amazed how much water you exhale during one night's sleep.

The humidity began to affect my vision, too. I remember that usually when I woke up and turned on the lights, they all had these huge bright rainbows around them. It was beautiful! After half an hour in the normal world, the effect disappeared. I'd love to read a study on why that happened. I've never seen anyone report on it, though.

The worst effect of the humidity was mold. After four months, all of my books had gotten white and fuzzy. That was really awful.

HARRY: Is that why you moved out?

CHUCK: Not at all. I simply resolved to pour a concrete floor for the room, and add a dehumidifier. I removed all of the furniture from the room. I rented a pickup truck, a wheel barrow, and a cement mixer. Then, one Sunday in August, I filled the truck bed with sand, gravel, and bags of cement, and parked it in the tiny Dabney-Blacker parking lot. I erected a series of planks so I could roll wheelbarrows full of wet concrete from the parking lot to my room. Then I started the cement mixer, made a batch of concrete, and started wheeling it through the tunnels to my room.

Unfortunately, the parking lot was not as empty as I had hoped it would be. Bob Gang, Caltech's manager of student housing, drove in while my cement mixer was churning away. Scenting a rat, he waited for me to emerge into the daylight, and busted me. I explained that I was improving his real estate. He was unmoved. He told me to call Dave Smith immediately.

Dave Smith was a Caltech professor. He had volunteered to act as the Master of Student Housing, the liaison between the faculty and the students. I guess Caltech thought it was better for students to be disciplined by academics than by bureaucrats. From a student perspective, Dave Smith was the judge, jury, and executioner.

I called Dr. Smith. He informed me that he already knew of my shenanigans. Shortly after I moved all my furniture into the adjoining room, a B&G troll had apparently been assigned to replace all the burned out bulbs in the infinite storeroom. When he saw my stuff, a burned-out bulb must have gone off in his head. He told his boss, who told his boss, who took a look for himself. After a flurry of conferences and phone calls, he would have concluded, "Something unusual is going on here, and something must be done about it." So he called Dr. Smith, who was empowered to Do Things. And what he did was evict me.

I later heard a story which provides a humorous post script. Apparently, Mr. Gang was getting married the day he discovered my cement mixer! The only reason he caught me was that he had forgotten to pack his bathrobe and toothbrush, or some such, from his room in the Dabney-Blacker basement. I can just see him pulling into the parking lot, doing a double take, and saying to himself, "Oh, God, not another one! Not today, of all days!"

Mr Gang probably features prominently in the creation of the legend of Lazlo. In 1980, when I returned to the student houses to finish my degree, I spoke with Mr Gang. He remembered me quite well, and mentioned that he was quite fond of telling the story of the student who had set up house in the tunnels. I imagine the writers of "Real Genius" encountered his version of the story. I imagine them inquiring, "So tell us, Bob, are there any really ODD things that your students have done over the years?" He would have replied, "Well, there was this one kid who I caught living in the campus tunnels. He'd furnished himself quite a cozy little apartment in an underground cavern!"

HARRY: Keeping your room a secret for six months is an impressive feat. In retrospect, don't you think the concrete floor was a pretty risky project?

CHUCK: In a way, yes. Even in the summer, when the residences were empty, there was always some activity there. But remember, the room wasn't a secret from everyone, just from the campus administration. Lots of students knew I lived in the tunnels, and maybe ten students had even seen my room. So I wasn't worried about being discovered, except by Mr. Gang or the custodians.

And the price of getting caught wasn't really that high. Sure I got evicted, but without the concrete floor, the room was unlivable. It was eating my books! I mean, without books, life itself becomes impossible!

HARRY: Why do you think your story became a legend at Caltech?

CHUCK: It's hard to say. My speculation is probably no more accurate than yours or anyone else's. But since you asked me, and I'm a natural born speculator, I'll take a stab at it.

You might call this the Joseph Campbell explanation.

Looking through Legends of Caltech, there are some common themes. One important theme is the amazing eccentricity of Techers. My story certainly reflects plenty of eccentricity, of a sort not often seen there. I think everyone is fascinated by the archetype of the eccentric genius. The legends and the movie both try to answer the question, "What would an Einstein be like, if you met him as a college student?"

Second, I think the fact that I continued visiting Dabney off and on for twelve years enhanced the legend-making process. There was a natural tendency for new arrivals to notice me lurking about, and ask "Who is that guy? What's he doing here?" The answers were doubtless often ill-informed and contradictory, and would therefore lead to a generalized sense of mystery surrounding me. Eventually, the more fanciful legends would become entrenched, and displace the meager supply of reliable data.

Lastly, at some point I started passing myself off to new Darbs [Dabney House residents] as the Old Druid or Ancient One. Each year at the Freshman Initiation, I was the guy who told the stories of daring-do from the distant days when men were men, and giants walked the earth. I felt that was a very important role to play. Dabney House is steeped in tradition, which adds a lot to the experience of going to Caltech. As the embodiment of that tradition, and the keeper of the oral history, I assumed a place of honor and respect. You may remember, in the movie, Chris spoke of Lazlo in reverential terms. And people expect Old Druids to be a little crazy.

HARRY: Just one more question. Why are you coming out of the shadows now, fifteen years after you moved out of your room in the tunnels?

CHUCK: It's sort of a confluence of mystical forces. I first obtained a copy of "Legends of Caltech" just a few months ago, in a spasm of nostalgia. I was sad to see that none of my exploits had been included. Then, last month, a new employee at work told me he had seen "Real Genius" the previous evening, had really enjoyed it, and was wondering whether it was true that the movie depicted Caltech. A few days later, another coworker did the same. When you called, my reaction was "Okay, inquiring minds want to know," so here I am. Timing is everything.

And now, the true story of Lazlo Hollyfeld has at last been told. But personally, I like the legends better.