1987. New York. Rain. A trash-strewn alley. A woman sobs. Her handbag is gone, her necklace is gone, but worst of all, the watch her grandmother gave her is gone.
A man screams in fear and pain. There is a cry of ‘take it man, take it. Just don’t hurt me.’ Footsteps as the mugger runs as fast as he can.
From out of the dark steps a black-clad man, the rain beating off his helmet. He hands the distraught woman her necklace, handbag and, miraculously, her grandmother’s watch.
That man was Police Academy 2’s Steve Guttenberg, and in 1987, he was New York’s real-life masked crusader.
“He gave me back my stuff and went – ‘you should watch this’ – I mean, I see what he was trying to do, but it wasn’t really that funny,” remembers the woman
“I was really grateful though.”
Steve explains how he fell into masked vigilantism in his mildly comical autobiography – The Guttenberg Bible.
“I guess I just wanted to give something back,” he says
Steve had been riding high on his performances in Three Men and A Baby and the Police Academy films. He had Hollywood at his feet, but it wasn’t enough for him.
“Making films, I guess it was fine for people like Meryl Streep and Dustin Hoffman, but I needed more. I needed to fight crime.
“And cheer victims up with a funny line as I helped them.
“New York at that time? Well, it was Hell. It was riddled with crime. Vicars were mugging nuns. Cats were smoking crack. Insider trading was rife. Something needed to be done, and I guess I was the guy to do it.”
Dressed in a black body-suit and impressive helmet. For nearly a year Steve battled the criminals and, with quips like ‘make your next mugging a mug in a café’ made people sort of chuckle a bit.
“Hero? Yeah, I guess I was a hero. That’s what they called me anyway.”
However, it couldn’t last.
“Ed Koch, man. That guy hated me. I guess he just wanted to be the big man in New York and couldn’t handle that me; Steve Guttenberg was doing a better job at keeping his city crime free and its citizens mildly amused than he was.”
On December 3rd 1987, the New York Police arrested Steve Guttenberg for costumed vigilantism.
“I spent three nights in the can, then Koch let me free. He just wanted me to know who ran his city. I made a crack about his surname, you could tell people wanted to laugh but they were holding it in.”
Steve left New York shortly afterwards.
“I don’t know, I guess it just wasn’t my city any more. But, as I was getting on the train, an old man stopped me, shook my hand, and said ‘Thank you Steve,’ did that make it better? Not really. But it was nice.”
Shortly afterwards Steve relocated to California where ever since there has been rumours amongst criminals of a quite funny guy in costume foiling crimes.
Was it Steve Guttenberg? No one knows and Steve certainly isn’t saying.
Be the first to comment