If you have ever seen the movie The Room, you can’t help but laugh. As one blogger wrote, it consists of a “confusingly constructed plot-line, massive inconsistencies, and awkward performances.” It is the fact that it was meant to be a serious drama that makes it cringeworthy, and yet there is an element of sincerity that makes you watch until the end. While The Room is certainly not the only bad film ever made, what sets it apart from the others is the mystery surrounding Tommy Wiseau, the film’s writer, producer, director and star. With long brown hair and sporting multiple belts, he remains an enigma.
It remains unclear when or where Tommy Wiseau was born. He once alluded to growing up in France and being born in either 1968 or 1969. But the 2016 documentary Room Full of Spoons discloses that Wiseau was born in Poznan, Poland in 1955. As a young adult he moved to Strasbourg, France where he worked as a restaurant dishwasher. Traumatized after being wrongfully arrested during a drug raid, Wiseau moved to the United States and purportedly lived with an aunt and uncle in Chalmette, Louisiana before eventually moving to San Francisco. He found work as a street vendor selling toy birds to tourists at Fisherman’s Wharf[1], getting the nickname “Birdman”. When he became a US Citizen he legally changed his name to Thomas Pierre Wiseau, choosing his last name because it sounds like oiseau, the French word for bird. He eventually established a business called Street Fashions USA that sold irregular jeans at discount prices, ultimately buying large retail spaces in both San Francisco and Los Angeles. He still owns the building at 555 Beach Street at Fisherman’s Wharf where his flagship San Francisco storefront was located. It is not disputed that Wiseau is wealthy; however, how he obtained his fortune remains a mystery. Some say he is self-made, though others have alluded to drug dealing, money laundering, or wealthy family connections.
Wiseau says that after a near-fatal car crash that left him hospitalized for several weeks he decided to pursue his dream of making it in Hollywood. In the late 1980s he began taking acting classes and directing student films under the tutelage of Vincent Chase. Wiseau met aspiring actor Greg Sestero and the two became roommates and close friends. In 2003 Wiseau wrote, produced, directed and starred in The Room. Set in San Francisco, the story is about a love triangle between a banker (Wiseau), his fiancee (played by Juliette Danielle) and his best friend (Sestero). Released in a limited number of California theaters, reviews of the film were so bad that it quickly disappeared.
The following year Wiseau produced and appeared in a short documentary called Homeless in America. This film was more favorably reviewed. He would go on to appear in several B-movies. In 2008 he produced and appeared in a TV series called The Neighbors. In 2011 he appeared on a YouTube series called Tommy Explains It All. Throughout his movie-making career Wiseau continued to maintain a website that sells contemporary streetwear[2].
The Room should have drifted away into obscurity; however, in 2013 Sestero wrote The Disaster Artist about the making of the film and his relationship with Wiseau. In 2017 The Disaster Artist was made into a film, thrusting both Wiseau and Sestero back into the spotlight. Wiseau makes a cameo appearance in a post-credits scene. The Room was rereleased in movie theaters around the world and, with Wiseau and Sestero appearing for Q&A sessions after the screenings, gained cult status. Similar to The Rocky Horror Picture Show, patrons come dressed as the film’s characters and shout out dialogue. Mind you, it still has a 26% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, but it made Wiseau and Sestero stars.
In 2017 Sestero and Wiseau reunited for the movie Best F(r)iends, written and produced by Sestero. Their third film together, Big Shark (about firefighters who must save New Orleans) has yet to be released.
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[1] Fisherman’s Wharf: https://thesanfranciscophoenix.com?p=4431 [2] Visit www.tommywiseau.com
