Spaulding Smails talks!

The scene-stealer spills the beans on Caddyshack's hard-partying cast

Ahoy, polloi! 

In my ongoing quest to interview every living Caddyshack actor in this, the film's 30th anniversary, I give you John Barmon, better known as scene-stealing, Porsche-polluting, richie-rich kid Spaulding Smails. I recently cornered Barmon at the Murray Bros. Caddyshack charity golf event at the World Golf Hall of Fame, in St. Augustine, Fla. In 1983—before the movie became a classic—Barmon quit acting. ("Not a lot of people want to hire the kid that barfed into a Porsche," he once said.) Now 50, he sells real estate in Massachusetts but remains close to several cast members, including Bill Murray.

You'll read this and like it! 

KNIGHT SCHOOLED
"I was so young, 19, and all of a sudden I'm in a movie with Chevy Chase and Bill Murray, who were at their Saturday Night Live zenith. Most of my scenes were with Ted Knight. Making a movie can be a long, boring experience. You have a lot of time to just sit and talk to people. So I got a chance to get to know Ted, and I really miss him a lot. [Knight died in 1986.] But we didn't start off on the right foot. One of the first scenes we shot was where I'm [playing golf] in the background [saying] 'double-turds!' Next time you watch that scene, look at Ted's face. He's actually pissed off because [director] Harold [Ramis] didn't tell Ted we were gonna do the 'double-turds.' Ted thought I was this young actor trying to upstage him and get attention, but Harold told me to do that."

VARMINT ENVY
"All the stuff with the gopher was put in after we shot the movie. I think [the actors] saw the gopher once. We had no idea this gopher was gonna be a major character!"

HURL JAM
"When we shot the dinner-party scene, it was like Young Actors Gone Wild. We were nuts, partying out of control. Somehow we made it to the set. Well, most of the time. So, the puking scene? Call it method acting. I did it in one take! I must have been convincing, because there was no actual vomit—you only hear the sound effect—but everyone swears you see it. Acting!"

LIFE IMITATES ART
"The movie came out in 1980. It took a long time, maybe 10 years, before I started hearing my lines back from fans. It just grew and grew, and now it's almost a cult. Dads pass [the quotes] on to their sons. Sons pass it on to their younger brothers and friends. You can't go to a course and not hear something from the movie. Once I was at a course, at the snack bar to get a soda. In front of me, some guy says, 'I want a hamburger! No, a cheeseburger! I want a hot dog...' And the other guy says, 'You'll get nothing and like it!' I said, 'You're quoting my lines. I'm Spaulding.' They said, 'Shut up! That wasn't you.' They didn't believe me!" 

LINE O' THE TIMES
"That's the line I hear most—'You'll get nothing and like it!'—and it's not even my line. Ted says it to Spaulding at the snack bar. I think I have about 16 words in the whole movie, but I did well—very few of my lines got cut. They were very kind to me. Do I get tired of talking about Caddyshack? No. No way. Thirty years later—wow, 30 years went by so fast!—it's still this amazing project that was so cool to be a part of. I'm proud of it."