Back in 1990, when Macaulay Culkin was the biggest star on the planet and fans idly mused, “I wonder what will become of that adorable blond 10-year-old in 20 years?,” it’s unlikely that anyone pictured this.
Yet there was the former “Home Alone” star Friday night in Brooklyn, kicking off a nationwide tour with his new project, a pizza-themed Velvet Underground cover band called the Pizza Underground.
You read that right. It is a band. That plays covers of Velvet Underground songs. But changes the lyrics to be about pizza.
The Pizza Underground was created in February 2012 by Phoebe Kreutz, Matt Colbourn and Deenah Vollmer, musicians in the East Village’s “anti-folk” scene.
“This began as something that we were playing around with on tour just to pass the time on trains,” Kreutz told New York magazine’s online Vulture section.
Culkin, now 33, heard about the group a few months ago through a mutual friend and asked to join.
The band recorded a medley of parody tunes, including “All the Pizza Parties,” “I’m Waiting on the Delivery Man” and “Pizza Gal” (instead of “Femme Fatale”). The lyrics to that last one go, “She’s a pizza gal. Everybody knows the things she likes to eat, sausages and cheese.”
“It’s lighthearted for sure,” the band’s manager, Jake Bernstein, tells The Post. “I don’t think it’s a joke-joke, but it’s something to take with a grain of salt. They’re looking forward to playing art galleries. They’re not looking to headline Bowery Ballroom.”
The weekend show at Brooklyn Night Bazaar only ran about 20 minutes, including an opening video projection showing each of the band members munching on a slice.
Much of the packed crowd seemed to be driven by one thing: curiosity.
“I can’t imagine that this is actually a thing, so I’m here to see if it’s real,” says Amanda Citarella, 26, of Park Slope.
“It’s nostalgia for me,” says Rebecca Mehlman, 30, a former music industry employee. “We grew up with Macaulay Culkin. He’s obviously had some issues, so it’s cool to see him out and pursuing his passion beyond acting.”
Others in attendance were less enthused. About five minutes into the band’s set, the crowd thinned noticeably.
“I thought it was an interesting experiment. ‘Gimmick’ is too strong a term,” says Brad Pfeifer, 31, a Bushwick musician. “I was hoping that all this was going to be a buildup to the best band you’ve ever seen, but they didn’t exactly deliver on that.”
Disappointing or not, seeing Culkin perform in any capacity has proved a rarity in recent years. He went from being one of the most visible children on the planet to one of the most invisible adults.
When he has made headlines, they’ve mostly involved romantic breakups or, most troubling, allegations of drug use.
In 2012, the National Enquirer published pap shots of Culkin walking on a New York City street, looking skeletal and unwell. The cover claimed the actor was hooked on heroin and had six months to live. He’d allegedly turned to drugs and pills after getting dumped by actress Mila Kunis, whom he’d dated for eight years. Culkin’s rep denied the charge.
The photos shocked those who only remembered Culkin as the adorable kid from the “Home Alone” films.
Culkin was born in New York City in 1980, the third of seven children. Legend has it he performed in his first off-Broadway show at age 4. He also appeared in a number of commercials — his blond hair and cherubic face proving irresistible to directors.
In 1989, Culkin landed the role of John Candy’s nephew in “Uncle Buck.” The next year, he’d star in “Home Alone,” the highest-grossing movie of the year.
His father, Kit, served as his manager, quickly earning a reputation as a tough bargainer. He once threatened to pull his son from a “Home Alone” sequel if Mac and his sister, Quinn, weren’t given roles in another movie.
A few more films, including 1994’s “Richie Rich,” for which Kit had negotiated his son an $8 million salary, followed. None made much of an impact, and by 1994, Mac was done. At 14, he no longer possessed the cute, cuddly looks that had driven his career.
Then he mostly vanished for nine years, resurfacing in 2003 to play Michael Alig in “Party Monster,” about the infamous Limelight nightclub murder. The reviews were good, but Culkin later admitted he wasn’t sure where he belonged in show business anymore: “I don’t know what people want from me,” he told Time. “I’m the most out-of-work actor I know.”
But at least he had money. The actor’s fortune, which is estimated at around $17 million, was won in a late-1990s court battle against his parents (who were divorcing and locked in a bitter custody dispute amid allegations of abuse and excessive drinking on Kit’s part).
In March 1998, a Manhattan judge fired Culkin’s father and put the family accountant in charge of the money until the former child star turned 18 in August. Mac was essentially free.
“I did 14 movies in six years, and I was just at this point where I really wanted to take a break,” he told Larry King in 2004. “When I was put in a position where I could take control of my own life and my own destiny, and make decisions that were solely for my benefit and not for anyone else to make money on or anything like that, I did. I jumped in there and I said, ‘I’m retired.’ ”
The dispute soured the relationship between the actor and his father, and the two reportedly broke off all contact. (Earlier this month, Kit had a stroke and is near death in Oregon; Macaulay apparently has no plans to reconnect with his father.)
He continued to live with his mother, Patricia Brentrup, and siblings, sleeping on a cot in the living room in a reportedly poorly maintained West 60th Street apartment until 1998, when Culkin married actress Rachel Miner.
The couple moved into a $1.725 million, 5,200-square-foot loft near East Fourth Street. They split in 2000, reportedly over Culkin’s reluctance to start a family, but Mac still lives there.
The digs are modeled after Tom Hanks’ apartment from the movie “Big,” about a young boy who magically gets trapped in an adult’s body. The living room is Nintendo-themed.
The actor has said he lives in perpetual childhood, just like another famous star, Michael Jackson, with whom Culkin was close.
“We had very similar experiences in childhood,” Culkin said in 2001. “Michael’s still a kid. I’m still a kid. We’re both going to be about 8 years old forever in some places because we never had a chance to be 8 when we actually were. That’s kind of the beautiful and the cursed part of our lives.”
Cursed, indeed. The Peter Pan syndrome seems to alienate Culkin from some.
“I’ve led a very isolated existence since I was 6 years old,” the actor told Time. “It’s kind of been me and my mind. I hope people don’t think I’m crazy, because I’m not.”
Lately, Culkin’s social life and energy have been directed not at acting, but at art. He’s part of a three-man collective called 3MB that operates out of his apartment. It’s named after the 1980s film “Three Men and a Baby,” and creates work steeped in pop culture. Other members include Adam Green and Toby Goodshank, both formerly of the Moldy Peaches.
In September, the group held a show called “Leisure Inferno” at Le Poisson Rouge, the Bleecker Street club/art space where Culkin had a monthly deejay residency. One painting showed the cast of “Seinfeld” standing nude against a “Wheel of Fortune” backdrop as He-Man sketched them.
Culkin also appeared in a surreal iPhone-shot film by Green called “The Wrong Ferarri, A Screwball Tragedy.” Watch it on YouTube, if for no other reason than to see Culkin’s apartment.
Mac also appears to have a new squeeze. In November, he was spotted kissing “All My Children” actress Jordan Lane Price in Paris, looking happy and healthy.
He may never again achieve the stardom he had when he was 10, but Culkin may not care.
“I think he’s so widely misunderstood. I think we’ve gotten used to a cycle with our child actors,” friend Seth Green said last year on the Marc Maron podcast. “The thing people don’t understand about Mac is, he’s still got money. He doesn’t care what anyone thinks about him. He’s really just the most remarkably well-adjusted person I’ve ever met.”