Dropped Names (16 page)

I
walked back out into the beautiful D.C. day, and got into the car. It was during the ride back to New York, that I recalled how, thirty years earlier, Jackie had innocently altered my warm relationship with Paul. We were returning to New York on the Mellon plane, after a long visit at their home in Antigua in the West Indies. Paul was getting off in D.C. and Jackie, Bunny, Liza, and I were going on to New York. As we circled D.C. I was regaling Jackie with the story of how Paul's and my Scrabble tournament began.

“And, you know,” I said jokingly, “he's into me for a lot of money. We play a penny a point and he owes me $11.43. I have his signed IOU.”

“Well, you have to get your money,” she said laughing. “Ask him for it now.”

“Oh, I don't expect ever to get it. I'm his guest and we have a great time just playing.”

“No,” she said. “Paul would respect you wanting the debt paid. Ask him for it right now.”

He was down the steps on the tarmac talking to the pilot while waiting for his luggage to be put in the back of the car. So, emboldened by Jackie's prompting, I ran down the steps and confronted him.

“You know, Paul,” I shouted over the noise of the engines, “you haven't paid up.”

“How much do I owe you?” he shouted back.

“Eleven dollars and forty-three cents. Look, I have your signed IOU,” I joked, taking it out of my wallet.

“Let's settle after the next game,” he said.

I looked up and saw Jackie, Liza, and Bunny staring out the windows of the jet, smiling and egging me on.

“I'd like to do it now,” I said. “I have bills to pay.”

He did not laugh, but took eleven dollars out of his wallet, borrowed the forty-three cents from the pilot, and handed it to me. I tore his IOU into little pieces and flung them into the air in a grand gesture as much for the ladies' pleasure as for Paul's; but again he did not smile or react to that small bit of theatricality. He just shook my hand, got into his car, and was driven away.

When I got back on the plane, the ladies were laughing.

“Drinks on me,” I joked.

I
t wasn't that I was at all important in the scheme of Paul Mellon's life. It was just perhaps that by chance an exploding stove, a bloody nose, and an ongoing Scrabble game had allowed him to enjoy my company with no strings attached. Strings most likely were what he understood and expected. I was part of no major merger, no winning horse, no extravagant purchase.

Jackie had teased me into demanding payment on his $11.43 debt. And perhaps once he paid it, he no longer saw our carefree time together in quite the same way; because no matter how often I continued to visit the Mellons, after our business transaction on the tarmac, despite my importuning, Paul and I never again played a game of Scrabble.

OLIVER REED

U
p the stairs he came. His bloated face fixed in a manic grin, bloodshot eyes shifting from side to side, body thick, square, and unkempt, in clothes wrinkled and soiled. I thought he was going to punch me in the face, step over me, and keep moving. Instead, his outstretched fist opened wide and he gripped my hand in a painful shake.

“Nice to be working with you,” he said, as he studied my face.

He seemed to be looking for some kind of attitude in me that he could challenge. I adopted an air of pleasant, subservient warmth, letting him grip as hard as he wanted, and held his gaze. He may as well have punched me in the face.

I
t was Malta, 1994. Oliver Reed had been hired to play Geena Davis's father in a film entitled
Cutthroat Island
, perhaps the single worst disaster in which I have ever appeared. It cost $100 million and grossed hardly $3 million. Months and months and months in Thailand and Malta, resulting in a film so brainless and worthless, it brought shame on all who had been associated with it, but not, as it turned out, to Oliver Reed. We would have no scene together, for which, having just met him, I was now grateful. His involvement in the film would only be for a few days. He had a cameo at the beginning, imparting a grave secret to Geena before he died. One good scene, and back to England for Mr. Reed. A healthy paycheck, then over and out. Sadly he was both at that point.

The steps on which we met led into a movie house where our director, Renny Harlin, had arranged a screening of a movie starring James Spader and Kurt Russell called
Stargate
. It would turn out possibly to be even worse than our little debacle. We sat in the dark, watching Mr. Russell in a haircut resembling a miniature bed of nails, ooze intensity and Mr. Spader, in bangs and horn-rimmed glasses gently walking up to a disturbed yak, reaching out to pet him, and saying, “It's okay, it's okay.” Two noble colleagues making the best of it. I felt better.

The screening was followed by a large dinner for our cast, given by our producers. It was ostensibly to welcome Oliver into the company. I sat opposite him at a long table, as he settled in between Geena and Renny, who were married at the time.

The simple idea of his one scene was that, as a dying man alone on an island, he would tell his daughter, Geena, to shave his head and on its bald pate, she would find a tattooed map leading the way to the secret treasure she and I, as heroine and villain, would be pursuing through the course of the picture. Oliver, in his by then drunken wisdom, had decided on a twist that he thought would give the picture an exciting opening scene. He gestured for Geena, Renny, and me to lean in close as he slurringly intoned his unique suggestion:

“Now, bear with me dearies, and hear me out. I do think the idea of my character's having tattooed the map on his head is rather far-fetched and improbable. It seems to me, he would have needed to murder the man who'd done it for him. And that information would need to be communicated to the audience and only complicate the scene.

“So, darlings, I think it would be absolutely fascinating if the silly bugger had by his own hand, tattooed the map on the head of his cock. You see, he's an old codger by now, and it would simply be the last place he would assume anyone would look for it.”

The silence was deafening. Three sets of eyes, fixed on the tabletop with another pair, bloodshot and gleeful, searching faces for affirmation. Quite a long time passed before someone leaned over to introduce himself to Oliver, and he mercifully let go of Renny's wrist, who used that moment to leap from the table, flash a look to one of our producers, and disappear into the crowd. Geena quickly followed and I discreetly tried to turn my attention to the person on my right. But Oliver continued to explain to me the wisdom of his idea. As totally insane a fellow as I thought he was, his desperate and sweaty demeanor was touching. He was far less disagreeable than he had been on the stairs. Now just a sloppy drunk wanting to engage; he appeared to be a man no longer capable of controlling either of his heads, and beginning to sink into a sea of oblivion. He grew more blotto with each passing second, and was literally carried out of the room within the hour.

The next day, the shooting schedule was, not surprisingly, changed, and Oliver's scene was postponed indefinitely.

Not only was Oliver sacked and paid, but after being told so, he disappeared into the bowels of Malta and was not to be located for several days. Eventually he was found in a drunken stupor somewhere in a tiny hotel, put on a plane, and sent back home. He was replaced by a more sensible actor, Harris Yulin, who kept both his mouth and his trousers zipped.

By not exposing himself to it, Oliver dodged a bullet with
Cutthroat Island.
It remains, in my film experience, the single most egregious example of excess I have ever witnessed in the movie world. Writers being paid one hundred thousand dollars a week to punch up horrible dialogue with inane jokes, private cooks serving gourmet food to the Harlins under a cozy tent while hundreds of extras being paid less than minimum wage stood in the freezing rain for hours. Specialty makeup artists being flown in from California on a whim and dismissed days later on another. One of them said to me: “I'm costing them a fucking fortune, just to powder Geena's chest.” And scenes being shot with up to fourteen cameras often placed anywhere but where the central dialogue was being said. So cynical, inept, and amateurish an undertaking was it, that one could only hope that had Oliver seen it before he died he might have been forever stunned sober.

Perhaps in a long laundry list of ludicrous events I have witnessed on film sets, the one I most treasure is watching my leading lady having her makeup and hair assiduously attended to between each take of one scene. Not unusual, certainly for lovely actresses, but mindboggling when you consider the fact that she was going to be completely
off camera
.

H
aving seen the finished film myself several years after making it, I'm not altogether sure that Oliver's suggestion would not have given this turkey a singular moment of originality and challenging filmmaking. Think of Renny Harlin directing Geena Davis in a two-shot in which she must copy a map off the head of her deceased father's penis. Rather than leave it to a stand-in, I'm sure Oliver would have insisted on lying there himself. No doubt suggesting that in the course of the action the old guy achieves a posthumous erection.

GEORGE C. SCOTT

A
ctors are image, often depicting in fantasy the very qualities they wish to possess in life. In the many times I spent in George C. Scott's company I was struck again and again by this archetypal schism in him.

When I learned of his death, the first memory that came to my mind was of his haunted, childlike face peering at me from three feet away on an airplane. It was the late 1980s and we were seated across from each other going from Los Angeles to New York on MGM Grand—a luxurious airline, now defunct. We were the only passengers in the plane's living room–like setting and had not seen each other for close to three years. George sat clutching an electronic chessboard and drinking sidecars at 11 a.m. Disappointed that I didn't play or drink, he began to talk.

Fury
is the word most often used to describe the power in George's work. No one could display rage like him—not even the other great actor of the twentieth century, Marlon Brando. When George turned on that faucet, everyone drowned in the torrent of anger that poured out of him. After accepting an invitation to be directed by him in a play, my first thought had been, “Here's a guy who's going to deck me if we disagree.” As it turned out he did, but in a totally unexpected way.

M
y first meeting with him took place several months before the planned production. I was asked to come by and say hello and talk about which of the two men I'd like to play in Noel Coward's comedy
Design for Living
, Otto or Leo. The room was dark and belowground and George was prowling back and forth behind a desk. After a few minutes, it was clear he wanted me to play Otto and in a quiet gentlemanly style I was unprepared for, he let me know that. I wanted to be directed by him and felt either character would suit me. He knew, however, that Otto would suit me better and he was right.

The year was 1984. It was the first day of rehearsal at New York's Circle in the Square Theatre. George would direct Jill Clayburgh, Raul Julia, and myself as the play's leading characters. He deposited two packs of Luckies, a six-pack of beer, and a bottle of Scotch on the table at the read-through, and when his stash was gone, rehearsal was over. The hours he did give us, sometimes as little as three in a day, were nevertheless a course in acting worth a small fortune.

There could be no greater teacher in the world on how to play Noel Coward than George C. Scott. With flawless timing and a supreme intelligence, he had little or no time for psychological motivation and less for actors with no technique. He could do any speech brilliantly at once and felt you should be able to as well. While he often resisted the urge to show you how to do something, his natural aptitude would sometimes take over and he'd just burst forth into action. Playing any part, he would be seamlessly brilliant and hilarious. Then he'd sit back down, light a Lucky, have a beer, and look at you with the expression of a bored child prodigy whose mother had made him take piano lessons when he'd much rather have been out playing stickball.

George was so gifted and so self-destructive that his career gave rise over and over to the theory that great talent needs a kind of madness to flourish. If that were true then every alcoholic, overweight, or strung-out actor would be a candidate for greatness, but few can ever hope to breathe George's rarefied air. If fury and rage were his calling cards as an actor, fear and insecurity seemed to dominate his day-to-day existence. As time went on, I would see the haunted stare come over his face, and know that he would be gone within moments. He'd throw some money on the table at a restaurant, or pick up his bottle at rehearsal and go, leaving you uncertain you would ever see him again. He did disappear during rehearsals for a few days, but came back deeply apologetic, scrubbed clean, sober, and brilliant as ever. Having rolled to the bottom of his particular hill of hell, he had gotten up, cleaned off the debris, and was once again climbing back up.

He was seductive and flirtatious with Jill but slightly cool and aloof with a character actress named Lisa Kirk who was causing problems with the costume designer Ann Roth. Lisa refused to wear the period dress made for her but rather insisted on wearing a 1950s gown designed for her nightclub appearances. The dress Ann created was breathtaking and she was understandably hurt and angry that Lisa wouldn't wear it. She went to George and threatened to quit if he didn't back her up. George did nothing about it, seemingly afraid of Lisa's particular brand of temperament. This was a man whose legendary battles with wives Colleen Dewhurst and Trish Van Devere, and a tempestuous affair with the feisty Ava Gardner, were show business history. Watching him run from any confrontation with Lisa marked the beginning of my suspicions about his tough-guy image.

D
esign for Living
was a huge hit and he was delighted at our success, coming back from time to time to tinker. When you'd hit a home run, no one was more enthusiastic than George. In rehearsal he had been like the coach on the field, up and pacing, saying the lines with you, throwing his fist in the air and shouting, “Yes baby—that's the big laugh!” He did the same thing during the performances he attended. I could see him in the lighting booth above the stage, prowling around like a tiger in a cage, laughing and applauding when it was going well, standing stock still in a cloud of smoke when it was dying. One night, I less than delighted him and unwittingly risked the celebrated fury.

Raul and I were in the middle of a scene onstage in which his character, Leo, discovers that mine, Otto, is having an affair with Jill's, Gilda. Having spent the night with Gilda, Otto is dressed in Leo's pajamas. At one point I mistakenly called Raul by
my
character's name, Otto. There was that tiny beat when you know a gaff has been made and you either sail past it or run with it. Raul and I settled on a little sprint. He looked at me and in a mock Tonto voice said,

“No!
Me
Leo.
You
Otto!”

The audience got it and began to laugh. Raul did not break, nor did I, but I couldn't resist saying when the laughter stopped:

“Are you sure, dear boy? I am, after all, wearing your pajamas.” Big laugh again and this time Raul and I joined in.

My dressing room was one floor below the stage level. I raced down to make a change, stopping first to use the bathroom. Dropping the pajama bottoms to my ankles, I stood at the urinal and immediately felt a hand on my right shoulder. It whirled me around and another hand came up onto my left, holding me still. It was George—red-faced, angry, and drunk.

“What the fuck were you two clowns doin' out there? There's no excuse for that behavior. Jesus Christ, Frank—don't do that again.”

I said I was sorry, but it was really funny and we just got carried away.

“Well don't be. Let them be carried away for Chrissake. Come on man. Respect the illusion.”

George was unaware that I was continuing to relieve myself on his shoes as he ranted and raved at me. Once my body caught up to the shock of his wrath, it shut down and I stood there trapped before his anger. He exited as quickly as he had entered. Later that night, as I regaled Jill with the story, she assured me he was totally unaware that I had rained on his tirade. She said he had come into her dressing room afterward, thrown himself onto the couch, and said laughingly, “I just scared the shit out of Frankie.” Well, not quite. But close!

G
eorge sometimes took me to Gallagher's Steakhouse on West 52nd Street for lunch or for a late supper. A drink was put in front of him after he sat down and we always had steak with corn or mashed potatoes. If he didn't like an actor his criticism was sharp and astute.

I had worked recently with one whose star was on the rise. A street-smart wise guy and Actors Studio devotee. I mentioned his name.

“An asshole,” said George, “a talentless fucking asshole. The guy wouldn't know syntax if it came up and bit him. You need brains to be an actor. What the fuck is he?”

He was more incredulous than angry. Mystified that someone with so little skill could be succeeding in the way this actor was beginning to.

“It's not
acting
!” he said. “It's just fucking
attitude
. The Method is a crock of shit.”

Often the talk fell to women. Never vulgar or boasting, he would say matter-of-factly, “I had 'em all, Frankie,” and of his celebrated passion for Ava Gardner, all he ever said was:

“Ava almost killed me.”

G
eorge had a passionate love for great writing and great ideas. His was a delicate, fragile sensibility. This was a man of letters, courtly and polite. Truly a man's man—but not for the reasons he had become so greatly admired. At odds with his own image as a raging bull, he was nevertheless scathingly critical of anyone in therapy, referring to them as “weaklings” and “cowards.” When I told him I'd been in and out of therapy most of my adult life, he said: “Well you're a coward and a pussy. Why the hell do you need someone else to use as a crutch? Suck it up!” I decided not to bring to his attention the fact that he was a drunk. If he did scare the whole world, as Mike Nichols had once said, I had come to realize that he scared himself most of all.

One afternoon between shows, George came into my dressing room carrying a drink. Having heard I was planning to do a production of Arthur Miller's
After the Fall
(a fictionalized story of his life with Marilyn Monroe) he said: “Jesus, Frankie, that play's a disgrace.” When I told him I was intrigued by its questions of where the guilt lay, he looked at me witheringly and said:

“What the fuck do you mean? Arthur is guilty. He can rationalize all he wants. He's a selfish son-of-a-bitch. I hope you have better luck with him than I did.” He was speaking of an unsuccessful production he'd done of Arthur's
Death of a Salesman
many years earlier. Arthur's passive-aggressive style and somewhat imperious demeanor must have driven George crazy.

T
hree years later, when we sat down across from each other on that MGM flight, he was noticeably older, sadly disheveled, and clearly in crisis. He had no desire to reminisce about
Design for Living
and little curiosity about others in the company we'd shared. Why he said what he did next may have been the liquor, or the intimacy of our surroundings, or a desperate need to be known. It may also have been because I asked the right question at the right time.

“George, if you hadn't become an actor what would you have chosen to do?”

“Be a writer,” he said. “But I can't write.”

“What else?” I asked.

An extraordinarily long time passed before he answered me. Still holding on to his chess set and staring out the window, he turned and said in a voice clear and true:

“If I had any balls, Frankie, I would spend the rest of my life sitting at the bedside of real men in veterans' hospitals playing chess all day long.”

“Why don't you do that?” I said.

“Why the fuck would they want to be bothered by some faggot actor?”

There sat a man of indisputable masculinity and power, frightened that war veterans might find him feminine and soft because he liked to play chess. It was my turn to be silent. There was a quality in George so desperate for a comfort you felt you could not provide, that it inhibited you from making any effort. He closed his eyes, leaned back, and went to sleep.

T
en years later, in 1996, he was playing a character based on Clarence Darrow at the Royale Theater on Broadway in
Inherit the Wind
. I was in the audience and we were due to have supper together after the performance. Onstage he was still powerful, commanding, and even quite funny in Act 1. But when the curtain rose on Act 2, there was a different man standing there. He seemed disoriented and barely audible.

Then it happened. That silence on a stage, unlike any other, when you know an actor is in deep trouble. It's not just that perhaps they've forgotten the line. It's the sense they give you that they have forgotten where they are. He put his hand out to the young actor standing next to him, Garret Dillahunt, with whom I had worked, whispered something, and they began to move toward the wings.

“I'm so sorry. So sorry,” he said to no one in particular as he was being escorted offstage, Garret's hand under his elbow. “Please forgive me.”

I went back afterwards hoping I'd find him resting but he'd been taken home. I stayed for a while, said hello to Garret, and chatted with George's costar Charlie Durning. “Too bad,” he said, “I love the guy.” He did not return to the production and died alone in a motel room in Westlake Village, California, less than three years later at the age of seventy-two.

I
can tell you, without fear of contradiction, that George C. Scott was a genius because that's what he was. This powerful compelling artist, this warrior, was a fragile, sensitive man who, I think, would have much preferred to spend his life writing poetry and playing chess with war veterans. When I think about it, the last words that he ever uttered from the stage: “Please forgive me,” are heartbreaking in their poignancy. His violent rages and brutish behavior were legendary, but for reasons unknown to the rest of us, it was clearly not our forgiveness he needed most, but his own.