Still Me (32 page)

The Bostonians
for Merchant Ivory, 1983.

The Bostonians
succeeded beyond everyone's expectations.
Daily Variety
ran a long article about it under a banner headline that read,
ART HOUSE PIC SHOWS SURPRISING B.O. STRENGTH.
It opened in a few selected cities, but soon the distributor, Almi Pictures, needed to make additional prints. This time Vincent Canby raved in
The New York Times
about all the performances (especially Vanessa Redgrave's, which earned her an Oscar nomination). At the end of his review, he concluded that our film was “the best adaptation of a literary work yet made for the screen.”

One of the most enjoyable aspects of filmmaking for me was the opportunity to go on location all over the world without feeling like a tourist. In Rome, Budapest, Zagreb, Paris, or Vancouver, we got to know the locals and were often invited into their homes and their private lives.

I also enjoyed keeping up with my various sports interests during production. While we made
The Bostonians
I lived aboard
Chandelle
on a mooring in Vineyard Haven. Every day I would row ashore and wait on the dock for the crew van to pick me up. Sometimes on weekends my brother, Ben (who lives on the Vineyard), and I would take cast and crew members sailing. Once Jim Ivory came with us for a nighttime sail. I don't think he'd ever done anything like that before; he seemed impressed that we could navigate confidently in the dark. I took him flying as well and was grateful that he trusted me to bring him back in one piece.

During the shooting of
Superman III
, I raced my sailplane on days when the weather was right—puffy cotton-ball clouds from a cold front are ideal. Otherwise I would make my way down to Redhill, in Surrey, home of the Tiger Club. Like going to Mackinac Island, this was a journey into the past. The club was a group of genuine aviators, many of whom had served in the Royal Air Force and flown in the Battle of Britain. The “Tiger” referred to the Tiger Moth, a vintage World War I combat plane; several of them, as well as other open cockpit biplanes like the Stampe and the Stearman, were still maintained by the club. I showed the club president my American license and was thrilled when I was invited to join as an Overseas Member. Before long I too was wearing a flight suit with a leather jacket, a helmet, and goggles, and joining in mock dogfights over the sleepy English countryside. Occasionally five or six planes would fly in tight formation. Sometimes we would have balloon-bursting contests: balloons were released from the center of the airfield, and we would maneuver to hit them with our propellers before they climbed out of sight.

I especially loved flying inverted. Even though I was strapped in by a seat belt and shoulder harness and was wearing a parachute, as I flipped the plane upside down I always had that little moment when I felt I was going to drop straight out of the cockpit and land in a cornfield below. One crucial thing to remember before turning upside down was to switch to the inverted fuel tank; otherwise there would be a brief coughing and sputtering of the engine followed by a chilling silence. If you were lucky, you could flip the plane upright again and the engine would restart; if not, you would have to make a dead-stick landing in a field. I never had any difficulty flying these vintage aircraft, but I was prepared for “outlandings” from my experience in sailplanes.

It was a complete coincidence when I received a script called
The Aviator
, about a taciturn airmail pilot in the 1920s on the route between Elko, Nevada, and Boise, Idaho. The mail was carried in the front compartment of a Stearman. The producers had no idea that I could actually fly a Stearman but agreed with me that if I did my own piloting, we would have opportunities to make the film more realistic than if we had to use a double. I could throw a couple of mailbags into the plane and then hop in, start the engine, and take off, all in one shot. We would also be able to film air-to-air from a helicopter instead of having to cut to close-ups shot in the studio.

We filmed near the town of Kranjska Gora on the border of Yugoslavia and Austria. My favorite days involved flying, acting, and a little directing as well. A camera would be mounted on the wing, and I would take off with instructions from the director of photography to find a suitable location to film myself on the mail run. The director and crew would hang around the airfield until I returned a couple of hours later.

Piloting the 1928 Stearman over Yugoslavia.

Edgar, the introverted main character in
The Aviator
.

One afternoon I landed and was given the message that my daughter had just been born in London. Gae and I had been hoping for a weekend, but the baby had decided to arrive a few days early. Before dawn the next morning I drove across the border into Austria and down to the city of Klagenfurt, caught a flight to Vienna, then one from Vienna to London, followed by another high-speed cab ride to the hospital in Wimbledon. I felt extremely guilty about having to race back to work the next day, and also that Gae and I had not decided on a name. Finally, after a month of phone calls and visits between London and Yugoslavia, we decided to call this tiny blond creature with the huge blue eyes, Alexandra.

Anyone looking at a picture of me and Gae and these two beautiful little children would have thought it a Christmas card portrait of a perfect young family. But I still had not overcome my reservations about marriage. Even though Gae and I made a genuine, valiant effort to build the bond between us, I still felt unsettled and restless. I was frequently away from home, busying myself with film projects, sports, and work for various social and political causes. Now I had responsibilities that had come to me sooner than I had expected. Even though I was uncertain about my future with Gae, I adored these two little people—and still do. I was determined that no matter what happened, I would always try my hardest not to subject them to the kinds of family difficulties I had faced as a child.

Alexandra at two.

As I journeyed back to Yugoslavia, I was in turmoil—elated over the birth of Alexandra but confused and anxious about the direction my life was taking. I continued to brood through the night without finding any solutions. I was greatly relieved when the alarm went off at 6:30 and it was time to go back to work.

Chapter 9

Throughout the 1980s I kept the commitment I had made to avoid action pictures in favor of smaller films with more complex roles. Whenever I couldn't find a good film project, I went back on the stage. In 1984 I appeared with Vanessa Redgrave and Dame Wendy Hiller in
The Aspern Papers
in London's West End. The play, based on the Henry James novella, was written by Vanessa's father, Sir Michael Redgrave, who had played the lead himself in the 1950s. It was Vanessa's idea to revive the play as a tribute to him for his seventy-fifth birthday. He never came to rehearsals, but on opening night he took the place of honor in the royal box. This put him so near the stage that as I played his part in his play, it was hard to concentrate because he was watching me so intently. When I met him at the party afterwards, all I remember him saying was, “Keep your head up.”

Vanessa and I enjoyed continuing the working relationship we had begun on
The Bostonians.
I was awed by her range. In the film we were archrivals for a young girl's affections. In the play she was a sequestered spinster who is flattered by the attentions of a young American literary sleuth who arrives in search of the private letters of the romantic poet Jeffrey Aspern. She was completely convincing as both characters. I felt privileged to share the stage with her.

The Aspern Papers
, London, 1984.

In the summer of 1985 I had a great time chewing up the scenery as Tony in
The Royal Family
at Williamstown, then played the Count in an off-the-wall production of Beaumarchais's
Marriage of Figaro
at the Circle in the Square in New York. The clothes were from the '30s and all white, until the last act, when the director, Andrei Serban, dressed us in proper eighteenth-century costumes, but all in black. Some characters zoomed around the polished floor of the set on roller skates. I made my first entrance on a bicycle, then spent most of my scenes striding around in riding clothes, carrying a crop. When an actor would ask Andrei for the logic behind an action, he would simply reply in his thick Romanian accent, “I like. Is
interesting.
”