by Mark Bailey
LAWRENCE TIERNEY
1919–2002
ACTOR
“Heck, I threw away about seven careers through drink.”
Best known to modern audiences as Joe, the gangster mastermind in Reservoir Dogs (1992), Lawrence Tierney had a string of tough-guy roles dating as far back as 1945. A star athlete at his Brooklyn high school, he received a scholarship to Manhattan College but dropped out to work as a laborer on the New York Aqueduct. After a few theater productions, he signed a contract with RKO in 1943. The titular role in Dillinger (1945) became the template for his onscreen persona, as he was continually cast as a traditional tough guy (Badman’s Territory and San Quentin, 1946) to outright sociopath (Born to Kill and The Devil Thumbs a Ride, 1947). Numerous run-ins with the law for drunken behavior and fighting destroyed his career before it really even started. Landing parts here and there—John Cassavetes cast him twice, in A Child Is Waiting (1963) and Gloria (1980)—Tierney rarely worked again as an actor until the 1980s, when he was cast in a series of guest-starring roles on TV shows like Hill Street Blues, Fame, Star Trek: The Next Generation, and The Simpsons. His final film was the low-budget feature Evicted (2000), written and directed by his nephew.
THEY WEREN’T SUPPOSED TO let him drink. They had been warned. But something needed to be done. The entire cast and crew of Reservoir Dogs had, in one short week, come to despise Lawrence Tierney, the irascible seventy-something actor.
During the most recent day of shooting, director Quentin Tarantino and Tierney had to be physically separated from one another. When Tierney stormed off, the crew broke into applause. Tim Roth had declared he didn’t even want to be in the same room with the guy. Only Michael Madsen wanted to make an effort. Tierney had earned it, hadn’t he?
Known as one of film noir’s consummate tough guys in the 1940s, Tierney claimed to loathe the parts he was given. “I thought of myself as a nice guy who wouldn’t do rotten things,” he once told an interviewer. But as real-life gangster Mickey Cohen once hypothesized about Tierney, reflecting on the actor’s behavior after his turn as John Dillinger, “I guess when actors are given a certain part to portray, and they portray it year in and year out, they begin to play it somewhat for real.”
By 1955 Lawrence Tierney had been arrested sixteen times. He spent three months in jail in 1948 for breaking a man’s jaw in a gin mill. Later that year he was arrested for kicking a cop. (For good measure, he was arrested for punching one eight years later.) In 1952 he fought with a welterweight boxer outside a bar in New York City—a feat he topped in 1975 when he took on an accomplished knife fighter and wound up getting stabbed in the gut. Such was his reputation among Los Angeles police that when Robert Mitchum was awaiting trial for marijuana possession in 1948, two cops taunted the actor by saying, “Hey Bob, we’re keeping Lawrence Tierney’s cell warm for ya.”
Tierney gave up drinking—mostly—in 1982, after he suffered a stroke. It was around that time that he finally started getting work again, primarily in television. By then, old age and sobriety had rendered him largely harmless, but he still had the ability to put the fear of God in people. His opportunity to become a recurring character on Seinfeld (as Elaine’s dad) was probably squandered when he “jokingly” threatened Jerry Seinfeld with a butcher’s knife he’d attempted to steal from the set.
And so, on the set of Reservoir Dogs, Michael Madsen decided to see if he could help settle Tierney down. He took the old man to Musso and Frank’s for vodka tonics. Everything was going fine until Tierney excused himself to go to the bathroom—and didn’t come back. Just as Madsen started to wonder what happened to him, he heard commotion outside the restaurant. Honking—lots of honking. Madsen got up to investigate. When he looked outside, there was Tierney, in the middle of Hollywood Boulevard, pants down, wagging his finger at every car that swerved past him—a miracle it was just his finger.
BOARDNER’S
1652 NORTH CHEROKEE AVE.
OPEN!
ON A SIDE STREET within spitting distance from Musso and Frank’s, this neighborhood bar (“a local hang for the Who’s Who and Who Cares”) has been a hometown favorite since 1942—not quite as long as its more famous neighbors, but an unheard-of length of time by L.A. standards. The space was leased by singer Gene Austin in the early 1930s (he named it My Blue Heaven, after his biggest hit) and had already undergone three different incarnations, including those of a restaurant and a gay bar, when Steve Boardner, a longtime bartender who’d most recently manned the bar at the landmark Crossroads of the World on Sunset, took over the lease in January 1944.
A former athlete with social ties to both the sports and film worlds, Boardner brought with him a built-in crowd of celebrities, including Errol Flynn, W. C. Fields, Wallace Beery, and boxing promoters George Parnassus and Suey Welch. Members of Xavier Cugat’s band would drop by, as did singers Jack Leonard and Phil Harris. (Harris, legend has it, would eat dinner with his wife at Musso and Frank’s, then meet his mistress at Boardner’s later that night.) A postwar mob hangout with insider protection provided by notorious L.A.P.D. lieutenant Harry Fremont, who used to play craps in the drained fountain on Boardner’s patio, it was seedy enough to attract Charles Bukowski and rowdy enough to humble Lawrence Tierney, who reportedly called the cops when a wrestler pal of Boardner’s had the guts to stand up to him. Such was the bar’s reputation, it was even rumored to be the last known sighting of Elizabeth Short the night she died in the infamous Black Dahlia murder case.
In 1980, with failing health and accumulating debt, Boardner sold the bar to Dave Hadley and Kurt Richter, two regulars who’d made their money in porn (they were among the first to sell X-rated movies on videotape). The new owners had planned on turning it into a regular destination for employees of the adult-film industry. That plan never quite materialized, but Hadley kept the place going for more than twenty years, even after his partner died behind the bar on Christmas night in 1997. These days, Boardner’s has expanded to include an additional nightclub and a full kitchen; it caters to a younger crowd with such tired standbys as Goth Night and 80s Night. But the bar still opens every day at five, the better to soak in whatever remains of its heyday.
JOHN WAYNE
1907–1979
ACTOR
“Tequila makes your head hurt. Not from your hangover. From falling over and hitting your head.”
Strong and silent onscreen, hawkish and ultraconservative off, John Wayne transcended cinema so thoroughly he became the ultimate symbol (for better or worse) of American ideals and values. Born Marion Morrison, he adopted the nickname “Duke” as a kid. He played football for the USC Trojans until an injury ended his athletic career. After floundering in B-movies, Westerns, and serials, John Ford made him a star with his breakthrough role in Stagecoach (1939). Wayne and Ford went on to work together more than twenty times over the years, in such enduring classics as She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949), The Searchers (1956), and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962). Wayne won his only Oscar as Best Actor—after a prior nomination for Sands of Iwo Jima (1949)—for his portrayal of the flawed Rooster Cogburn in True Grit (1969). (Jeff Bridges would be nominated for an Oscar in the same role more than thirty years later.) Wayne is credited for directing two films over the course of his career: The Alamo (1960), which was nominated for Best Picture, and The Green Berets (1968), which came out unabashedly in favor of the Vietnam War. His humility and honesty earned him the begrudging respect of even his enemies, and he remains the most towering single image of an American ever produced by Hollywood.
1. MEET JOHN WAYNE. 2. Go to Disneyland. Those were the two items on Nikita Khrushchev’s wish list during his 1959 visit to Los Angeles. The only two. So it came to pass that John Wayne allegedly stood at a private bar, tossing back tequila and vodka with Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev. It was, to put it mildly, an unlikely scenario: one of America’s most famous anti-Communists chumming around with one of Communism’s most prominent leaders. When President Eisenh
ower first proposed the meeting, Wayne initially said yes solely out of respect for the president. But then, on a personal level, he did have a motive all his own—a certain question that had been gnawing away at him. And there at the bar, with the aid of an interpreter and who knows how many shots, he popped it: “So, Nikita”—that’s not actually how he brought it up, but let’s pretend—“exactly why are your people trying to kill me?”
You see, Wayne believed that the Communists had been trying to murder him for over a decade. In 1951 two Russian hit men had supposedly tried to gun him down outside his office at Warner Bros. (Federal agents, acting on a tip, foiled the plan.) Another time, in 1955, a group of American Communists in Burbank had their plot to kill Duke broken up by a group of stuntmen who’d caught wind of the operation. And if Wayne was to be believed, these instances were the direct result of orders issued by Khrushchev’s predecessor, Josef Stalin.
* * *
As for the two attempts on Wayne’s life, [Khrushchev] didn’t know anything about those. Perhaps they were Stalin loyalists beyond his or anyone’s control. Perhaps they were followers of Mao Tse-tung, who had also been involved in Stalin’s plans. Regardless, Wayne shouldn’t let his guard down.
* * *
In 1983 Orson Welles (by no means a kindred spirit of Wayne politically, though he liked the man) corroborated the Stalin story. The tale Welles told is long and convoluted (and again, the product of hearsay), but the essence is this: In 1949, Stalin had sent a movie director, Sergei Gerasimov, to an international conference in New York with explicit instructions to denounce Hollywood’s lack of morals and to promote Stalinism. While there, Gerasimov learned about Wayne—at that time the president of the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals. When Gerasimov returned to the Soviet Union with news of this man’s aims and his power, Stalin responded as though America had “invented some new secret weapon,” a weapon he intended to neutralize.
Khrushchev didn’t deny Stalin’s intent. He said it was a product of Stalin’s “last five mad years,” and that the order had long been rescinded. As for the two attempts on Wayne’s life, he didn’t know anything about those. Perhaps they were Stalin loyalists beyond his or anyone’s control. Perhaps they were followers of Mao Tse-tung, who had also been involved in Stalin’s plans. Regardless, Wayne shouldn’t let his guard down.
Three months after their drinking session, a large wooden crate marked CCCP arrived at Wayne’s offices. Inside, packed in straw, were several cases of premium Russian vodka, along with a note that said, “Duke. Merry Christmas. Nikita.” Wayne quickly returned Khrushchev’s gesture, sending the Soviet leader a few cases of Sauza Conmemorativo with a note of his own: “Nikita. Thanks. Duke.”
And so the story ends, with one small caveat: Nobody knows how much of it is true. But then, as the line goes, from the Wayne classic The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, “When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.” And if there is a larger truth to be had, maybe it is this—John Wayne liked drinking more than he hated Communists.
DOESN’T JOHN WAYNE seem like an eat the worm kind of guy? After all, his favorite booze was tequila—Sauza Conmemorativo, to be exact—though there is no worm in that bottle. Still, as he would tell Playboy magazine in 1971, Sauza is “as fine a liquor as there is in the world. Christ, I tell you it’s better than any whiskey; it’s better than any schnapps; it’s better than any drink I ever had in my life.”
That’s quite an endorsement, and this from a man who truly knew. Wayne was, if you can believe it, one of the very first drinkers to try a margarita. The time was 1948, and the place, Acapulco. The Duke had a vacation house down there, near the Flamingo Hotel, and would pal about with the likes of Lana Turner, Fred MacMurray and others—pal around being a euphemism for drinking yourself stupid. Conrad “Nicky” Hilton of the Hilton Hotel chain was there, too, as was Joseph Drown, who owned the Bel-Air. The group would gather at the home of Dallas socialites Bill and Margaret “Margarita” Sames. (Maybe you can see where this story is going …)
Legend has it, the gang began to tire of the standard fare (Bloody Marys, Screwdrivers, beer). Wayne and his cohorts wanted something new under the sun, and they challenged their hostess, Margarita, to come up with it.
MARGARITA
LIME WEDGE
COARSE SALT
2 OZ. SILVER TEQUILA
1 OZ. COINTREAU
¾ OZ. FRESH LIME JUICE
Rub the rim of the cocktail glass with a lime wedge and press into a plate of salt. Pour all ingredients into a cocktail shaker filled with ice cubes. Shake well. Strain into the cocktail glass. Garnish with the lime wedge.
The Margarita is also frequently served on the rocks in an Old-Fashioned glass.
Part Four
1960S & NEW HOLLYWOOD
1960–1979
“It was one long party. Everything old was bad, everything new was good. Nothing was sacred; everything was up for grabs. It was, in fact, a cultural revolution, American style.”
—PETER BISKIND, film historian
RICHARD BURTON
1925–1984
ACTOR
“My liver is to be buried separately from the rest of me, with full honors.”
A star of the stage in London and on Broadway, Richard Burton carved out a niche onscreen headlining historical epics. But however well he wore a crown, it was his series of tumultuous marriages to Elizabeth Taylor in the 1960s that cemented him as one of the biggest stars in the world. Welsh, he came to Hollywood after a much-lauded portrayal of Prince Hal in Henry IV, Part I (1951). His debut in My Cousin Rachel (1952) earned him the first of seven Oscar nominations (though he never won). Burton’s portrayal of Jimmy Porter, an angry young man, in Look Back in Anger (1959) helped spawn the next generation of British actors. In 1963, he fell in love with Taylor on the set of Cleopatra, at the time the most expensive movie ever made. They tied the knot the following year and made numerous pictures together, most notably Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966). The film would garner thirteen Academy Award nominations. (Taylor would win, for Best Actress, while Burton, nominated for Best Actor, would not.) The stress of playing the dysfunctional couple at the heart of the movie was said to take a toll on their real-life marriage. The couple divorced in 1974, remarried in 1975, then divorced for good in 1976. Burton received a final Oscar nomination for Equus (1977). His last movie was a well-regarded adaptation of Orwell’s 1984 (1984).
HE THOUGHT IT WAS IN THE BAG. After much persuasion, Mike Mindlin had finally convinced Richard Burton to go through with the Ed Sullivan taping. Mindlin was handling publicity for Becket, currently in production at Shepperton Studios outside London, with Burton and Peter O’Toole in starring roles.
Ed Sullivan had just flown to England with the express purpose of interviewing them on location. Burton, however, had decided at the last minute that he’d cancel the appearance if he didn’t receive his normal television fee. Fortunately, now that he’d had a few drinks, he wasn’t feeling quite so obstinate. On the contrary: he was holding court in the lobby of the Dorchester Hotel, tourists everywhere, his new love, Elizabeth Taylor, by his side. One minute he was quoting Dylan Thomas and the next—well, the next, he was throwing up. Everywhere. It was an instance in which Burton, legendary for his capacity to consume alcohol, had gone beyond even his limit.
This was a man who at his peak (or valley) was known to drain three bottles of vodka in a day—a man who once proclaimed, “If you can’t do Hamlet straight through with a hangover, you ought to get right off the damn stage.” According to Robert Sellers’s terrific biography Hellraisers, during the theatrical run of Camelot, starring opposite Julie Andrews, Burton wagered that he could start with a bottle of vodka while performing the matinee and then work through a bottle of cognac during the evening performance—without showing the effects. After the last curtain fell, Andrews, not even realizing he was drunk, commented that his performance was “a little better than usual.” P
erforming in John Gielgud’s production of Hamlet, Burton downed a whole quart of brandy in one evening’s performance. The only noticeable difference, a critic would note, “was that he played the last two acts as a homosexual.”
* * *
This was a man who at his peak (or valley) was known to drain three bottles of vodka in a day—a man who once proclaimed, “If you can’t do Hamlet straight through with a hangover, you ought to get right off the damn stage.”
* * *
And now, here in London, it seemed he and O’Toole were in the midst of a friendly but intense competition. Becket was the first time the two men had worked together, and from a collaborative standpoint, they’d been excited from the start. O’Toole himself was a phenomenal lush and something of an eccentric, with a habit of getting drunk enough to pick fights with policemen and a proclivity for climbing walls. One night, after having been booed on the London stage, O’Toole got pissed on homemade mead and was locked up for disturbing a building. In court the next morning, he confessed to bursting into song in an attempt to seduce an insurance office.
But once they arrived on set, what the two stars were especially curious to discover was who could perform better under the influence. So they made a pact: both would remain on the wagon until they felt fully comfortable in their roles. After that, all bets were off. Sobriety had lasted all of ten days, when Burton suggested they deserved a little snifter—after which, the pair drank straight through the next two days. For the rest of the five-month shoot, they were perpetually wasted. Burton later described O’Toole’s performance, a scene where King Henry puts a ring on Becket’s finger, as a man threading “a needle wearing boxing gloves.”