My Mother Was Nuts

  True enough. But baseball was also a sport, and as I put together a cast, I had an unusual requirement: The girls had to be able to play. I couldn’t double them in the movie. They were going to be in little skirts. It wasn’t like making a football movie where you could hide athletes inside a helmet and pads. Any girl I cast had to be able to throw, catch, hit, run, and slide. So I had longtime USC baseball coach Rod Dedeaux run the girls through the paces. It was probably the toughest tryout any of them had ever had for a movie. Some of the actual AAGPBL women who lived locally also judged them. I heard batting cages around the city were packed with actresses learning how to hit.

  Anspaugh had wanted Sean Young in the lead. Demi Moore had been my first choice for Dottie. I had run into her prior to Awakenings and asked if she could play ball. It turned out she could. She was coordinated—and a strong actress. Perfect. But she was pregnant when the role came around again. She literally got fucked out of the part.

  I was able to choose anyone in the world, but great actresses don’t necessarily make for great athletes. One showed up in ballet slippers. Sorry, not right. Marisa Tomei sent me a tape of herself playing ball. I saw that Joe Pesci had been teaching her as they made My Cousin Vinny. As much as I loved Marisa, though, she wasn’t a ballplayer. Farrah Fawcett, an excellent athlete, wanted in; unfortunately she was a little too old. Lori Singer was an excellent actress who could play, but she wanted a bigger part. The list of buts went on.

  Finally, I gave the lead to Debra Winger, who signed up with a great deal of enthusiasm—and she could play. She was a tough girl. We were eager to work together, too. Nearly a decade had passed since we talked about Peggy Sue. Because of her, I cast Lori Petty as her sister, Kit Keller, a part that I was thinking about Moira Kelly for, until she hurt her ankle while making The Cutting Edge. Lori was perfect, though. Scrappy, athletic, confident, she was the only actress who stood up to Debra Winger when they read together.

  It ain’t easy to read with Debra, either. She’ll fuck with you. She’ll throw in extra lines or add asides. It flusters some people. Which is why she does it. You have to stay together, and Lori did. She was also a hell of a player.

  Then Tom Hanks asked for that role of Jimmy Dugan, a former star player (based on slugger Jimmie Foxx) whose drinking problem had driven him out of the big leagues and into a last-chance job as manager of the Rockford Peaches. Tom had done a handful of not-so-hot pictures, which happens when you work as often as he did, and he was reading scripts, looking for a movie that would get him back on track. He wanted a part where he wasn’t the lead, but audiences would be happy every time he came on screen. League was perfect.

  “Can I have it?” he asked.

  I thought he was wrong for the part. But he’s a great guy and gets along with everyone. I just couldn’t let him look the way he looks. He would seem like a distraction to the girls. They would be thinking he was cute. So I tried him in glasses, messed with his hair, and finally I said, “Eat! You’ve got to eat. Get fat.” Tom ate his way through our locations in Chicago and Indiana. He lived on pork, “the other white meat,” as numerous signs in Indiana claimed, and Dairy Queen.

  Rosie O’Donnell was at the other end of the spectrum. I told her not to eat. To this day, she says that I’m the only director that ever told her to lose weight. Well, I say those things if they need to be said. Lindsay Frost, a tall, blond, pretty actress, was all set for the role of “All the Way” Mae, a character originally written as a California hottie. But then her TV pilot got picked up and all of a sudden I had to find another girl who could play ball and dance.

  I went to Madonna after reading a magazine article in which she mentioned she wanted to act in more movies. When I met with her, she asked if I wanted to see her pitch. I said, “No, I already have a pitcher. But I do have to see if you can play.” She was on her way to Cannes for a screening of her documentary Truth or Dare, but she stopped in New York and worked out for three hours with the coaches at St. John’s University. They gave her a thumbs-up. She was trainable. And that’s all I needed: trainable. So she was in.

  But that pissed off Debra. “You’re making an Elvis movie!” she said. I didn’t understand what that meant, and I suppose my lack of understanding frustrated her even more because she dropped out of the picture. I wasn’t going to look for another “All the Way” Mae. Lowell and Babaloo were rewriting the role to fit Madonna, turning Mae into a sassy, cigarette-smoking centerfielder. Rosie was enamored of the superstar singer. I knew their chemistry could work onscreen.

  I helped that friendship along, too. At our first meeting, I began referring to them in a single breath as Ro and Mo (I couldn’t get the word Madonna out), and I issued them marching orders: “You’re going to be best friends. Mo, you teach her how to set her hair, and Ro, you teach her how to play ball.”

  Geena Davis slipped into the lead. She had read League but wanted to meet with Lowell and Babaloo about them writing another script for her. She ended up at my house. Her agent said not to play ball with her, but I took her out in the backyard anyway and discovered she was a natural. I had my new Dottie.

  Obviously Geena and Lori Petty didn’t look like sisters, but I wasn’t going to recast Lori, who was a sensational player, one of the best natural athletes of all the girls. Instead, I matched their hair color. Suddenly they were sisters.

  As for the rest of the cast, Megan Cavanagh, an actress, was waitressing at Ed Debevic’s, a ’50s-style hamburger joint, when she was cast as Marla; she learned to switch hit. Like her, Anne Ramsay and Bitty Schram could really play, and Freddie Simpson was so skilled, Tom joked that “she dipped Skoal.” Renée Coleman and Annie Cusack were trainable. Robin Knight, another excellent athlete, showed up after we were already cast. However, she refused to take no for an answer. She got herself to Chicago, talked her way in, and slept in another girl’s room every night. How do you say no to that kind of effort?

  After some final workouts in L.A. with Rod Dedeaux’s crew, we left for Chicago. When Jon Lovitz, who played the scout Ernie Capadino, heard that Madonna had checked into her hotel under a pseudonym, he registered under one, too: Edna Poop-a-dee-do. Rehearsals included daily workouts.

  Garry flew in at the last minute to play team owner Walter Harvey after I couldn’t afford my first choice, Christopher Walken. I had called him on a Friday and said I needed him on Monday. He was a good sport and a natural at playing the boss. He wasn’t the only family member I pressed into service, though. In addition to Tracy, my niece Penny Lee worked in the editing room and my other niece Wendy was a PA in charge of getting the girls from their campers in hair and makeup to the field. Like my brother, I cast family out of loyalty.

  It turned out Bobby De Niro was also in Chicago, researching one of his upcoming pictures, Mad Dog and Glory. Tracy got involved with his personal trainer, Dan, who she knew from Awakenings. Bobby corralled me into going to crime scenes with him. He knew the cops would talk to me while he wandered around and observed. After a couple field trips, though, I told him that I couldn’t go with him every time a body turned up.

  “I have to work,” I said. “I have a movie to do. It’s about baseball!”

  As shooting began, I felt more like a coach than a director. The girls worked constantly on their throwing and catching, and took daily batting practice. Even Tom took his cuts. He didn’t want to miss out on the fun. But I was a stickler for authenticity. I wanted them to throw like players. I also brought in a Slip ’N Slide so they could practice slides (and have fun at the same time). Working that hard, though, made injuries unavoidable. One day a ball sailed through Anne Ramsay’s old-fashioned mitt and broke her nose. (In practice, they used larger, modern gloves with more webbing and padding.) Rosie broke her finger after we began shooting games. In the scene where Lori and Geena did a double slide into home plate, Lori turned her ankle after catching her cleat on the base.

  Lori was much faster than Geena, and when we shot the scene where they were running
for the train that took them to Chicago for tryouts, Lori kept passing Geena and she wasn’t supposed to. She complained that Geena was too slow. I told her to stay behind anyway. If you watch the scene, Lori’s feet are going faster than she is moving forward.

  One of the most inadvertently funny moments was never seen onscreen. It happened as we shot the scene early in the movie when Jon Lovitz visited the girls at the farm after scouting them on the ball field. He walked into the barn as Dottie (Geena) and Kit (Lori) were milking cows and made his pitch about the league. However, as he said his lines, the cow next to him fell down and began to give birth. Somehow Jon didn’t even blink. He didn’t even notice. He said his dialogue without interruption. But I couldn’t ignore the drama—or the noise—happening directly behind him. I yelled cut.

  “What?” he asked, upset.

  “Didn’t you notice the cow behind you just fell over?” I said.

  He turned around and, as only Jon could, said, “Oh.” The farmers named the calf Penny.

  Later, we were outside and Jon was interrupted by a mooing cow. This time he heard and he stopped. I asked what he was doing. He said the cow kept mooing. I said, “Well, tell it to shut up.” He did and it got a big laugh in the movie. One of his best ad libs came after he dropped Dottie and Kit off at tryouts. As he turned to leave, they asked what was next for him.

  “I’m just going home to grab a shave and a shower and give the wife a pickle tickle,” he said, “and then I’m on my way.”

  That was why I used Lovitz.

  Tryouts were shot at the Cubs’ stadium, Wrigley Field. I brought in more than a hundred girls on the field. Madonna cracked, “I was a star and you turned me into an extra.” The other girls included Téa Leoni, who played first base for the Racine Bells, and Janet Jones, their pitcher. She was an excellent athlete, with a great look. My brother had used her in The Flamingo Kid. But she disappeared sometimes. Maybe she went to see her husband, hockey legend Wayne Gretzky, or her kids. I don’t know—and didn’t have time to worry about it.

  We only had the stadium while the Cubs were away. To save me time, I spoke with directors who’d done baseball films, including Phil Alden Robinson (Field of Dreams), Barry Levinson (The Natural), and John Sayles (Eight Men Out). Their tips were invaluable: Run your cables on the dirt so they don’t kill the grass (Barry); buy a ton of green paint in case you have to paint the grass (Phil); and don’t yell “cut” each time they throw and catch and run—don’t stop. Let them keep batting and throwing. Otherwise it will take for-fucking-ever. Keep the cameras running (John).

  And John was right. I would scream at the makeup people as they ran into scenes to apply touchups. “Get the fuck out of there.” I hated all the patchkeying. But there were lovely moments, like the day Miroslav turned to me and complimented Megan. “She has beautiful eyes, like a cow.” There were also quick asides you wouldn’t have heard anywhere else, such as when I told Madonna to stop her upper-body workouts. “Your arms are getting too cut,” I said. “Your legs are fine. And keep the food out of Rosie’s mouth.”

  After finishing the train scenes in the train station in Union, Illinois, we moved to Evansville, Indiana, a small town near the border of Illinois and Kentucky. We had found a great field there to shoot games as well as old-fashioned-looking diamonds in neighboring areas. We camped there for what seemed like forever. It didn’t take long before I lost patience with the makeup people interrupting all the time to try to match the dirt on the uniforms. Finally I just had the girls roll in the dirt on the baseline. “Get some dirt on your arms and legs.”

  We had a whole season of games to film, though I can think of only one time when the girls actually played a full game. We were at the Rockford stadium, and while waiting for the fireworks, I said let them play. Some didn’t know all the rules, like how to tag up on a fly ball. One of the best parts about being on a film full of girls, as opposed to guys, was that while waiting for the crew to set up the lighting, we went shopping. Tom’s wife, Rita, was always willing to go on the hunt for quilts. I also got into collecting duck decoys. I furnished an entire house with all the cabinets and chairs I bought.

  I knew Tom aced the “there’s no crying in baseball” scene he had with Evelyn. His timing and delivery were impeccable throughout, like the gem when he gets booted from the game for asking the ump if “anyone’s ever told you that you look like a penis with a little hat on?” He nailed the entire movie. The whole picture was full of riches—too full, in fact. I cut a hilarious monologue Lovitz had early in the movie about having once saved Babe Ruth’s life. The scene with the team owners was shortened and turned into a newsreel. Marla’s wedding was also cut down.

  And those are just some of the examples. These characters took on lives of their own. As such, it seemed like we were in Evansville for much longer than we were. We were still shooting there over my birthday in October. I remember because my brother arranged for a plane to fly over the location trailing a sign that said Happy Birthday, Penny. The first time it was a fun surprise. On the third pass, I was like, Okay, thank you, good-bye. After fifteen minutes, I was yelling at him to get the fuck out of here. It was enough. I had to shoot.

  And I still had to go to Cooperstown.

  League ends with the women reuniting forty years later at the Baseball Hall of Fame. The Hall is located in Cooperstown, New York, a small, inviting town with an early-twentieth-century atmosphere and the perfect backdrop for a museum for America’s pastime. None of us had been there before. We took tours and thought it was a fantastic memorial to the game’s greatest players and epic moments.

  But the tribute to the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League was disappointing. “Insignificant” is a better description. When it came to thinking in cinematic terms, Miroslav simply called it “ugly.” As a result, we took over a room and decorated it ourselves, making it look more like a genuine shrine to the pioneering women who inspired the movie.

  For the actual reunion, I asked our casting director, Ellen Lewis, to bring in a few professional actresses that looked similar to Geena, Rosie, and Mo. But I also used the real AAGPBL veterans. They were why we had made, and indeed were able to make, the movie in the first place. We all felt their spirit—and we heard about the fun they’d really had.

  There wasn’t a dry eye on the set when actor Mark Holton, playing Evelyn’s grown-up son, Stilwell, said, “My mom always said it was the best time of her life.” But what you don’t see in that scene is how long everything took and how behind schedule we were. I had a contingent of AAGPBL ladies who were heading back to Florida early the next morning and I didn’t want them to be delayed.

  I called them together and explained they could go back to the hotel for the night and I’d shoot the rest without them, or they could stick around. It was their choice. But they had to know we were going to shoot late, possibly through the night. They exchanged looks. Then Pepper Davis stepped forward and, speaking for the group, said, “That’s okay, Penny. We’ll consider it a doubleheader.”

  That still gets me.

  As usual, I had an extremely long first assemblage. I threw four teams of editors on it and showed a first cut to my brother, Randy Newman, and a few others I trusted. I hired Hans Zimmer to write the score. On paper, an English-German guy who didn’t know shit about baseball was an odd choice. But he was a night person like me. From his work on Driving Miss Daisy, I knew he could do Americana, and he did a wonderful job.

  I also had a song from Carole King for the end credits, but Madonna wanted to do her own song, “This Used to Be My Playground,” which worked in that spot. I hadn’t let Madonna start the singing in the Peaches song earlier in the movie. I didn’t want to exploit her. So this gave fans something they had expected.

  My finished cut failed to impress the studio president, Mark Canton. He asked why I ended on the old ladies.

  “Why not end on Geena, Tom, and Lori?” he asked.

  “Because that ain’t the end of t
he movie,” I said.

  “Well, I don’t know,” he said. “These are old ladies.”

  Test screenings proved me right. The numbers kept going up as we snuck it in various theaters. When I complained to Mike Ovitz, he said, “You don’t have to worry. You have final cut.” Up till then, I didn’t know that I wielded such power. Who had time to wield?

  Confirmation that my instincts were right came from two authorities, two of the highest that I knew. The first was the public. Despite what I considered a terrible premiere screening at the Academy Theater (the theater has no vibe; Tom and I left the moment it finished, skipping the party), the movie opened in June 1992 to positive reviews and a box office that climbed through the summer. Tom and I were promoting it at the film festivals in Deauville and Venice. We were in Venice when it reached $100 million, my second film to hit that milestone. We celebrated with an enormous cake.

  Steven Spielberg paid me the biggest compliment. He asked how I had composed the end of the movie. It’s a pretty big deal when Steven asks, “How’d you do that?” He was intrigued when I said that I used the real women. “They’re who I did the movie for,” I said. “They’re who I wanted to honor.” He asked if I would mind if he used that type of ending in his next film, Schindler’s List. I said, “Of course not. You’re entitled.”

  And the truth was, it didn’t belong to me. In the same way that the end of Steven’s movie belonged to the survivors, mine belonged to all the women who had played the game.

  CHAPTER 40

  Adding Wood

  Penny, Gregory Hines, and Mark Wahlberg on the set of 1994’s Renaissance Man

  “Renaissance Man” © 1994 Cinergi Pictures Entertainment, Inc., & Cinergi Productions, N.V.

  AT THE END OF League, Tracy revealed some familiar-sounding news: She was pregnant and engaged. I handled the news and preparations well, and I thought I mediated well when the two of them began to fight about whether to live in New York, where he was from, or L.A., where she had her life. My solution? I bought a second apartment in New York. It was a floor below mine.