The day of Burt’s impending death, we were on location at a liquor store in Pasadena. The prop man handed me the gun, and I was suddenly nervous because, even though I had my stage combat down cold, I’d never before fired a gun in a movie. Making matters more difficult, the camera angle was strange, an extreme close-up of the gun barrel pointing at Burt’s head, and I knew that if the shot was going to work, I’d need to point the gun just slightly away from his face. No problem. Unfortunately, the prop man made a mistake that almost cost Burt his face, and me my career.
When I went to plug Burt, I had no idea that the gun was packed with twice as much load as necessary, so when the director shouted, “Action,” and I pulled the trigger, Burt’s toupee flapped in the breeze from the discharge—thank God it didn’t blow off completely. The disintegrated paper from the blank charge went all over him and his wardrobe; it looked like he’d had a massive attack of dandruff. I felt like the biggest weenie on the set. I wondered if I’d ever work in this town again.
Burt wiped all the crap off his face, put his arm around my shoulders, and pulled me off to the side. “Look, kid,” he said, “don’t feel bad.”
“I don’t feel bad. I feel terrible.”
“These things happen. No big deal. I’m okay. Listen, when we do it again, I want you to get vicious and look psychotic. This is my big death scene. The nastier you are, the more the audience will care about me.” The second take, everything went off without a hitch, and Mr. Reynolds was dead. I’ve killed plenty of people in my film career, but Burt was my first movie star.
(A side note: even though the scene ended up fine, I was still a bit down after work, so on the way home I stopped at a bar for a quick one … or two … I couldn’t decide what to order, but I remembered that throughout Hustle, Burt’s character drinks an Irish whiskey called Old Bushmills. I’d never tasted it, but it was love at first sip. For the next twenty-five years, it was my poison of choice.)
THE FOLLOWING YEAR, I went up to Bellingham, Washington, a blue-collar town north of Seattle, to film Young Joe, the Forgotten Kennedy, a TV movie about Joseph Kennedy Jr. I had a featured role, which afforded me plenty of downtime, most of which was passed hiding from the constant rain inside the one decent bar in town. The bar was always filled with young women flying solo because all of their husbands were up in the far north working on the Alaskan Pipeline. They were lonely, flush with their absent hubby’s money, and we were bored, horny actors with time to kill, so naturally the party was on.
On our first Friday night in Washington, the party moved from the bar to one of our cast member’s suites and soon got wild. To set the mood, I grabbed some shirts off the floor and tossed them over the lampshades, which I hoped would create some mellow party lighting, then jacked up the stereo and made sure that everybody in the room had some tequila. Always the gracious host.
So everybody’s drinking and making out and having a good old time, and there, in the center of the scrum, one of our actors was dancing with one of the local gals. They were grinding closer and closer, and it was getting hotter and hotter, and all of a sudden, right there, in the middle of the party, the guy gave her a very healthy backhand and everything went silent, except for the horrible disco tune pumping from the speakers.
A couple of the other cast members ran over to restrain their actor friend before things could get further out of hand. At that moment the gal stepped up to the actor and nailed him with a roundhouse punch. The actor slowly smiled. Then the gal, with her bloody split lip, grinned right back at him. He planted a kiss on her, a passionate, sexy, bloody kiss. They disappeared into the fluorescent-lit bathroom and closed the door behind them. They weren’t seen for the rest of the weekend, and they remained a couple until the shoot was over. A match made in hell. I was growing up fast.
A couple of months later, I auditioned for a costarring role in another big movie with an all-star cast—Jeff Bridges, Sally Field, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Scatman Crothers, among others—called Stay Hungry. For the first time in my career, I went to the interview in character, which basically meant resurrecting the southern accent I’d used in Buster and Billie. Several callbacks later, I was offered the part, beating out Sylvester Stallone and, for the second time in four years, Gary Busey. (Probably because of our early typecasting as southerners, Gary and I went up for the same roles a lot back in the seventies. Some of them he got, some of them I got, and I have no hard feelings whatsoever because I love his work. I have no idea how he feels about mine, and frankly, I don’t want to find out.)
Originally, I was only scheduled to shoot in Alabama for six weeks on Stay Hungry. But the director, Bob Rafelson, was working his magic, and magic is sometimes slow in coming, so I wound up on location for almost three months, with pockets full of per diem and many unscheduled hours to fill in the Deep South.
Scatman was my next-door neighbor at the motel, and one dull night I was awakened by a whole lot of banging on his door. I peeked my head into the hallway and saw three huge policemen, pounding away. As a Californian and the child of liberal parents, I imagined the worst: in 1977, southern cops plus a black man wouldn’t likely add up to anything good.
After shooting several films below the Mason-Dixon line, I’ve come to love the South and southerners—the hospitality, the sultry nights, the food, and the music are all unique, and I have also realized that down there, whites and blacks probably have more positive daily interaction than they do up north. Still, back at that motel in Alabama, I figured that nothing good would come of the police action next door. I just hoped that Scatman didn’t have any weed.
A few minutes later the cops pulled out their billy clubs, kicked the door in, and rushed into the room. As I listened to the ruckus next door, I remembered that Scatman had wrapped the day before and was probably at home back in Los Angeles. I peeked out my window and saw Alabama’s finest dragging two rednecks out the door. Ironically, it turned out the only people the local police force was prejudiced against were criminals. Chalk one up for white guilt.
Working with Sally Field was a joy. Not only was she a fine actress, but she was cute; and who would’ve guessed that the Flying Nun had such a hot, sexy little body. Sally and I used to ride from the hotel to the set in these enormous station wagons, the kind of car that every other suburban family owned, circa 1975. Sally loved pop music—strictly AM radio; FM wasn’t quite on her radar—and she knew the lyrics to every tune on the Top 40. So every morning, without fail, we’d get into the car, Sally would ask me to hold her coffee while she tuned the radio to her favorite local station, and then she’d sing along with damn near everything. When some actors want to get into the zone, they meditate or do breathing exercises. When Sally wanted to get into the zone, she belted out “Sugar, Sugar.”
Not only did I have a good ol’ time during filming, but I learned a lot on the set. One of the things I’m proudest of is my one-take five-bank pool shot filmed in the master. Today, that would be the kind of thing that would most likely be CGI’ed in postproduction, but back then, I had to learn how to make that shot, and learn it quickly, because I didn’t want to be the guy who added another costly day to the shooting schedule.
For some fans, the highlight may have been the fight in the gym scene when I took a pool cue in the balls. I think that was the second greatest nut-shot in cinema history, number one being when Paul Newman booted one of his gang in the groin in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. That one you could feel all the way in the balcony.
Schwarzenegger had brought in seemingly every bodybuilder in the world to appear in the film’s last scenes, featuring a weight-lifting contest. These guys were ripped, and my lasting image of that location was dozens of these magnificent physical specimens diving into our motel’s pool from the third-story roof. Now that was a wrap party!
SOON AFTER STAY HUNGRY wrapped, thanks to the money I’d saved up from my film work, Jan and I finally moved into our own place in the foothills above Studio City, a beautiful
apartment building that had been designed by master architect Rudolph Schindler. We continued to socialize with our coterie of film geeks, one of whom introduced us to a funny young actor whom we liked so much we practically adopted him. His name was Mark Hamill.
Mark, who was an eye blink away from becoming Luke Skywalker, became a fixture in our Schindler apartment, and even though he was only a few years younger than Jan and me, he was a lot more attuned to contemporary pop culture. He introduced me to Monty Python, as well as a bunch of little-known sci-fi and horror movies. (Mark was a serious horror fanatic, complete with a subscription to Famous Monsters magazine.) He was a die-hard fan of The Mary Tyler Moore Show, and he loved his Heineken. Mark clued me in to quality TV, and introduced me to the delights of watching old Marx Brothers movies in the middle of the afternoon. Simply put, he helped me to lighten up.
My agent sent me up to read for the part of the surfer in Apocalypse Now. I wore an old khaki, thrift-store army shirt, faded green Levi’s, and work boots to the audition in an effort to look military, because going to auditions in character was working for me. They took one look at me and decided I was too old. (Truth be told, I was more interested in the part of the cook that Frederic Forrest eventually played, but I was too young for that one.) “But,” one of the casting people suggested, “you might want to poke your head into the door across the hall. They’re working on something you might be right for.”
And that something was Star Wars.
But again my age was a factor; I was too young to play Han Solo. I left the building, went to the Formosa, my favorite watering hole across the street from the studio, tossed back a shot of Old Bushmills, and tried to figure out a way to come off as older. Or younger. Or taller. Oh well.
After Mark came home from filming Star Wars, he entertained Jan and me with stories about how privileged he felt to work with Alec Guinness, how funny Carrie Fisher was, what an adventure it was to shoot in the Tunisian desert, and how to “fight” with a light saber. (I learned from Mark just how far special effects had come since the days of our favorite FX pioneer, Ray Harryhausen.) As a science fiction fanboy himself, Mark was one of the few people in the world who, early on, predicted that Star Wars was going to be an international smash.
By then, I was living by the adage that actors should act. I’d seen too many of my New York and Academy of Dramatic Art friends—many of whom were far more talented than me—fall through the cracks and fail because they refused to take roles that required them to leave Manhattan, or that they considered to be beneath them. I’m not saying I accepted each and every job that came my way, but I was probably somewhat less discerning than my East Coast friends and old pals from the ADA. It’s great to be recognized, but the fact is I’m just a character actor, a working stiff, and the majority of the time, if somebody wants to hire me, I’m there.
IN 1976, I WENT up for the second male lead, a roadie named Bobbie Ritchie, in the remake of the classic film A Star Is Born. My main competition for the part was, you guessed it, Gary Busey. Gary’s a real musician, so he logically got the role, and I had no problem with that. But the casting people liked me well enough that they threw me a bone in the form of a small but memorable part. I played the obnoxious redneck fan of the film’s costar, Kris Kristofferson. During my big scene, my character pestered Kris’s character to give me an autograph while the female lead, Barbra Streisand, was trying to sing a pretty little song. Kris refused, and I wouldn’t take no for an answer, so the whole thing turned into a big old fight, but, unlike my fight scene in Stay Hungry, I didn’t get whacked in the balls.
The morning of my scene, I sauntered over to a backstage mirror to check my hair—I was going for a white-trash rockabilly look—and picked up one of the fancy hairbrushes by the mirror. While I was trying to get my do to curl over my forehead just right, I noticed in the mirror one of the makeup girls staring at me with alarm. I felt a presence behind me; I turned around, and there she was, in all her superstar glory, Ms. Streisand herself, a sly smile on her face. Turned out I was grooming myself with La Streisand’s personal on-set antique makeup kit. Thank God I hadn’t used the brush yet. I gently placed it back on its tray and skulked away.
We filmed in Pasadena, and my portion of the shoot was going smoothly … more or less. Kristofferson had just gotten into acting, and he was working hard to make his character as realistic as possible, the result being that in our fight scene, he actually fought. During one of the takes, he clipped me on the nose pretty good, and I actually saw stars. He felt awful about it and apologized profusely. I think Kris thought I was a stunt-man, and he was allowed to make full contact with stuntmen. Wrong. I was a working stiff, and working stiffs don’t like knuckle sandwiches. (Getting punched by big stars turned out to be a theme in my early career. At the same studio, two years later, I’d get poked in the nose by Richard Gere during the filming of a drama called Bloodbrothers. I was wearing some disco platform boots, and when Richard knocked me backward, I aggravated an old ankle injury, which taught me that regardless of what the director or costume designer says, forsake vanity and accuracy and always wear sensible shoes.)
The budget for A Star Is Born was close to $6 million, which, in 1976, was exorbitant. For the first time I had a trailer dressing room all to myself, complete with my very own color television. The catering was gourmet, and I haven’t eaten as well on a movie since. I’d arrived.
Now, who would be the most logical person to work with after the incomparable Barbra Streisand? Maybe Robert Redford? Nah. Possibly Dustin Hoffman? No way. How about the guy who directed The Texas Chain Saw Massacre?
Hell, yeah. Now we’re talking.
IN 1974, A THIRTY-ONE-YEAR-OLD director named Tobe Hooper released his second film, a graphic slasher movie called The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. The title pretty much sums it up—a bunch of Texas teenagers get tormented by a chain-saw-wielding hitchhiker and his merry band of murderers— and it became an immediate cult classic, so much so that it both informed the style of and established genre elements that would be ripped off by generations of future filmmakers. Three years later came Tobe’s follow-up, Death Watch, which was eventually renamed Eaten Alive, and what a crazy cast: Oscar nominees Carolyn Jones and Stuart Whitman; Audrey Hepburn’s husband, Mel Ferrer; veteran TV and film character actor Neville Brand; a Brian De Palma regular named William Finley; and former Teenage Drama Workshop stalwart Robert Englund.
The first time I walked on the soundstage, I was blown away by the set: an old Victorian farmhouse surrounded by tumble-weeds, cacti, ominous dead trees, frantic caged animals, and an old convertible Caddy El Dorado parked by the veranda, all enveloped by a low-hanging Hollywood fog. Truly a frightening atmosphere. In the midst of all this sat my long-haired, shaggy-bearded director, Mr. Hooper. I love Tobe, in part because he’s an original. He’s an intellectual with a professor’s vocabulary, which he growls at you with his bark of a voice. He was never without a thin brown Sherman cigarette in his hand and was always excited to converse about anything at length: history, literature, movies, rock and roll, you name it.
Having never done a horror film, I had no idea what to expect; I certainly didn’t anticipate its being so much fun. (Okay, wrestling a rubber alligator in freezing water wasn’t a blast, but what’re you gonna do?) And for the record, in the Japanese version of the film, that is not my penis.
Working with Tobe whetted my appetite for more horror flicks, but first, it was time to try out for a western, albeit a contemporary one. The film: The Last of the Cowboys. The stars: Henry Fonda and Susan Sarandon. I needed to beat out Michael Sacks, the Golden Globe–nominated star of Slaughterhouse-Five, for the role of Beebo Crozier.
The auditions were at a dingy little office out in North Hollywood. I went in for my final callback, and who walks in while I’m sitting on the floor in the waiting room? Ms. Saran-don, with her Bette Davis eyes. She smiled at me, said hello, then leaned over and gave me a tender kiss on the cheek. I knew righ
t then she was in my corner, and I had a legitimate chance at getting the part. I aced my final audition and was almost in. I only had one more obstacle: Henry Fonda. Since most of Henry’s scenes were with Beebo, he had final approval of who got the role.
The next morning, I was sent to Henry’s estate in Bel-Air. The 1920s Spanish hacienda had polished tile floors and an impressive collection of art hanging on the walls. I followed his wife, Shirlee, down a long hall to a study in the back, where on the table sat a pitcher of fresh lemonade, and a copy of the Cowboys script marked up in different-colored pencils. Then in walks the man himself, the great Henry Fonda, wearing a beekeeper’s outfit. He took off the mesh bonnet, put some fresh honey on the table, then started to gently grill me. After about an hour, he smiled, stuck out his hand, and said, “Robert, I look forward to working with you.” I don’t even remember retracing my steps through the corridors of the great actor’s home; I was just so relieved to have won him over.
Despite the high-powered cast, this was an independent movie with a low budget, so it was back to sharing a small Winnebago with two other people. Fortunately, those people were Henry and Shirlee Fonda. Since I’d recently become a classic-film buff, all I wanted to do was quiz Henry in depth about his illustrious career in Hollywood. Tell me about the making of The Grapes of Wrath…. What was it like shooting with Hitchcock on The Wrong Man ? … Was it fun working on The Lady Eve, that screwball comedy where you play a geeky guy, and I need to know because that’s my favorite movie of yours…. But I bit my tongue and reined myself in. He was carrying the entire film, and since he’d just had an operation, I figured he needed his energy, so I gave him his space and permitted myself only one pestering question per day. Well, maybe two.
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