by Logan Miller
“Please read them…,” he said. “Please. They’re all true.” It was sweet hopefulness and desperation.
“We will, Dad, promise…”
He’d sent us letters before. Most of the time they were drunken talk, incoherent ramblings that were painful for us to read. Over time, we stopped. But once he died, we felt a great deal of guilt and sadness about not reading them. He’d given us a gift and we had rejected it. We sat down on our carpet, tears forming, and opened the manila envelope. There were several letters, written on jailhouse yellow notepads, neatly folded and fastened with handmade paper clasps. They were humble and spare, written with the simplicity of one who has come to terms with mortality. It was the bare honesty and plain expression of a man reflecting on his life, unable to hide. The mirror was there. There was nowhere to go but inside.
“The Killing Attempt” was the first letter we read. These are our father’s words:
The time was Xmas eve 2001. 8:00 evening. The place Olema Campground. The victim was me. The killer was me…I had given up on me. I had given up on you. I had given up on everything. I was tired of searching, scraping, and grasping for a sliver of any hope. I was tired of living in my truck for 10 years, dodging police, being arrested, going to jail, paying fines, doing programs, basically living like shit…I knew I was lost in my space unable to communicate…The invisible bridge from me to the world I could not cross…I felt fairly easy about giving up, and ending life now, on my own terms. We’re born, we live and suffer, struggle, and then we die. Most people, even with a plan, have no idea…
He went on to describe how he tried to kill himself by attaching a rubber hose to his exhaust pipe and pumping the fumes into the camper on his truck where he was lying down. He felt like an even bigger failure afterward. Life was hard, death was easy, and he couldn’t even do that.
There was always an emotional distance between us and our father, a remoteness we never managed to bring close. Those letters exposed us to the man across that distance, to the man who had been so far.
When Ed came on board we made copies of the letters and gave them to him.
“The Jeep and the Angle” was another letter. He meant Angel, but our dad couldn’t spell that well. He compensated for it with an unschooled imagination.
“The letter about the ambush, about the angel was really powerful,” Ed said. “It helped me get a good understanding, I think. Losing your buddies like that in war, right in front of you has gotta be hard.”
“His jeep had thirty-six bullet holes in it and he didn’t get a scratch…He said the angel saved his life.”
We were driving through the redwoods of Lagunitas, a stone’s throw across the creek from the first place we called home. The car stayed quiet for a while as we reflected on our dad’s letters and how we had all been brought together by this man who believed his life was not worth living, the man whom Ed Harris was now becoming.
“You guys know where we can get a good burger around here?” Ed asked, breaking the silence.
“One of the best places in the world is right down the road in Fairfax. It was our dad’s favorite.”
We stopped at M&G’s and ate Louie burgers, milk shakes, and fries—thick style with ridges.
“Guys, I know what you’re up against,” Ed said. “I took on the same responsibilities on Pollock. It’s a huge undertaking. We only made one of our shooting days on Pollock, and it was something like day fifty-six, the second-to-the-last day of filming…I want you to know that I’m here for you boys. Whatever you need. The crew is going to be watching, seeing if you guys are in control. You’re the directors. If you don’t like something I’m doing, or want me to do it again, just say so, and I’ll do it…I’m here to help you realize your dream.”
In one brief expression between the bite of a cheeseburger and the sip of a chocolate milk shake, Ed Harris relieved the months of anxiety and sleepless nights and dispelled the uncertainty that had been haunting us. He made us feel like we could kick through a castle wall and eat the stones without breaking our teeth.
Ed still wasn’t signed, however, wasn’t contractually obligated to our movie. But damn if he wasn’t on our team. Those were the best cheeseburgers we’ve ever had.
GETTING READY FOR DAD
The next morning we read through the script with Ed. He had lots of questions about our dad that weren’t answered in the letters or the previous day’s conversations. How he walked, his posture—was it upright like this, or hunched like this?
“By the end of his life he was a broken man, beaten up by life,” Logan said. “He’d lost everything, his pride, his self-worth, his friends, and most of his family…”
“So his posture was more like this?” Ed said, rounding his shoulders, looking as though his joints were aching.
“Yeah, like that.”
“What about his cadence when he spoke? Was it like this…” Ed read a few lines of dialogue. “Or like this?” He read the same lines again, modulating his voice, the intonation and rhythm.
After an hour and a half we took a break. It was Ed’s birthday and our mom had baked him a carrot cake. We each ate a slice—it was damn good—went outside for a shot of tobacco.
Brad Dourif was outside on the patio. He and Ed had never met. We introduced them and they talked for a bit. There was a mutual respect between them, a tone of admiration, two masters who had studied each other’s work for decades and were finally working together.
Ed finished his cigarette.
“Let’s get back to it, boys,” he said. “See you tomorrow, Brad.”
“All right, Ed. See you then,” Brad said, then to us, “you boys take it easy on your father here…It’s his birthday.”
Three hours later Ed felt confident with the material. Tomorrow we’d capture it on film.
FROM PAUPER TO KING
It was twenty-three degrees when we arrived at Love Field at 6:30 A.M., a thick layer of frost covering the grass, puddles iced over.
The first two scenes were shot without Ed, who was getting worked on in the hair and makeup trailer. Mary Mastro, Karen Bradley, and Ginger Damon, the hair and makeup artists, had taped several photos of our father to the mirror for reference. We walked into the trailer the day before, unaware of our dad’s photos. Seeing his face and looking into his eyes brought all the pain and emotions back. It was hard for us to go inside again. So we waited for Ed out on the field.
“Whoa, guys,” Jasha said, walking over to us, tears in his eyes.
Jasha is no softy. He’s six feet high and 260 pounds of tattoos and muscle, a former national champion Olympic weightlifter and disciple of Coach Gough. He lost his mom to a heroin overdose when he was fifteen, bounced around from home to home. Nothing has been easy for him. He knows tragedy and raw emotions and wasn’t afraid to bear his. “Man, I just saw Ed. He’s on his way over here. I gasped when I saw him, thought I saw the ghost of Dan Miller. Just giving you the heads-up. He looks so much like your dad it’s scary.”
Several of our lifelong buddies were on the set that day. None of us grew up around the movie industry, and what we were doing was a very cool thing to them. So they hung out, ate a bunch of good food, and hit on the girls in our crew.
We were shooting from the pitcher’s mound when Ed walked onto the field. His walk was our dad’s walk. He was wearing a red jacket and backpack, just like our dad the last day we saw him walking down the road. The set went quiet. There were lots of people out there who knew our dad, and Ed had become him. Our father had been resurrected.
“How do I look, boys? Do I look like him?” Ed asked.
We nodded, choked up, couldn’t talk, turned our backs, and walked over to the side of the field and gathered our emotions. We took the time we needed and then went back to work. We finished the day at Love Field playing catch in the sunset with Ed. Then we drove to Samuel P. Taylor State Park and filmed Logan having dinner with Dad in the redwoods one last time.
JOHN FORD, MOVIE STAR
Salvation arrived on Day Five. And the army said Hallelujah as we moved inside to shoot Ed playing poker at the Papermill Creek Saloon in Forest Knolls, a rustic den with old-growth redwood beams running down the ceiling, a milled log for the counter, a mixed bag of neon signs, Christmas lights, old funky mirrors, a couple of nude paintings, and a wood-burning stove. It was a place where our dad blew many a dollar.
For the poker scenes, we didn’t want to cast a group of well-known actors. We wanted men full of hard living, faces with character, creases of laughter and weathered skin.
We held a casting session at the hotel a week before shooting. We saw thirty-two actors and chose five extraordinary talents: James Carraway, Richard Conti, David Fine, Rod Gnapp, and George Maguire. We tried to find time to rehearse prior to shooting, but the demands of preproduction intervened. So we told the fabulous five to know their lines and that we would rehearse the day of filming. It’s tough to work like this, but that’s the way it was.
A big concern: the poker game had to move. It couldn’t get bogged down with shuffling and dealing. It had to look natural. All the actors swore they were avid poker players, said they could play at whatever pace we needed, no sweat. But we also knew that actors will tell you they can do no-handed handstands in order to get the job.
“We gotta find a dealer,” Noah said after the casting session. “A professional, someone who can keep the pace moving so that the scenes feel natural, like a real game. Not an actor that’s a dealer, but a professional dealer, a guy that does it for a living. He won’t have to say anything, just deal, keep the flow.”
We called Bao. He plays cards all over the Bay Area. He said we should come on over to Casino San Pablo and meet John Ford, a house dealer, see if we like him, see if he’d be good for the movie.
John Ford is in his midfifties, ruddy skin, gray hair, and thick gray mustache, a guy you might see dealing cards in a Cheyenne saloon.
Now most people won’t admit it, but nearly every American hopes, dreams, envisions the day when some producer or director—anyone associated with a movie—walks into his life, recognizes a skill of his, and says, “You…yes, you. You’re really good at what you do. Really good…How’d you like to be in a movie?”
John Ford had been tossing cards most of his adult life. Destiny in every hand, though never in his. Destiny was always across the table. But now, finally, the winning hand was right in front of him. His talent had been recognized. He had dealt himself destiny.
We asked John if he wanted to be in a movie with Ed Harris.
All we had to do was say when…
We pulled into the Papermill Creek Saloon, early morning, coffee in hand. We’d be filming here the entire day and late into the night. But the prospects of us completing the day—a day that looked impossible on paper—looked even bleaker when we showed up.
The bar was supposed to be prelit by the electric department. Meaning, the electricians show up early, and by the time everybody arrives on set, the place is ready to shoot.
But there had been a miscommunication. The electric department was now arriving with the rest of the crew. As a result, we were three hours behind schedule before we started.
“Guys, I just don’t think we can make this day,” Connie said, sitting on a barstool, studying the schedule. “I’m not trying to be negative. I’m just trying to be realistic.” She laughed at the odds. “It’s impossible, Bros…You know I love you.”
We gave little Connie a big hug. “We’ll make it, Connie. Why?…Because we have to.”
We threw in a chew of tobacco and searched for a solution. There wasn’t much we could do to speed up the electric department. They were already moving their gear off the truck; if we tried to help we’d only get in their way.
So we took the actors out back and started rehearsing at a rotting wooden table on a deck above the creek. John Ford, our dealer, hadn’t arrived yet. He was thirty minutes late. We’d live or die by his dealing.
“Bao, have you heard from John?” Logan asked over the walkie-talkie.
“I spoke to him this morning, said he was coming.”
“How well do you know John?”
“He’ll be here.”
We continued rehearsing out back. The actors took turns dealing. It was failure, complete and total. It was thirty-seven degrees and we started sweating. The “avid poker players” hadn’t dealt a card since Jimmy’s bachelor party in ’78. It was interfering with their acting. A two-minute scene was a clumsy and awkward five-minute molasses guzzle. Ten minutes passed and Noah jumped on the walkie again: “Bao, where the hell’s John Ford?”
“He’s probably lost. He don’t ever come out this far.”
We prayed John Ford, our savior, was speeding to the joint with the full force of his foot.
“Let’s get rid of the cards, guys,” Noah said, reaching across the table and gathering them up. “Let’s just work through the mechanics of the scene without them.”
“We’re just getting the hang of it,” one of the actors said, believing he was.
“Look, you guys are superb actors and that’s why you’re here. But you’re not card dealers. So let’s just try the scene without the cards for a while. Okay?”
So we took the cards away and worked through the scene, men sitting around a table drinking and gambling, trying to upset the confidence of their opponents.
Connie came out back, worried. “Where’s your dealer? The electric department is almost ready?”
“He’s on his way,” Noah said softly, stepping back from the rehearsal table.
“Did you talk to him?”
“No…He’ll be here, Connie. Don’t worry.”
Truth is, Noah was in a world of darkness.
And then the light came as the saloon doors swung open.
And John Ford arrived, looking like the Electric Horseman, smile blazing, prepared to deal all night, forever if he had to. He was carrying decks of fancy cards and a set of antique poker chips, had a .38 Derringer in his breast pocket, “in case we got some cheaters.”
John Ford, a professional dealer at a Northern California Indian Casino, was shining. Tonight was his night. He’d taken his character preparation and wardrobe ideas to a level of towering enthusiasm.
Connie turned to Noah and said under her breath, “He’s kidding, right? He can’t wear that shirt.”
Noah walked across the saloon and gave John a mighty handshake. “John, love what you’ve done with the outfit, truly, it’s remarkable…But you gotta go to wardrobe.”
“You don’t like the shirt?” John asked, deflating. It was a $300 glowing white cowboy shirt with blue and red tassels running down the sleeves, a mixture of disco cowboy and Buffalo Bill in all his American glory.
“Dude, I love the shirt. Love it. It’s just not right for this movie.”
“What about these?”
John set his antique poker chips on the table, stacked several columns, and fanned a deck of cards across the felt. The chips were vivid blue and red, with a regal-looking emblem in the center, and made a rich sound when dropped on the table. These chips had character, history, like the saloon and the guys at the table.
“The chips and cards are perfect,” Noah said.
John’s smile blazed anew.
“Now go run to wardrobe so we can rehearse…And put the gun back in your car.”
John Ford ran out of the saloon and returned with all the beam and gleam of a man ready to be a star.
The electric department finished lighting the bar and we moved the actors inside for a camera rehearsal. The place was tight. We were shooting with two cameras, which made it even tighter. John Ford started tossi
ng cards around the table and the scene started flowing. We rehearsed a few more times and then rolled film.
Everybody was having a blast. The place was warm, filled with extras, surging with energy, a real fire blazing in the fireplace. It made you wanna pour a whiskey and drink it hard, yell YEEHAAA, grab the Derringer and shoot the ceiling. But we had to keep our wits, had to stay focused. So we stuck to the coffee and chocolate and climbed the electricity of the joint.
THE TRANSFORMATION
It was early evening. Noah was inside the saloon next to the camera, studying the performances. Logan was out back on the deck watching the video monitor. We were shooting the third poker scene of the day. We’d already shot Ed’s close-up and were now working our way around the table, shooting the other poker players.
The camera was on Rod Gnapp. Ed was speaking to him off camera. Problem was we weren’t getting any reaction from Rod when Ed spoke to him. Rod seemed to be preoccupied with his lines, only thinking about what he was going to say next. He was not listening to Ed.
Listen and react, that’s all it is.
In the scene, Ed grows belligerent and tells Rod to “Shut up.” We needed to see a natural reaction to this on Rod’s face. But we didn’t want to tell Rod to give us a certain look: mean, scared, frightened. Directing of this kind smacks of inexperience. It’s hard for an actor to do that. The reaction appears forced, contrived, unnatural, and dishonest. And most importantly, out of respect for the actor, you don’t want to depreciate their creativity in front of forty people by saying “Do this.”
So Logan runs inside and whispers in Ed’s ear, “Ed, this time when you say shut up, yell it as loud as you can. We’re not getting anything from Rod, and we need some reaction. I think we’re going to want to cut to Rod, or the other players’ reactions, after you say shut up.”
“It’s kinda cramped in here…,” Ed said. “I’m not going to yell, but don’t worry, I’ll get a reaction outta him.”
“Okay.”
We shoot Rod’s close-up again. Ed says “Shut up” and Rod doesn’t react. Nothing. So Logan runs back inside and whispers to Ed again.