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by Gordon Pinsent

  Replied Wally, without a second’s hesitation: “It’s called an excuse for stopping!”

  Climbing a hill with Wally Cox was sort of amusing. Climbing a hill with Terry Malone from On the Waterfront was quite something else.

  The next pause came in the form of Wally’s surprise engagement with the mother-in-law of all rattlers, shooting out from between some rocks at him. “SNAKE!” cried the famous comedian, bolting straight up and back onto, guess what, my trusty well-sharpened snake stick – “FUCCCK!” – propelling him forward into snake territory again, where he was in a much better position than the hugely talented Marlon Brando or myself to nail the bastard with a whole lot of rocks till dead. This done, he cut off its head, informing us that the head is the most dangerous part for anyone else to pick up.

  Later, when we were putting our feet up at Wally’s, his wife Pat asked what had happened.

  “Everything was fine,” said Brando, “until Gordie the Newfoundlander stabbed Wally with his snake stick!”

  Now I was Gordie.

  On another occasion Marlon raced into Wally’s house, ran right past us into the kitchen, ripped open the fridge door, grabbed a chunk of chocolate cake, squashed it onto his face, and flopped into the nearest chair. Deciphering Brando wasn’t the easiest chore at the best of times, but when spoken through a mouth full of pound cake, his speech became a linguist’s nightmare.

  “Whergumblskeelatembo?”

  “No, I’m not going to a movie with you, you fat bastard!” Wally replied. Brando grunted. Wally shrugged. “Take Gordo, if he wants to go.”

  “Wanna go to a movie, Gordie?” asked Fletcher Christian.

  We went to a double bill at a theatre in the San Fernando Valley, where we saw two of what were surely the longest MGM movies ever made, The Brothers Grimm and How the West Was Won. On the way there we stopped to pick up Marl’s wife, Tarita (from Mutiny on the Bounty,) who was still nursing their daugher Cheyenne at the time, and two of his other children were there as well, Christian and Miko, wild kids, both of them. We sat there for 300 bum-numbing minutes, and every time another big-name actor came onscreen – Marlon was practically the only big-name actor who wasn’t in one of those two films – he’d snort dismissively. Jimmy Stewart appeared onscreen, and Marlon snorted. And then Lee J. Cobb came on. Marlon had worked with him in On the Waterfront, of course, and I had just worked with him on a series.

  “There’s your friend!” I said.

  Marlon stuffed more popcorn into his mouth.

  “The trouble with Lee,” he said, “is that he has this awful voice.” Which was pretty funny considering Marlon was unintelligible most of the time.

  After The Godfather came out, a story started circulating that I was the one who suggested Marlon stuff his mouth with cotton to play Don Corleone. Oh sure. More cotton, more cotton, we can still hear you! The story was very amusing, but of course it wasn’t true. Yes, I had talked to Marlon about The Godfather. I asked him why he had chosen to do this particular film, and he said, “The banks, the banks.” I think his island retreat in the South Seas was in deep financial despair, and he needed to make some money to bail it out.

  I think he accepted the role of Jor-El, Superman’s father, for the same reason. The producers came to see him, all sweaty and nervous, because they were about to meet Marlon Brando. And he said, “I want to play him like a bagel,” and they just looked at each other and then back at him – and he could outstare you for weeks – and they said, Okay, all right, sure.

  Over time I did some sketches of Wally, and a couple of Marlon, and Marlon wanted them, so I gave them to him. And at the end, after he died, they were put up for auction with the rest of the stuff that he had diligently squirrelled away.

  Leah remembers going hiking with Marlon and me as a little girl and how he kept trying to get her attention, especially when she seemed to be ignoring him, which she did most of the time, she admits, because she thought he was a bit creepy. Marlon was outrageous, but in a different kind of way. He asked a lot of questions but never answered any. And he was a bit of a coward. But it was still exciting to be around him. I taught Marlon to sing “Danny Boy.” He always asked me to sing it, and I don’t think he even had a copy of my album.

  Your album? you ask, as well you might. Yes, my album. It was called Gordon Pinsent: Roots, with a particularly piquant photo of me on the album cover. I look like the father of The Brady Bunch. In deference to celebrated Canadian entrepreneurs Michael Budman and Don Green, I should hasten to add that the title of the album, Roots, had absolutely nothing to do with their now-famous Canadian clothing label. Nor did it have anything even remotely to do with Edward Albee’s play, which we had performed at the Crest, or the Alex Haley mini-series of the same name. All the tunes on the album came from my roots on the Rock: “She’s Like a Swallow,” “Cod Liver Oil,” “Barbara Allen,” “Foggy Dew,” “Let Me Fish Off Cape St. Mary’s” – perhaps the most lyrical song in the collection – and, of course, “I’s the B’y.” It was released (some say escaped) by Arc Records in 1968, as a twelve-inch vinyl LP, and thanks to YouTube, some audio tracks still haunt me to this day.

  But, I digress.

  Life in L.A. wasn’t all rainbows, but it wasn’t all thunderstorms, either. Invitation to a March was a very elegant TV movie, with a very elegant cast. Arthur Laurents had adapted his play for television, with Marvin Chomsky directing, and they assembled a company they knew they could count on. Blythe Danner, Rosemary Murphy, both Broadway veterans; Patricia Quinn, who had played Alice in Arlo Guthrie’s movie of Alice’s Restaurant; Michael Sacks, who had played the lead in Slaughterhouse Five; Cliff Potts, who was so good as Bruce Dern’s partyboy sidekick in Silent Running. And one of the producers, Norman Lloyd, was himself a working actor. Not only was he one of the original players in the John Houseman–Orson Welles Mercury Theatre, he was also a favourite of Alfred Hitchcock, who had hired him to act in, produce, and direct select film and television projects. Norman, in fact, had played the spy who had slipped from Robert Cummings’ grasp in Hitchcock’s 1942 thriller Saboteur. It was fun to be spending some time, on and off stage, in such good company, however briefly.

  —–

  Down time again. And then, more down time. And I was trying to keep my brain alive, trying to remind myself that I was still an artist. Wasn’t I? Was I? I was still sketching, and I was painting now, watercolours, oils. And building more furniture.

  By now it seemed I could only run on two speeds – when I was performing and when I was not performing. I seemed to be doing an awful lot of waiting. Wondering, wishing, hoping that things would work out, hoping that good scripts would start to come to me, scripts with blood and flesh and bone. My whole life was tied up in it. If I’d only had the sense to see the waiting and the wondering as only part of my life, not all of my life. But I couldn’t, not then, and I gave myself over to it, almost to a dangerous degree. And then one day it suddenly didn’t seem all that mysterious. The writing was right there on the wall. If I wasn’t going to be offered the very best things, or at least something better than the kind of thing I’d been doing, well, then, I’d better start looking elsewhere.

  I knew I couldn’t build a movie the way I built furniture. I knew I couldn’t sketch a movie, or paint a movie. But maybe, just maybe, I could write a movie. I had reached a critical point where I realized I had to take my career into my own hands. I had to write something. Something good.

  Larry used to say that to make it in Hollywood you had to be in the right place, at the right time, with the right thing. And if you’re not, then you have to create the right place, the right time, and the right thing. Your thing. So that’s what I would attempt to do. I would write a movie about a character based on me – the alternate Porky Pinsent, in a fictional parallel universe. Same guy, sure, except this time he never leaves the Rock, never has to seduce tough Canadian customs officers, never joins the army, never … never becomes Gordon Pinsent.

&n
bsp; I started typing.

  The words started coming.

  The central character, Will Cole, has his own philosophy: “Seduce it if it moves and drink it if it pours.”

  This is not bad, I think.

  I rewrite the first act. Yes. Much better.

  Second act, and we’re wondering how long Will Cole can get away with being Will Cole.

  Third act, and Will’s world is starting to fall apart.

  I think this is – dare I say it? – pretty good. Maybe.

  Life starts coming back into focus.

  Larry reads it. He loves it. He announces that he personally wants to produce it.

  “You’re an actor, Larry,” I tell him, “what do you know about producing a movie?”

  “Gordon,” he says, “what does anyone know about producing a movie?”

  I love Larry, but I’m highly dubious. Still, Larry is one of the very few people I know who seems to understand that “show business” is two separate words. He knows all about Show. He believes his Lebanese heritage has given him an innate sense of Business. And he’s also kept his eyes open, and has observed how business, especially the movie business, is currently being conducted in Canada.

  “Let me see if I can raise the money,” says Larry.

  “Okay,” I reply. “Sure. Why not.”

  I consult with my agent-du-jour, who reads it, loves it (what else is he going to say?), and cheers me up considerably when he says he thinks the studios “could really go for this one!”

  Turns out he’s right.

  “It’s really offbeat, different from all the other stuff I’ve been reading,” says one studio exec. “What do you hope to do with it?”

  I tell him.

  “You want to do it yourself?” He shakes his head in disbelief, then shrugs his tailored Saville Row shoulders. “You’re never going to do it yourself. You’ll never get it made.”

  Another exec at another studio has connections. Major Movie Star connections.

  “All right, I’ll tell you this much, Elliott Gould has expressed some interest in it as a producer. And I can probably get this to Steve McQueen. But why do you have to do it there, in Newfoundland? We can do it right here,” he says, with a sweeping gesture, “right here on the back lot.” He too shrugs. “Never mind, we’ll get beyond that. In the meantime, do you want to sell it?”

  And I do, really badly.

  And I would, if I just had one other good idea – just one – for myself.

  So for once I don’t say Yes. I don’t “do a deal.”

  I pick up my script and go home.

  Back on the hill overlooking the San Fernando Valley I pour myself another Scotch and whine to Charm about my day.

  The next morning I look in the mirror and discover that I have a paunch, a protruding lower abdomen, which is no doubt one of the dividends paid by too much down time and too many Scotches. I get out the old weight belt and strap it on. And resolve to start drinking more water and less Scotch. Someday very soon.

  Charm is eyeing me suspiciously. I am also aware that she is keeping Leah well away from me, in case I might do something … strange.

  The next afternoon the phone rings. I’ve been wearing the weight belt for about four hours. Charm answers the phone.

  “It’s Larry, calling from Toronto,” she informs me.

  I pick up the phone.

  “We’ve got the money,” he says simply.

  Not only does he, do we, have the money, we actually have the money to shoot in Newfoundland.

  A shoestring budget? Bloody right. Maybe only half a shoestring. But, we have the money.

  We make plans to make plans, but I still make him tell me three more times before I let him hang up. And then, giddy with joy, I jump fully clothed into our Hollywood swimming pool – and sink right to the bottom.

  I am still wearing the weight belt.

  Not a strong swimmer at the best of times, I unhook the belt and slowly fight my way to the surface.

  I am going to star in a movie I’ve written, in the outlandishly beautiful place where I was born, in a feature film for theatrical release. And my dear friend Larry is going to produce it.

  We are going to make The Rowdyman.

  Standing on my own (almost), thanks to my sisters and the branches of an unsuspecting tree. (photo credit 11.1)

  Haig, Lil, and me, Porky, on a summer afternoon.

  My sisters Lil and Hazel (my champion) and me, absolutely standing on my own at 15. (photo credit 11.2)

  Pvt. G.E. Pinsent reporting for duty. (photo credit 11.3)

  Horsing around with Haig, while our sister Nita ignores us.

  Faking it as an Arthur Murray instructor in Winnipeg.

  With the girls with the “binoculars” in Death of a Salesman. (photo credit 11.4)

  Rehearsing Glass Menagerie with Ramona McBean and director John Hirsch at the Manitoba Theatre Centre.

  I don’t know how viewers felt about it, but this “live” CBC-TV prison drama in Winnipeg made a big impression on my beautiful co-star. (In time she forgave me.) (photo credit 11.5)

  With Lillian Lewis in Two for the Seesaw (right after my notorious “guest” shot as Ernie in Mr. Roberts).

  Playing Marlon’s role in Guys and Dolls for John at the MTC, with Judy Armstrong.

  With Miss Charmion King in Madwoman of Chaillot at The Crest – the first (but not the last) time I would whistle for her. (photo credit 11.6)

  In summer stock in The Long, the Short and the Tall with the Straw Hat Players.

  With Melvyn Douglas. When we shot A Very Close Family, my mother told her friends that I played “the son who doesn’t like girls.” (photo credit 11.7)

  As Quentin Durgens, M.P. I said Yes, and my life ever so quietly shifted on its axis.

  My favourite picture of Charm and me. Guess who was making us laugh? Newspaper columnist George Anthony, who made me laugh again, a lot, when we worked together on this book. (photo credit 11.8)

  (* From “I Spent a Day on Easy Ridge,” by Gordon Pinsent.

  (* Yes, that one – The Godfather.

  lovely, tell your mother

  MAKING THE ROWDYMAN IN NEWFOUNDLAND WAS A frustrating, exhilarating, terrifying, joyful, exasperating, and richly rewarding experience. As always, there were a number of bumps along the way. Larry had miraculously raised the money from a group of people, and we were already in Newfoundland scouting for locations when one of them pulled out. Finally his R.C.M.P. mentor, veteran film producer Budge Crawley, came to the rescue. When Budge became our executive producer, we started to make it happen. But it was seldom a smooth ride.

  Onscreen we cast for chemistry, and we got it. Frank Converse was a handsome, stage-trained leading man who was more interested in playing meaty character parts, so he was happy to be playing Will’s somewhat reluctant sidekick. Linda Goranson, who was playing Will’s suicidal love interest, had made her screen debut at eighteen, playing Rita Tushingham’s sister in The Trap. And Will Geer, already a legend in American theatre, squeezed us in between working with Robert Redford and director Sydney Pollack on one of their frequent collaborations, Jeremiah Johnson, and shooting the first season of a soon-to-be-historic TV series about a mountain family called The Waltons.

  Off-screen, in my opinion, our casting was not nearly so successful. Our director, Peter Carter, had worked with Paul Almond as an associate producer when Almond directed Geneviève Bujold (at that time still his wife) and Donald Sutherland in Act of the Heart. When Budge Crawley launched a TV series called R.C.M.P., Peter graduated from unit manager to assistant director, and by the time The Forest Rangers rolled around he was a good, solid first A.D. He put in two years on The Forest Rangers and then another year on Seaway, and then producer Ron Weyman gave him a break and let him direct one of the episodes in the second season of John Vernon’s high-profile series Wojeck.

  I believe Peter Carter was born to be a first A.D. As a director he was unsure of himself, and his insecurity produce
d an anxiety that took its toll on the production. He had actors slotted, pigeonholed in a certain way. If you had wakened him at three o’clock in the morning I don’t believe he could’ve told you what he was going to be doing that day. Because he truly didn’t know. So he would yell at you, and swear at you – although never at me – but, if you drank beer with him, or played cards with him, you could get by quite handily. It was like there was a private A.D. school in itself, and Peter ran it, and he made sure he ran it.

  He would show up in the morning hung over, with his hair uncombed. He was held together by a few jokes and knowing when to laugh when the boss told one. There was never a thought of him becoming a director; far from it. One day he decided he wanted it. And it was terrible watching him, yelling at children, treating them so badly. He had this funny thing, that if someone was telling a story, and you were listening to the story, he’d be watching you, as if he’d heard it before, which he hadn’t, to see if you were going to laugh, so he would know whether to laugh or not.

  The Rowdyman was his first film as a director. And Larry and I were so tight on this project; it was near and dear to our hearts, and we’d put so much into it. On the first day of shooting I went down to the tracks at St. John’s. The CNR had temporarily restored service on a passenger train so we could shoot a travelling scene. I wasn’t needed right away, but I wanted to be there. Dawn Greenhalgh was on the train, ready to shoot the scene. She said, “Have you seen Peter?” I hadn’t, but she had, and he had come to work drunk, on the first day of principal photography. I looked down the track and there he was, standing there, with his legs far apart, like the Lord of the Manor. It was very disheartening.

  After we screened the first dailies I said, “I want to talk to someone.”