How blessed I felt to be going back onstage at the very same time, returning to the roots of everything I felt I was meant to do in this life.
The Connection had already made a name for itself. It had been performed at The Living Theatre in New York City to much acclaim. It would be made into a movie that same year too. But for our performance at the Las Palmas Theatre, where the Stage Door Canteen had been during the Second World War, we were working from a brand-new script. There was a certain amount of improvisation and interaction with the audience, which I loved. It was a little like a nightclub act, and I love nightclub acts. But the script was fabulous, and my character was just awful! His name was Leach, an asexual drug dealer with a big boil on his neck. The production was so realistic, people in the theater would get up and leave. People thought we were really druggies, all strung out and everything. Oh! And the music! The legendary jazz saxophonist Dexter Gordon was the leader of our band. He was just out of prison, and he had a big following in those days, so he was a draw all his own. Dexter had dealt with some serious drug addictions in his own life, so he knew this material well. He would play this piece of music he wrote called “O.D.” right when my character overdosed on heroin on the stage. I did my research and learned from a real drug user how to simulate shooting up. It was horrifying to watch.
The play was so accurate that a few people who saw it tracked down my unlisted number and tried to score drugs from me—because they thought I was a real drug dealer!
I reteamed with Robert Blake in this show, and the two of us developed a close friendship during this time. He played the guy who broke open my boil onstage. I squealed in a high-pitched voice as the audience squirmed in their seats. I remember saying to the director, Brian Hutton, “Let’s make Leach as repulsive as possible.” As I’ve mentioned, there was something about me that no matter how awful the character was, the audience, even though they hated him, still liked him a little. It’s just an organic thing, nothing I do as an actor. But I wanted to see how far I could push it. I wanted to make him grating, annoying, irritating, and uncomfortable. I use a lot of memories and observations to put a character together. In this case, I remembered some girls in high school who used to wear loafers and white socks, and they had this lethargic walk, scuffing their feet along as though they had no energy. So I thought, Let me try that! My goal was to leave the audience thinking, What is this person? I put on a high-pitched, effeminate voice. I did strange things. I ate an entire pineapple during my thirty-five-minute monologue. It was so off-putting and bizarre. Such a delicious character to play.
Edwin Shallert, movie reviewer for the Los Angeles Times, did a review of High Time, which hit theaters when I was in The Connection, and he printed side-by-side pictures of me as the nutty professor character in that Blake Edwards film, and me onstage with a boil on my neck as Leach. He couldn’t believe it was the same guy, and neither could anyone else!
I was making my mark. In a big way.
The irony of this is years later Dexter Gordon did a movie called ’Round Midnight, and of all the brilliant actors in The Connection, Dexter was the only guy ever nominated for an Oscar for Best Actor in a movie. Not Robert Blake. Not Morris Erby or Jan Peters. None of them!
Awards didn’t matter. The show did. The role did. The applause did.
Anyone who came to see it still talks about it to this day. That’s how groundbreaking and original and disturbing and powerful it was. In fact, decades later, Carl Reiner introduced me one night at a big function and said, “I want you all to know, one of my top five male performances onstage of all time was Gavin MacLeod in The Connection.”
I had a son. I was getting applause. I was doing work I wanted to be doing. Without putting any kind of a drug into my system, I was high as a kite on a windy day.
Those highs kept coming too. I got a job on a new film. There were a lot of war films happening in those days, and I got hired to do another one set in the Korean War. Only this was a very different sort of movie: War Hunt, starring John Saxon as a psychopath who covers his face in black and goes over enemy lines to kill Koreans single-handedly in the dark of night. In many ways, it was like an early “indie” film. Sydney Pollack was in it, too, and he was already preparing to become a director himself. If you’ve never seen it, you should see it. The National Board of Review named War Hunt one of the Ten Best Pictures of the Year.
The Sanders Brothers, who produced and directed it, came after me to do this movie just after winning an Academy Award for a college film they did called A Timeout of War. They had seen me in The Connection. Apparently they were looking for talent on stages all over. They hired a couple of newcomers you might have heard of for that film too: Tom Skerritt (of Alien, Top Gun, and many other great films), whom they discovered in a production of The Rainmaker at a small theater in the San Fernando Valley; and a guy by the name of Robert Redford, who had just made his debut on the live-theater TV show Playhouse 90.
War Hunt was the first film for both of them.
The entire film was made for $250,000. We shot in Topanga, where they’d had some fires. That scorched landscape was used for the Korean area. Then we shot in the very same soundstage where Charlie Chaplin had made his movies. (You know who bought that studio later on? Herb Alpert, the trumpet player who cofounded A&M Records! I love all that history.)
Redford and Skerritt and I used to hang out together. Redford invited us to a little house that he and his wife, Lola, were renting up in Laurel Canyon. I remember him showing us a papier-mâché ranch he had designed. He was an artist. And he said, “This is what I want to build up in Utah.” I think now, Was that the beginning of Sundance? Way back in 1960?
When Redford came on that screen to the declaration, “Introducing Robert Redford,” this all-American guy with big eyes, astonished at the horrors he sees happening on the battlefield, all of Hollywood noticed. Everybody who saw that picture said, “Who is this?” It was like when you first laid eyes on Montgomery Clift or someone like that.
I remember Skerritt and I were up at Redford’s house one time, and we were standing outside, and he said, “I don’t know what I’m going to do. They want me to do a lead in this new TV show as a psychiatrist, and the money is fantastic—but I don’t think the audience would believe me. I’m young. I don’t think the audience would believe I would know more than these people who are coming to me for help.”
Well, of course Redford turned that TV show down. He wanted to be true to the character. The greats are like that. It’s not about the money. It’s about something more. He turned it down and did some other TV work over the next few years, and then he became one of the most popular movie stars of all time.
Anyway, the three of us used to play football on the set. I visited with Redford and Lola in New York before I opened my last Broadway play, back when Redford was doing Barefoot in the Park. Skerritt and I became very good friends, and my kids would get to know him as “Uncle Tom” in the next couple of years. (In fact, they would always complain when he called on the phone, because he has that very . . . slow . . . deliberate . . . way of talking . . . It’s perfect for the movies, but my kids would get impatient trying to listen to what “Uncle Tom” had to say on the phone!)
I tell you, the highs just kept coming, right on into 1962.
Rootie got pregnant again, and we had another son, David. I showered him with love too. We were a family of four now! I got offered a role in a new play that was bound for New York. I had saved up some money and I decided it was time to buy a house for my growing family. Rootie and I found a place we loved up in Granada Hills, and we made an offer.
Everything in my life seemed to be going just right.
That’s when things got scary.
8
GLORIFIED
I WAS IN CALIFORNIA IN 1961, AND I READ THAT Steve McQueen was going to do a leading role on the TV hit Wanted: Dead or Alive. I thought, He’s going to play a cowboy! That’s great for him. And he was great.
Then I read that he was doing a couple of big movies and that he had signed on for The Great Escape, with James Garner and Richard Attenborough. This guy is moving up quick! I thought. It was clear to everyone that he was about to become a major movie star. It was incredible. That quiet guy with the vulnerability who didn’t quite fit in on the Broadway stage had found his niche, and I was so happy for him.
My career wasn’t on that sort of “star” trajectory. I never even expected to play the leading man. That was okay with me, because unlike guys like McQueen, I truly did feel that my home was on the stage. With all of the TV and film credits I’d accumulated, my role in The Connection left me hungering for more. So I was thrilled to get back onstage in what I believed was set to be a big Broadway hit: The Captains and the Kings, a show about the first Jewish rear admiral in the navy, on the first nuclear submarine. The production starred Dana Andrews, Lee Grant, and Peter Graves, and it was directed by Joe Anthony. I was all fired up to play the part of a slimy lawyer in that show, a guy named Roy Cohen. He wasn’t as slimy a character as Leach, but still—it was the type of part I enjoyed sinking my teeth into.
We opened in San Francisco to good notices and traveled to a few theaters across the United States, then up to Toronto, Canada, before finally landing in New York City.
“We’re sold out for four weeks,” the producer said, “so bring your families!” He assured us we were going to have a big Broadway run. It felt like something secure in this very unsecure business full of ups and downs. It felt great. Especially given the fact that I’d just signed a purchase agreement on a new home in Granada Hills for $24,750. That was a lotta dough in 1962. But a steady Broadway gig was just what I needed to help pay the mortgage.
Taking the producer’s words to heart, I flew my wife and two kids to New York City for the opening. We had a big party—where else, but at Jim Downey’s Steak House! We were all so excited. And then the show closed—in a week.
That’s showbiz.
Devastated, we all flew home. I started scrambling to make some money. I did a Brinks robbery TV special and an Untouchables episode, pulling in a little bit of cash. I used the last of our savings for closing costs to move into the house. We didn’t even have furniture. The monthly payment was $147, and with the ups and downs of TV guest roles and the sporadic film roles, I didn’t know how I was going to pay it. I panicked. I prayed that something would happen. God has always been a part of my life, even when I wasn’t living correctly—so I prayed, somewhat selfishly, for a solution.
One day my pal Robert Blake happened to be over for a visit when I got a telegram from Universal. They were starting a new television series called McHale’s Navy and wanted to talk to me about playing a part.
Was this the answer to my prayers?
Robert was thrilled for me, and Rootie seemed relieved. I think the ups and downs of my career were really taking a toll on her, even though she never would have said so, and even though she still believed in me. It’s a different story when you’re the mother of two kids. It wasn’t just about us anymore. The ups and downs were taking a toll on me too. Especially with that mortgage. There was something about it that piled the weight of the world on my shoulders. The idea of working on a TV show with regular hours and a good, steady paycheck seemed like a dream come true. So I went over to Universal.
The part they were offering me was a character called Seaman Joseph “Happy” Haines. There was just one problem: it was a small part. Very small compared to the costarring roles I had worked my way up to. Tiny for an actor who had earned the kind of acclaim I’d had in The Connection.
My wife said, “Don’t do it.” My agent said, “Don’t do it.” But I didn’t see a choice. I have a mortgage now. I have a family to take care of. In my mind, I thought I had to do it.
So I dismissed the opinions of the people in my life who cared about me most, and who truly had my best interests at heart. Instead, I listened to my fear.
What a mistake.
I signed on and started shooting this series about a misfit crew on a PT boat in World War II. I got billing under two newcomers. Two! I only had one or two lines a week. There was nothing to sink my teeth into as an actor. There were moments when the director would position me in a shot just to block a building in the background, almost as if I were a prop.
Marilyn Monroe died on August 5 of that year—two months before McHale’s Navy debuted on television. It was such a shocking and sad day for everyone, of course. I would cherish my brief memory of making her laugh that one time back at Jim Downey’s Steak House the rest of my life. But I think the sadness I felt only made the time I spent on that set feel worse—as if I were wasting my life. Life is so precious, and we all feel it a little more when someone so well known dies, don’t we? It’s as if the whole country mourns together.
My hairpiece died on that show too. My trusty secondhand hairpiece that had given me my career and served me well started looking so ratty, I thought it would run right off my head. So one day on the Navy set, we threw it in the sand and shot it! (I bought a replacement later on. From another Ziggy.)
Not that there wasn’t plenty to feel miserable about on that set already. We had this one director who was the meanest man I ever worked with. He would pick on actors—not me, in particular, but other actors coming on, and especially some of the older actors. It was awful. And it was really a shame, because the show was a hit, and the cast was a bunch of really talented guys, including Ernest Borgnine, Tim Conway, and Joe Flynn. Off the set and during downtime, we had a lot of fun together, including quite a few experiences I’ll never forget.
Bob Crane, who would later become a big star in Hogan’s Heroes (on which I would appear as a guest star more than once), had a radio show in those days, and I remember one morning hearing him report on his program that Ernie Borgnine had gotten engaged to Ethel Merman. Ernie came on set and I said, “Ernie, I heard you’re engaged!” and he said, “We are! And you’re going to be invited.” In fact, they were planning a big engagement party and some people from Texas were going to pay for the whole evening. I could hardly believe that someone I knew was engaged to a woman I’d marveled at on the Broadway stage when I was a kid—back when Uncle Al took my brother and me into the city to see her.
Tim Conway and I were close at that time and I asked him, “Are you going to this engagement party?” He said, “I’m not going to go. Are you going?” I said, “Yeah! I want to meet Ethel!” So he changed his tune: “I’ll go too.”
I kept pinching myself that whole day. I was going to meet Ethel Merman. The very same magnificent star I had seen in Annie Get Your Gun all those years ago.
I walked up to her the night of the engagement party, and I’ll never forget she had this old-fashioned kind of thing they used to do in the theater, beading on the eye. On the end of the eyelash there was a big black dab of something, and her eyes were so big.
Ernie saw me and said, “Oh, Ethel! This is Gavin! He’s going to be our ring bearer!” I said, “I am?” She said, “Oh isn’t that great? It’s so nice to see you!” She was so happy.
I was sitting with Conway at dinner, and he’s so funny. When the strolling musicians in this restaurant came around, with all the violins and things, Conway looked at Ethel and said, “Sing, Ethel! Sing!” And she did! She stood up by her fiancé, put her hands on his shoulders, and sang, “They say that falling in love is wonderful . . .”
When she finished a verse, everybody cheered and stood up, and we all sat down—except for Conway. He stayed on his feet and kept clapping, saying, “More! More!” So Ethel got up again and continued the song!
Years later, Ethel wrote an autobiography. You know what she wrote in the chapter about her marriage to the great Ernest Borgnine? Nothing. The chapter was just the title and three blank pages.
I tell you, that blank-page feeling is exactly what McHale’s Navy gave to me. As I said, I had graduated to costarring parts before that show. Now I barely had two lines a we
ek. A week! My friend Ted Knight came on as a guest star one day, and he looked at me and said, “How can you do this, man? You’re a glorified extra!”
I told him the reasons. “It’s for the kids,” I said. “I need to pay the mortgage.”
Eventually that excuse didn’t seem like a reasonable one anymore, and that thing he said started to eat at me: You’re a glorified extra. I was on my way up! I was working with big stars, getting positive reviews, getting hired by some of the most magnificent directors in the world. What had I done?
That worthlessness stayed with me and started eating me up, until finally I started drinking to ease the pain.
That’s where I started drinking. On McHale’s Navy.
There’s a bar across the street from the Universal lot. Universal wasn’t that big at that time, and we would all go to the bar at the end of the day. I remember Clark Gable saying, “If you want to keep your marriage together, go home after work. Don’t stop and have a drink.” A lot of guys do that and they start BS-ing with each other, and one thing leads to another, and suddenly there’s a rift in the marriage.
Well, guess what? That’s exactly what happened. My marriage began to suffer. Sometimes I wasn’t sure which came first, the drinking or the unhappiness, but either way it wasn’t pretty. I got ugly when I drank. I said some rotten things. I was irritable.
“I am not drinking too much!” I would yell at my wife. The fighting was miserable, and very much my fault.
I remember we were up at Ted Knight’s house for a barbecue one afternoon, and Ted’s wife, Dottie, implored me to stop drinking. She said I was throwing away my life! I couldn’t believe someone else was laying into me like that. I wasn’t drinking too much, I kept telling myself. I was just doing it to ease the burden, to have some fun, to let off steam.
This Is Your Captain Speaking: My Fantastic Voyage Through Hollywood, Faith & Life Page 8