Lee Marvin: Point Blank

by Dwayne Epstein

  By the early 1950s, Meyer Mishkin knew Hollywood was changing. There were fissures in the old system that would eventually lead to the complete decimation of the feudal way in which the studios did business. With this in mind, Mishkin maintained a belief in putting his client’s long-range career plans over immediate job placement. Asked if Marvin was ever under contract to any one studio, Mishkin said, “No, I didn’t have that kind of deal. The thing is, when they were having contract players, there was no such thing as being able to use Lee in a series of films because of the things that I could get done. I had learned something from Spencer Tracy. 20th Century Fox wanted him to play gangsters all the time. I did some thinking about this. [Lee] could have been an actor that very easily would have been sidetracked into a real typecasting situation. Oh sure, very easily.”

  By early 1952, the actor was able to write his brother, “Things are still going very well out here for me as I have run into some of the boys I knew in New York and they don’t seem to be doing a damn thing. I was to start a western today at Universal International [Duel At Silver Creek] but the weather was cloudy so it will go tomorrow or Monday and has a guarantee of a week’s work and $500. I have seen other things on the horizon but nothing definite. California is still a dull place for my money but what the hell, you can make money out here if you get the breaks, so I’ll stick around a while.”

  The buzz started surprisingly early for Marvin when he was cast as a health food fanatic accused of homicide on a 1952 episode of “Dragnet.” Jack Webb, the show’s creator and star, was impressed with Marvin. He told an interviewer in 1969, “The episode Lee was on was a three-man piece, and we did a number of those in the beginning. In the conclusion of the story, Lee said he’d confess to everything if we bought him lunch. Well, the prop man needed something to substitute for food that could be photographed, so he got some plums. The prop man forgot to take the pits out and Lee was such a trouper, he never spit them out. Lee kept eating the plums during the scene until we forgot to tell him, we couldn’t hear his dialogue. He stored them in his cheeks like a squirrel so the audience wouldn’t know they were plums, and kept doing the scene.”

  Marvin’s comical use of props and his ability to transcend the simplistic dialogue allowed Mishkin to say with pride, “Everything he did in the early days created interest. I was able to say to people, ‘Look at it. See it.’ What could they say negative about it? I can see any old movie with Lee today and he’s so good.”

  Mishkin’s instinct for spotting stars gave him insight into his new client’s ability, whereas others might merely have seen a gangly, horse-faced heavy waiting to be bumped off by the leading man. He explained, “My offices used to be on Sunset Blvd. I knew Cary Grant. Cary Grant had a characteristic walk. I told somebody, ‘When I look out the window and two blocks away there’s a guy coming, I know it’s Lee Marvin.’ And he wasn’t trying. It was Lee.”

  After the “Dragnet” appearance, Marvin was seen regularly on TV and film, appearing in a total of five movies released in 1952. The quality of the films and the length of his appearances may have varied, but the realism he brought to these mostly western and military roles did not. Betty Ballantine recalled the actor relating with pride his work in the forgettable Randolph Scott western Hangman’s Knot. “I remember his telling me about a scene with this woman [Donna Reed], and he had her up against the wall. He takes maybe a scarf and he held it against her neck. You really could feel the tension in that. He told me that when he played that scene with her, she was absolutely terrified. She wouldn’t let him come near her off the set.”

  When not frightening leading ladies, Marvin maintained an active social life. Being the owner of a Ford convertible and one Brooks Brothers sports coat gained him entry to industry parties within his own social strata. It was at one such party that he came out of the kitchen playing with a yo-yo, only to be confronted by a woman in need of a ride home. Since her friend had abandoned her, Marvin obliged the tall redhead he learned was named Betty Ebeling. Betty joked about their first meeting, “I was very attracted to his one Brooks Brothers jacket and his only possession, which was a Ford convertible.” She was not enamored with him immediately as they were both seeing other people. The next day he called and she began warming up to him a little more. “Here’s one of the dearest memories I have of Lee. We had met and I agreed to go out with him. I was really very busy and I was rehearsing with [arranger/pianist] Roger Edens. Anyway, it was a Sunday. My free day to be working in Roger’s home. Beautiful house. He was playing and I was singing. Then, there across the room, in the French window, is Lee. I’ll never forget it. Just watching. He was just watching and all of a sudden, I hear him. Talk about being pursued… He made me laugh. Very few people really make me laugh but Lee could always make me laugh. He was very, very quick. Very bright. He had a wonderful sense of humor.”

  The two began seeing each other exclusively and as the relationship deepened, Marvin learned of Betty’s background in Washington, her musical ambitions as a UCLA grad student, and her recent tenure as nanny to Joan Crawford’s children. Together they shared an appreciation of fishing, movies, the writings of Jack London, and all the things Lee Marvin always assumed women did not care about.

  “Lee was very shy, as a man with a woman, but he was a real romantic,” recalled Betty. “I remember after we met, and we started seeing each other, he had an actor friend who was driving a cab. He’d come with Lee, and we’d get this guy to drive us everywhere so we could sit in the back. I remember this guy, Lenny was his name. Lee would say, ‘Lenny, this is the only woman I have ever loved.’ He would always say that. He’d take my hand and say, ‘I could fall into your eyes.’ He was very romantic. He’d buy me wonderful things. He really, in many ways, spoiled me. But he was also very tough. Although there were times I wanted him to baby me, he wouldn’t do it. He’d say, “Listen, you got yourself into this, now get yourself out of it.” I’d get mad and say, ‘Oh, c’mon!’ He’d say, ‘No!’ It was a great education for me. I don’t know if I would have the courage to do what I’m doing in my life if I hadn’t had that training from him.”

  Like most young couples, they went to the movies often, and Betty discovered an even more impressive aspect to her boyfriend: “Lee, from the beginning, knew every method used in acting. He knew what everybody was doing whether he attended those schools or not. He knew everybody that taught there. He knew what they taught. He approved of it or he didn’t. He saw the performances. We used to talk shop all the time, he and I. ‘Why did this work?’ or ‘Look what he did…’ He was always right on. ‘Look at this actor. He knows every line and he’s got a broomstick up his ass.’ He knew instinctively.”

  As the actor romanced his new love, Mishkin got Jack Webb to give him a copy of Marvin’s appearance on “Dragnet.” “I know that Webb made sure a lot of influential people saw that piece of film,” recalled Webb’s friend and frequent costar Martin Milner. “He was very instrumental in making sure that the film got on the circuit and went around town to different casting people. They were impressed with Lee’s work. They wanted to help him. He [Webb] did the same kind of thing for me.”

  One such producer was Stanley Kramer who was about to launch a film he intended to call The Dirty Dozen. Based on the Broadway play “A Sound of Hunting,” which had made a star out of Burt Lancaster, Kramer and director Edward Dmytryk decided to retitle the film version Eight Iron Men. The project allowed Lee Marvin to cap off 1952 with his fifth film appearance and first leading role. Marvin played Sgt. Joe Mooney, the leader of a small war-weary rifle squad unable to get to an abandoned comrade who is pinned down by a German machine gun.

  During the film’s production, the all-important German gun had jammed and studio prop men were stymied. It was Lee Marvin who got it working again. He also unobtrusively taught the other cast members the best way to realistically age their studio-issued uniforms. “For instance, when he put on his clothes, they were believable, the shoes that w
ere half-laced, everything about him was,” recalled Dmytryk. “We used him as a hint for how to dress the other actors who hadn’t been in the war… Any director who would say, ‘No, don’t do that,’ would be pretty silly unless [the actor] did something ridiculous, but Lee never did. He was very much with it. If he did it, believe me it was done by that kind of a character because he did his study. He studied his character and he knew his people.”

  Although Dmytryk had previously directed such gritty noir classics as Murder, My Sweet and Crossfire, Lee Marvin changed his perspective. “Oh, he was a wonder,” Dmytryk recalled. “He did one thing that was very important. He showed me how people died at the front. He said, ‘They didn’t just all throw up their arms and land flat on their face or on their back. Sometimes you’re up against a tree. Sometimes their legs are turned a certain way.’ Obviously, [he was] a great observer… I should have known that people don’t die the way they do in the movies, big dramatic pirouettes!”

  Other than providing a greater sense of realism, Marvin began another career-long habit while making the film. As he had done in the Marines, to enhance the sense of camaraderie, he would buddy up with another cast member and go out drinking all night. In Eight Iron Men that buddy was Brooklyn-accented costar Bonar Colleano. When Dmytryk sternly admonished the two men against such binging, Marvin dutifully bowed his head, but smiled to himself knowing that sharing the punishment with another always helped to lessen the blow.

  Although critics praised the effort, the film failed to find an audience when it was released. Marvin’s performance, however, brought him to the attention of other Hollywood agents who tried to seduce him away from Mishkin. But, Marvin so believed in his agent’s long-term commitment, he would simply say to them, “Sounds great, ask Meyer.” Another client, for whom Mishkin got more work after he changed his named from Charles Buchinski to Charles Bronson, did not renew his contract. He told Mishkin, “I can’t re-sign with you. Lee Marvin is getting all my parts.”

  On the set of Eight Iron Men Marvin had mentioned to costar Arthur Franz how much he was in love, but could not get his girlfriend to move in with him. When Franz suggested marriage, bachelor Marvin recoiled in horror. Franz offhandedly related the story to his neighbor who just happened to be Betty’s best friend. Consequently, Betty was prepared when Lee broached the subject: “He went around and about. ‘I don’t think I could do better’ was one of the lines. I said, ‘Compared to what?’ But the proposal is what was funny. We were in the Bantam Cock. He never actually said the words ‘Will you marry me?’ One thing he said, because it was wonderful was, ‘I hope you can cook because I never want to eat out again.’ I thought, ‘Oh my God, what am I going to do for food?’”

  A quick road trip to Las Vegas’s Wee Kirk O’ The Heather Chapel in February, 1952 (officiated by the clergyman of record, the Rev. Lovable) took care of the nuptials. “We had no witnesses, so the reverend woke up his wife,” Lee recalled. “She wasn’t dressed. She stood behind a curtain. The reverend said, ‘See? There’s her feet.’ Her feet were our witnesses. Lovable said to me, ‘Do you, Lee, take this woman to be your lawful wedded wife, to love, honor, and cherish?’ and I said ‘Yes.’ Then he said—this is exactly what he said — ‘And do you, Betty, and all that stuff?’ He said, ‘And all that stuff!’” On the road trip back to L.A. the newlyweds picked up a drunken hitchhiker, who coincidentally happened to be a Marine. For years, Marvin took great joy in telling people that his bride spent her wedding night with a drunken Marine.

  When the couple later honeymooned in Mexico, Betty received an indication of the kind of man she married. He had several passions, such as fishing and an appreciation of the Blues. His love of the Blues grew out of his childhood habit of hopping trains from which he claimed to have once shared a boxcar with blues legend ‘Blind Lemon’ Jefferson. “On our honeymoon,” recalls Betty, “I think it was meant as a challenge. He brought along ‘Blind Lemon’ Jefferson, ‘Wee Willie’ Williams, Leadbelly, Robert Johnson, all his fishing tackle and several rods to be wound. He said to me, as a challenge, ‘If you don’t understand any of this, you’re undersexed.’ Is that the best challenge ever?”

  In November of 1952 Lee and Betty became the proud parents of nine and a half-pound Christopher Lamont Marvin. “He cried when I had a baby, when he’d see the baby,” recalled Betty. “Someone asked me once in an interview, ‘Is Lee really that tough?’ I said, ‘Tough? He’s a bowl of mashed potatoes.’ I remember, Dr. Mishell, the OB/GYN had by then become a family friend because he was so much in our lives. Lee was there talking, and Dan came in… Dan Mishell, the obstetrician. He was talking to Lee about fishing together and then started taking out my stitches, which is really nothing. Lee looked at this and went right into the bathroom and closed the door. I said, “What’s the matter?” He said, “If I watch it, I’m gonna throw up. I can’t watch that.’”

  Fatherhood clearly had a maturing effect on the once rebellious student and war-hardened Marine. He wrote his brother about it after proudly sending out photos and cigars: “Did you see the pictures of Christopher? Everybody says he looks like me and he does. Actually he looks more like you, no kidding. His hair, what there is of it, is red too. He’s a great little pooch and a great little boy. I like him. Already he is now a month old. Strange isn’t it how short the present is. I’m reminded of a line from T.S. Eliot: ‘Men grow old, grow old. They wear their pant legs rolled.’ Do write, Robert. I miss you.”

  Lee Marvin continued to find steady work despite the fact that audience attendance in the 1950s had dropped dramatically due to the novelty of television. As a well-cast bad guy in gangster, war and western films, Marvin gave able support to big name stars, claiming, “You don’t make friends with the guys who are above you too much. Remember, I didn’t make it until I was older… Up until then I was just a dog-assed heavy, one of the posse. My best friends were always stunt guys and extras. I’ve always seen myself as one of the masses. Besides, a lot of actors are just boring and pompous as hell.”

  Marvin carved a niche for himself within the confines of what was allotted to him. Fellow character actor and veteran movie bad guy, L.Q. Jones was also represented by Meyer Mishkin at the time and said that’s what set Marvin apart: “He would have been with Raoul Walsh and Barrymore and that whole bunch. He realized the first thing you got to do, sports fans, is entertain the audience, then you can act. You got to entertain them first. Lee just instinctively understood that. So, he’ll go too far in a lot of his stuff but it’s not too far for the piece, and it worked… He was taking a chance and that’s what acting is all about.”

  The chances he took were often wasted in such lackluster projects as Seminole, Down Among the Sheltering Palms and the 3-D Randolph Scott western, The Stranger Wore A Gun, in which Marvin was paired for the first time with fellow bad guy Ernest Borgnine. No matter the film, “That quality of violence in Lee showed up on screen, it really did,” recalled Betty Ballantine. “I mean he was a menacing person when he was the bad guy and he was almost always the bad guy. He enjoyed it. He enjoyed physical contact and this was one way he could get it. He told me he loved to do fight scenes. For instance, that other handsome six-footer, Randolph Scott, he loved to do fight scenes with Scott because he must have also had this wonderful physical coordination. In the fight scenes they must have looked like they were murdering each other. They’d come away from it without a scratch. Beautiful timing, yes. That’s another thing. Lee had a sense of timing that was inborn. That’s why he was a good storyteller.”

  Marvin’s reputation among the ranks grew largely from his own ability but also in part due to his agent. “Meyer had a whole bunch of people who were really busy,” recalled L.Q. Jones. “I guess because at that point in time, if you were with Meyer, people knew you could perform just because you were with Meyer. He didn’t take many people, comparably speaking. So, a lot of them were working and I was very fortunate to get in that group. We all just stayed busy all of the time.
”

  Mishkin next got his client work in the Victor Mature vehicle, The Glory Brigade. Set during the Korean War, the film depicted the conflicts and growing respect between U.S forces and Greek led UN forces. Most of his scenes in Glory Brigade were with fellow ex-Marine and Iwo Jima veteran Alvy Moore, later better known for his role as Mr. Kimball on TV’s “Green Acres.” “We met when he was coming up heading toward the bus this way and I was heading toward the bus this way,” recalls Moore. “I said, ‘Did you read the script?’ He said, ‘Yeah, did you?’ And I said, ‘Yeah.’ Then we both started laughing. I didn’t think we were going to stop. We got on the bus [to the location] and we were in hysterics. It was the worst piece of…”

  Making matters worse was the location. The army base Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri doubled for Korea, but had been nicknamed “Fort Lost in the Woods of Misery.” “It was a hellhole,” recalled Moore. “The place was so bad they were volunteering to go to Korea to get out of there. It was not a good place, at all. There was nothing around the darn thing.” In fact, a special effects man was also accidentally killed from a badly timed explosion during the film’s location shoot.

  Moore had a run-in with the film’s director, but was amazed to see Lee avoid the same situation. “I think the biggest thing about Lee that stands out is his ability to overcome an adverse situation. He could appease somebody in a way that I’ve never seen anybody do. Using his shorthand speech, he had the ability for somebody to not fully understand what he meant when he was talking to them. Then [Lee would] go back and do it his own way. He’s the only guy I’ve ever seen do that.”

  After having to endure the nightmarish conditions of the badly made and equally badly received Glory Brigade, Lee Marvin was rewarded with the plum role for his next film. Director Fritz Lang’s ultra-violent The Big Heat, starred Glenn Ford as a tough cop out to break up the mob that corrupts the city’s police force and kills his wife in a car bomb meant for him. Lee later remembered, “…I did ask [Lang] if there was anything that he wanted to tell me about the role before we started. He shook his head and said, ‘Vot you are is vot I vant. I don’t vorry about guys like you. You are great, huh.’ Then he pointed across the stage and said, ‘It’s that over there I don’t like.’ He was looking at Glenn Ford, the star of the picture. So, I said to myself, ‘He loves me. I’m accepted, right?’”