Grateful American

by Gary Sinise

  Nine months after Moira got sober, she agreed to perform in J. M. Synge’s The Playboy of the Western World at Steppenwolf. She took all three kids with her to Chicago to do the play while I went to Wilmington, North Carolina, to shoot the movie Bruno. Synge’s play is set in an Irish tavern, with lots of drinking going on, but Moira stayed dry. During her time performing, she began to get back in touch with the Irish Catholic side of her family. She wasn’t raised in a religious home, but her mother was Catholic by birth and her father was Methodist.

  Moira regularly attended AA meetings, and one day before her performance at Steppenwolf she went to St. Michael’s Church on the North Side of Chicago, searching for a meeting there. When she entered the church through a side door, still searching for the room where the meeting was held, she accidently walked into the room where the priest was still putting on his robes in preparation to perform a baptism. “Oh, I’m sorry,” Moira said. “I’m looking for the AA meeting.” The priest finished putting on his gown, then walked her into the main auditorium of the church, past the family that was waiting for him. He pointed Moira toward a door near the front. Moira said thank you and started walking away, and the priest called after her, “Pray for me.” Moira turned back, smiled, waved politely, and said, “I will.” As she was on her way toward the door of the meeting, she passed by an elderly French woman, a member of the parish. The woman said in a thick French accent, “My dear, you need to become a Catholic. You need to convert,” and walked away.

  That got Moira to thinking . . . here she was playing this Irish woman searching for strength in a play set in a tavern, and in her own life she was searching for strength to help with her sobriety. Nothing was said or done immediately. But Moira told me later she began to feel a quiet yearning for her own shooting star.

  She finished up her play, then got on a plane with the three kids to meet me in North Carolina. Shirley MacLaine was directing Bruno, and the morning before Moira and the kids arrived, Shirley quickly gathered the cast and crew together and informed us that a literal hurricane was heading straight for Wilmington. Everyone was ordered to pack up and evacuate ASAP. All flights were filled out of Wilmington, so I hastily booked my family a flight out of Charlotte. Moira and the kids arrived on set and saw everyone frantically packing. I gave them all a quick hug hello and said to Moira, “Hi, honey. Welcome to Wilmington. We’re leaving!”

  We raced down the highway in our rental car, trying to outrun the fury of Hurricane Bonnie. Lightning and wind and rain and thunder chased us. From the passenger seat, Moira turned to me, quite out of the blue, and said, “Oh, when we get back home I’m going to become a Catholic, and our kids are going to go to Catholic school.”

  Well, I wasn’t quite ready for that. I wasn’t religious myself, and I didn’t know much about Catholicism, even less about Catholic school. I’d had some buddies back at Steppenwolf who’d attended Catholic school in their youth, and they’d always said the nuns were overly strict, even scary. That’s about all I knew. With only that image to go by, I wasn’t terribly excited about my kids going to Catholic school. Moira’s announcement felt like another part of that wild storm. My practical side took over and I thought, For heaven’s sake, we’ve just moved right across the street from a public school! The kids can walk there—and it’s free!

  We beat the hurricane and sure enough, after we arrived home, Moira straightaway met with the local priest and nun and began a program to be confirmed into the Catholic Church. A week later she asked me to meet with the sister. I was reluctant, but Moira persuaded me it was important for me to go too. I went only to be supportive of Moira, yet I ended up talking to the sister for three hours. She was warm, friendly, and funny—no semblance of scariness—and she got me thinking a lot about life and God, purpose and meaning, about the importance of having a solid rock in your life. Moira and I started to attend Mass regularly, and our kids started going to Sunday school.

  In the spring of 2000, I was in Chicago with Steppenwolf playing Randle Patrick (R.P.) McMurphy, the lead role in the Dale Wasserman play of Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. I’d arranged to take off a weekend and have my understudy play the role while I was gone. I flew home on Friday, and on Easter Sunday, after two years of classes, my beautiful wife was confirmed into the Catholic Church. My children and I stood by her side, so proud of her. The fall after Moira was confirmed, Ella started third grade, Mac started fourth, and Sophie started sixth at our local Catholic school, with my full agreement. The Church and the school became a positive force in our lives, and our family only got stronger because of our involvement in the faith.

  As the years rolled on, Moira began attending daily Mass, and the church became an important part of my life as well. I found that the church gave me strength and comfort and promoted service above self, all values I would particularly lean on in later years when I began to work more in support of our veterans. I saw how selfless service to others gave purpose to my life, and I was so grateful for that.

  On Christmas Eve 2010, I told my wife and kids to get dressed up—we were headed for a special family dinner at Morton’s Steakhouse, a place we all enjoyed. On our way to dinner, I suddenly pulled into the church parking lot. A Mass was already under way, and my family looked confused. It was too late to attend Mass: What were we doing there? Without any of my family members knowing, I had been attending private sessions to be officially confirmed into the church. Our priest was expecting us, and in a small, quiet ceremony on Christmas Eve, surrounded by the family I love and cherish dearly, I was officially confirmed into the Catholic Church. It was a very special night in our lives. Moira was so touched. She had come a long way. Our family had come a long way, and I wanted to belong to the faith as Moira did. It meant so much to her, to me, to all of us.

  In the years that followed, my faith grew, and I began to feel called by God to take greater action, compelled to use everything I’d been blessed with to serve in a more substantial way. I wanted to create something that could be there for the long haul and, over time, do good work for others. My journey of faith had basically started with Moira’s need and our dark time. In hindsight, I know that God used that difficult season to deepen and strengthen me to be a better husband and father and to bring us joyfully together to faith.

  I say without reservation that my wife is my hero. She lost her father, brother, and mother, all at an early age. She’s had multiple surgeries on her spine, hips, and feet due to arthritis, and she’s continued to forge ahead in spite of all that. She struggled with alcoholism terribly, yet has stayed sober for twenty-plus years now and has remained loving and positive through it all. She is an inspiration. Yes, an earthquake hit our family, shook our foundation, and tested our strength. But the shaking we experienced helped us find a solid rock for our lives, one that will never crumble or fall.

  CHAPTER 10

  Turning Point

  As we rolled on toward a new century, my life continued like that of most Americans, full and busy with things significant and insignificant. And like others, I didn’t realize we were all heading toward a sea of change.

  I continued to have great moments in my career and much good fortune working with wonderful directors and actors. For instance, while filming George Wallace in 1997, I was struck by Angelina Jolie’s tremendous natural talent, which was obvious to everyone on set. She put her whole heart and soul into her part. In one scene, George takes a bullet and is rushed to the hospital in an ambulance. Angelina played his second, much younger wife, Cornelia, who accompanies George to the hospital. Two camera shots show the action inside the ambulance. The first shot is from George’s perspective, looking up into Cornelia’s face. She says, “You’re going to be all right, hang in there,” while tears run down her face. The second shot is from Cornelia’s perspective, looking down at George. For that shot, there’s no dialogue, just a close-up of my face. When we originally shot the scene, we didn’t have time to capture both images, so a few weeks
later they called me back to shoot that one simple picture of my face.

  Angelina wasn’t scheduled to work that day, but she insisted on coming in and redoing all her off-camera work, working up real tears again, delivering her impassioned lines to George again. I could have gazed at the trees, and the expression on my face would have been fine. It was just me on a gurney with an oxygen mask on my face, looking up. But Angelina insisted. She wanted to be there for all our scenes, giving it her all, no matter what. I wasn’t surprised over the next few years when her career took off like a rocket. Later I became friends with her father, Jon Voight, and George Wallace would mark the beginning of a gigantic career for Angelina.

  Despite the alcoholism-induced chaos in my family during that season, I believe I did some of my best work ever as an actor in George Wallace. John Frankenheimer gave me the support and confidence I needed, and we made a great movie. I’ll always be proud of that film, and today I miss John terribly. He died July 6, 2002, but before he passed I worked on two more movies with him. One was Reindeer Games, which didn’t do as well, and the other was an HBO movie called Path to War, about the Lyndon Johnson administration during the Vietnam War. John wanted me to play Robert McNamara, the secretary of defense, a larger role that would have required a lot of research and preparation. But I just finished playing the lead role of Randle McMurphy in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest on Broadway, an extremely demanding role, and I felt exhausted and couldn’t conceive of tackling another major part just then. John conceded, and instead asked me to be in one scene only where I’d play George Wallace again. I already had the wigs and knew the character inside and out, so I came in for one day, and ultimately was proud to be part of what would become John’s last film.

  John had needed a major operation for tumors on his spine. He was a gruff sort of guy and matter-of-fact about his declining health. His operation took seven hours. I called him the next day, and to my surprise, he sounded optimistic and strong. He discussed a new film company he wanted to begin with me, and I was excited and looking forward to that. But his health turned, and the last time I talked with him he sounded very weak. A few days later, Moira and I were at a mall in Malibu when the call came. My dear friend had died. I thought the world of him. Right there in the mall, I broke down and wept.

  Over the next few years, the success I had in George Wallace would keep me working regularly, and I was featured in seven movies between 1997 and 1999. The following year, just after the turn of the new millennium, I began rehearsals at Steppenwolf on one of the roles I’d longed to play for years, Randle P. McMurphy in Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. When I was in high school, Barbara Patterson had taken us to see it onstage and I’d fallen in love with the story. In 1975, the film version starring Jack Nicholson premiered at the Chicago Film Festival, and somehow I scored a ticket. Jack showed up, along with director Milos Forman and other cast members. Jack, an acting hero to me, stuck his head over the railing and looked down at the crowd in the theater, and everybody cheered and shouted his name. I wasn’t alone in loving the story. Terry Kinney had played the role of Billy Bibbit at Illinois State University, and Terry had wanted to direct me in the play for a long time. Finally, in 2000, we were going to do it.

  Portraying McMurphy onstage required an adrenaline-fueled, full-throttle approach. He’s a larger-than-life character, a Korean War veteran locked in a mental institution, and I gave the role everything I had. The sheer physical demands of the role proved difficult. Each night after I finished the play, I returned to my apartment and steamed my voice with a pan of boiling water and a towel over my head before I went to sleep. Next morning I headed to the gym, slouched in the steam room until my voice became limber enough, then went to do the play again. At one point I lost my voice entirely.

  Steppenwolf opened the show in Chicago in spring 2000, and it did well. That summer we took the play to London for a two-week run, where it was a big hit. Then on April 8, 2001, we opened it on Broadway, where we played 145 performances at the Royale Theater, closing on July 29. We received mixed reviews, although the New York Times described my performance as “a white-hot perpetual motion machine,” which was certainly how my body felt. Steppenwolf won the Tony Award for Best Play Revival, and I received a Tony nomination for Best Actor.

  The date we closed the show became key. In that last stretch on Broadway, we were contracted for a six-month run, which would have taken us to September 16, 2001. But toward the end of our run, ticket sales began to fall off. The show required a big cast. It was expensive to produce and difficult to perform, and tiredness dogged everybody. Shortly after the Tony Awards, I sat down with the Broadway producers and discussed moving up the show’s closing date. By doing this we would encourage more sales, because then everybody rushes to see a great play before it’s over. Our plan worked. Ticket sales improved for those final weeks, and we were eventually able to recoup our costs.

  Moira and the children stayed with me in New York at the end of the run. After the show closed, we rented a cottage on Nantucket Island for a few weeks’ vacation. Members of our extended family stayed with us too, and every day we played on the beach and window-shopped around town. We rented motor scooters and explored the island’s dirt roads. We fished and sailed on the open sea. Each night we feasted on ice cream. We didn’t know it, but this was the calm before the storm.

  In mid-August 2001, my family and I returned to Los Angeles. The kids started school again—Sophie in eighth grade, Mac in sixth, and Ella in fifth. Moira had remained unbending in her sobriety for three and a half years, and family life was peaceful, healthy, and fun.

  One morning in September, about six thirty, as Moira helped the kids get ready for school, our phone rang. I was still sleeping. Terry Kinney, who lived in New York, was on the line. Simultaneously, Moira turned on the TV.

  “Hi, Terry,” I said.

  “Gary, are you watching TV right now?!”

  “I just got up, buddy, what’s going on?”

  “Two planes have hit the World Trade Center. The tops of both buildings are on fire.”

  I rushed to the TV.

  Terry’s words spilled out: “We’re under attack, Gary! Terrorists have crashed airplanes into those buildings. It’s bad. Really bad!”

  Every American alive then remembers that moment and can answer the inevitable question: Where were you when you first heard the news?

  I stared in shock and disbelief—along with the entire country, the entire world—as smoke poured from the tops of both buildings. Horrified, we watched on live TV as people leapt to their deaths from the upper floors of the Trade Center. The report soon arrived that a third airplane had crashed into the Pentagon. About twenty minutes later, a fourth airplane crashed near Shanksville, Pennsylvania. We later heard it was United Flight 93, seemingly bound for the White House (the target was ultimately determined by the 9/11 Commission Report to be the Capitol Building). The people on board Flight 93 had discovered that terrorists were crashing planes into buildings, and the passengers had courageously yet fatefully chosen to take back the plane. We watched the South Tower collapse and crumble in a fury of dust and smoke. Then the North Tower fell. Horror enveloped us all.

  The scenes that played out on live TV were surreal, shocking. Schools closed all over the nation, and any children already on campuses were soon sent home. I didn’t know what to think or feel or do. That morning I was scheduled to go golfing with an old friend from high school days, and I called to cancel, but then I thought maybe my head would clear if I could just get outside and breathe some fresh air. Maybe I could make sense of what had happened.

  I jumped into my car and headed to the range. The airspace over Los Angeles usually buzzes with planes and helicopters, but by then all the nation’s air traffic had been grounded, and the skies were eerily quiet. My buddy hadn’t yet seen the news that the towers had fallen, so I filled him in and we tried to carry on a normal conversation and play golf, but soon we stop
ped the round.

  Like most Americans that day, I felt adrift. I didn’t know what to do, where to turn. Life for every American had radically changed, but the change was only beginning to sink in. Only a few hours earlier, my biggest concerns bounced from what my next movie project might be to what we might eat for dinner. Halfway through my golf game on the morning of 9/11, it hit me that normalcy was no longer possible. I thought, What am I doing? I can’t play golf today. I gotta go home to be with my family.

  While driving home to Malibu through one of the canyons, I clicked on the radio news. Newscasters speculated that today’s attacks were only the beginning of more attacks to come. The reality of the morning sank in even deeper. Our country was under attack. Vulnerable. Thousands of innocent people had been killed that day. More horror lay ahead. I couldn’t tell you exactly why I did this—perhaps in solidarity, defiance, tribute—but I rolled down my window, stuck out my arm and made a fist, and held it high. Tears welled up in my eyes as I still listened to the news. For some time as I drove along, I held my arm outstretched, as high as it would reach.

  At home, we glued ourselves to the TV. President George W. Bush had been speaking to a classroom of schoolchildren in Florida when he first received word of the attacks. He soon boarded a plane and then touched down at Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana where he briefly addressed reporters. By 8:30 p.m. Eastern time, now back in Washington, DC, he addressed the nation from the Oval Office. He was clearly emotional, heartbroken. “A great people has been moved to defend a great nation,” he said. He’d just been handed the distinction of being president on the day America had suffered the worst attack on our homeland in history. Pearl Harbor, on December 7, 1941, had been horrible, but Pearl Harbor had been an attack on our military, whereas September 11, 2001, was an attack on our civilian population. This day was unprecedented.