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“BABE, MEET BABE”: BAND OF BROTHERS GOES TO HOLLYWOOD
(Bill’s Stories in Italics)
Nobody knew Band of Brothers outside the military community. Then Tom Hanks read it and Steven Spielberg, and from one paragraph about Fritz Niland, a kid in the 501st who had three brothers in the war, came Saving Private Ryan. Skip Muck, who we lost in Bastogne, was childhood friends with Fritz Niland, and right after Normandy, Joe Toye, Malarkey, and Muck met Fritz in London. I never met him, but I met his sister in New Orleans after the war. Four Niland brothers were in the war, two were killed in less than a month. The third was missing in action, shot down by a bomber. The Army sent Fritz home after Normandy; he was the only one left. Later, the brother who was MIA was found in a POW camp in Japan. He was rescued by the British. In the movie, three brothers are killed, they try to get the last kid out of combat and send him home.
That became a hit, and they decided to make another movie about the whole book. I thought they were all nuts. We didn’t feel like no heroes. At first, it made me feel bad that we’re the only ones that got attention. Everyone won the war. The 501st, the 82nd, the Brits, the Canadians, all the Allies, everyone, not just Easy Company. The whole Army is a band of brothers. The whole military is a band of brothers. I felt like, who the hell am I to be in a book and a movie? I was just a GI from South Philly who did his duty. A lot of vets get mad. They think because we have this book we think we won the war. But we didn’t write the book. We got the publicity not because of what we done—a lot of units done great work—but because of the bond of the Easy Company men. We been together sixty-five years. How many can say that?
Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg came to our reunion in New Orleans in June 1999, and that’s when we found out about the movie. They brought a crew from HBO with them. They were shooting it already in London, they just wanted to meet us, and invite us all to the premiere in Normandy on June 6, 2001, D-day. Tom Hanks asked me if I wanted his autograph. I said, “Only if it’s on a big fat check!” I told him he should be asking for my autograph. Tom Hanks is a hell of a nice guy. Down to earth. You would never know he was a Hollywood movie star. Spielberg, too. All the men liked them. Spielberg’s a local kid. Came from Haddonfield, New Jersey.
They sent documentary crews to our houses, and they asked us questions for seven hours. Lots of questions. Trick questions, too, to see if our memories were intact. They were trying to make the movie as accurate as possible. I told them, “If you can capture what we were, you’re going to have a goddamn good movie.”
We started getting calls from the kids who were playing us, and we told them no question was off limits. Robin Laing was playing me, a redheaded actor from Scotland. A real nice kid. He has a thick Scottish accent. I didn’t know how he was gonna play a guy from South Philly, but let me tell you, he did a fine job! Frank John Hughes was playing Bill. He called Bill every week, and he called me to ask questions also.
While they were making the movie in London, Tom Hanks flew me and Babe to the set to meet the actors. I was so excited to see what they done. Where could you live your life over again and meet these great people? It’s an opportunity of a lifetime. We were thinking, How nuts are they to make a movie about us?
When we got to Heathrow Airport in London and got off the plane, a kid came toward us in a paratrooper uniform. It was Frank Hughes. He had the paratrooper uniform on because he didn’t have time to change, he had to come right from the set to meet us. Bill shook his hand, and said, “I know who you are.” He looked just like Bill as a young man. Frank said, “Boy, oh, boy, if you guys ain’t got it made when you were kids—I got all the broads coming up to me. You guys must have had a picnic. The uniform draws ’em like flies.” I said, “Christ, you even sound like Bill!” He said, “I have to stay in character.” He had to stay in character!
When we got to the set in Hatfield, England, they were rehearsing for the Holland scenes. They had a little Dutch village constructed, it looked just like Eindhoven when we jumped there, very authentic. News got around that we were there, and everyone came out to greet us. About a hundred people came out. The actors started introducing themselves by their character names. They were saying, “I’m Popeye Wynn!” “I’m Ralph Spina.” One kid said, “I’m Skip Muck.” I said, “I was there when you got it, kid.” I said to another kid, “You got a short career, you’re not gonna make it.” A tall blond kid said, “I wasn’t very well liked in the platoon, was I?” I said, “No, you weren’t.” It was so strange—they were naming our buddies. And they looked and acted like them, even talked like them. It was like being back in time. When I heard “I’m Babe Heffron,” I had to do a double take. Robin Laing had the South Philly accent. He sounded like me. Robin unbuttoned his shirt to show me he had on rosary beads and scapular, just like I did all through the war. That really affected me. There were a couple times Bill or I had to walk away for a minute to stay composed. The kids all asked questions about their characters—what were they like, did we have any stories, they wanted to know everything. Donnie Wahlberg, who played Carwood Lipton, said, “You know, meeting you guys inspired us one hundred percent.” A fella playing Chuck Grant said, “No, Lip, one hundred fifty percent.” What was strange was when Frank Hughes or the other actors would talk to Robin Laing, and he’d say, “Hey, Babe,” or “Hey, Heffron.” It made me stop and look around.
We got a tour of the set, and they asked us, “Where are we now?” The place was all mud and construction. I said, “Camp Toccoa.” I was right. I knew England, France, and Holland. Everything was right on, authentic. For the snow at Bastogne, they cut up little pieces of paper. Even up close, it looked like snow in the forest. And they made what looked like the woods of Bastogne inside of an airplane hangar!
This is funny—I’m still laughing over it: We were on the set and it was supposed to be Upottery Field where we took off for Normandy. I was told the planes were cardboard; you see, they have computers do a lot of work these days to make things look authentic. So me and the Babe are walking and in the distance we see maybe six airplanes. I know these are not real airplanes, but Babe don’t know it. So he says, “Let’s go take pictures of the airplane; I’ll stand in the doorway and you take a picture.” So we’re about fifty yards away and still he don’t know. He’s all excited these are the airplanes we jumped out of! So we get to them and he looks at me. He sees they’re all cardboard. I start laughing. They did look real. That’s Hollywood, kid.
They took us into the editing room and showed us some footage of our D-day drop. Planes all over the sky, paratroopers coming down in the dark. My first combat jump. I’ll never forget it. Adrenaline pumping, going into the unknown. That scene made me want to relive that jump in the worst way. Those dirty sons of beetles.
They showed Captain Meehan’s plane getting hit, and crashing down on fire with eighteen Easy Company men on board. Me and Bill looked at each other and our eyes filled up. That was rough. Tom Hanks came over to us. We didn’t even know he was there. He said, “We just wanted to get your reaction.”
They showed more footage of D-day, and I thought, Mother of God, wait until those people see me. They’re gonna know why they called me Wild Bill.
Another day on the set we were brought into the room where they replayed the dailies. While me and Bill were watching the monitor, Tom Hanks come up from behind and said, “Bill, Babe, don’t turn around yet.” When we did, he was dressed in an English officer’s uniform. He said, “They gave me a cameo role. I’m going to be an English officer.” I said, “Good, Tom, you could use the work.” I told Tom Hanks he could use the work! I forgot he was Tom Hanks. He’s such a regular guy. I’ll tell you, I’d like to put a medal on him. Couldn’t do enough for us. He kept telling people, “Take care of Bill and Babe. Take care of my boys from South Philly.” Tom Hanks is top shelf.
We went around trying things on at the movie set. We looked ridiculous. The uniforms were heavy. I picked up an M1, I said,
“Jesus Christ, it feels like thirty pounds!” When you’re young you can pick them up, spin them around, throw them over your head.
I don’t think Babe can pick up a machine gun today. We wore helmets, too. Now we put a helmet on, your neck will break.
Babe got his five minutes of fame—he was an extra in the Holland episode, a scene of Eindhoven. He’s sitting at a table with a hat on, watching the action. He thinks he’s a big shot now. I want to get in one of those Al Capone movies. Or be in Godfather Ten.
The first night, the actors came back to the hotel with us for drinks in the lobby bar. HBO gave us an open tab and twenty-four-hour limo service. We hung out with the guys every night. We wanted to see if they could hold their booze—they couldn’t. They couldn’t even stay up as late as us. Bill said to Frank, “How the hell you gonna play me going home this early?!” At the end of the week, we had a five-thousand-dollar liquor bill. Orange soda and vodka, twenty-two bucks a pop. We hardly slept in seven days, but we had a hell of a good time. Ivan Schwartz, from HBO, looked after us in London the entire two weeks we were there—he became like a son to us, and he visits us in Philly sometimes. What a wonderful guy he is, a credit to HBO.
Every day in London, we would end up giving things away as a memento, including our shirts. The kids would ask for them. I didn’t want to end up without a shirt, so I went upstairs, I put three shirts on, and I said to Bill, “I know they ain’t gonna get me this time; I put three shirts on.” So we’re sitting at the bar, and Bill is giving everything away, so he starts on me: “Come on, Babe, give ’em that one. Give ’em that one, too.” I ended up shirtless again, sitting there at the bar. I ended up giving my pants away, too. We were in the best hotel in London, and I was sitting there in my undershorts!
We couldn’t believe the things the kids told us. They weren’t allowed to use their real names the entire year they were shooting the movie. They called Robin Laing “Babe Heffron” and Frank “Bill Guarnere.” They lived in foxholes at night, they stayed in character, talked liked us, went to basic training, and lived like we did. Tom Hanks told them right up front, “Anybody that don’t want to do what these men did, you may as well quit now, nothing will be said, just go.” He said, “You’re going to go through what they went through.” I never heard of anything like that before. None of them quit, they all stayed. Every one of them was dedicated. Robin Laing, the actor who played me, wore the rosary beads every day during filming, and he opened his shirt in one scene so that I would see them in the movie. He said he hung the rosary and scapular on his bedroom wall and looks at them every morning. Things like that mean a lot.
A couple days after I met Richard Speight, who played our buddy Skip Muck, he said, “Babe, have you seen the cuts?” I said, “No.” He said, “Well, do you remember the other day you told me about you and Muck receiving communion up in the woods in the snow in Bastogne, and what you said to Muck—that if you died, you would die in a state of grace?” He said to me, “Babe, I never forgot you telling me that. So when we shot that scene with Father Maloney giving communion, I put that in myself. I turned to the character Babe, and said, ‘Well, Heffron, if we die, we’ll die in a state of grace.’” Richard Speight did that on his own. That really affected me. I often think of what I said to Muck lying in bed at night. I think, Well, I’m going to Mass tomorrow. I’m going to say a prayer for Muck and the guys. Because after communion, you think about dying in a state of grace, and I always think of Muck.
I can’t say enough about the actors in Band of Brothers. They had the utmost respect for the men, they were dedicated, and they did it the way it was supposed to be done. Colin Hanks, Tom Hanks’s son—he played Lieutenant Hank Jones—he’s so humble, a real nice guy, like his dad. He told us he enjoyed our company. People don’t know this, but Tom Hanks is related to Abraham Lincoln. Abe Lincoln married a Hanks.
The first premier was in Normandy on June 6, 2001, on D-day. All the guys were there from E Company. When we saw the movie, we would look at each other at different parts of the action. Seeing it again was a moving experience. You relived the war again all by yourself. It was very personal. Every man had his own thoughts. The parts where any of our buddies got killed were very hard to watch. Lots and lots of memories. I thought about how I had a lot going through my mind then. You’re there, but you’re not there. Only someone who’s been in combat could understand. I only wish Frannie could have been there. She died in 1997. But I know the old gal was with me, looking down on me.
I watched the movie on TV with sixteen of my grandchildren. I cried. They cried. Frank Hughes portrayed me exactly right. He’s from the Bronx. He looked like me. They watched Frank and said, “That’s Grandpop.” So you knew he done a good job. What made the movie good was the casting of the men. The casting was excellent. When I saw the men, I could tell you who they were even before they said who they were. Then I knew they got it right. I could tell where they were in every scene. They added some artistic stuff to the story, but the important stuff was exactly as it was. I think they cursed a little more than we did. But everything was authentic. I give Hanks and Spielberg a lot of credit. They done a wonderful job. Tom Hanks took good care of us. He still keeps in touch. He’s done a lot for Easy Company. I can’t say enough good things about him.
I didn’t watch most of the movie. It’s too hard for me, I get too emotional. But I wanted to see what they did with my story about the family in the bunker in Düsseldorf. That affected me more than anything else in the war, because of the children. In the movie, a trooper kicks the door open and there’s a woman with two kids standing there, so they leave. Nothing else happens. Tony To, the director, told me they used my story but they changed it to Normandy. I said, “But you didn’t say how I felt, you didn’t say how I felt for sixty years.” It didn’t have any context or meaning to it. It was just another scene.
The movie made people want to know more about World War II. People got interested in the Navy and Marine Corps and other units in the military; hopefully, everyone got recognition for their part. If people are learning about history and the importance of freedom, I’ll be happy as a lark. Remember, the past is a prelude to the future. Teaches you how to go forward.
Me and Babe have visited schools all over the country and all over the world, and we talk to the kids and we make sure they understand we played a small part in the war, that we done our job, but it took everyone to win the war: the Army, the Navy, the Air Force, the Coast Guard, the Marines, the families, everybody worked together during the war. Without the U.S. Navy, we never would have won the war. How do you think we got overseas? They supplied us. Everyone should get credit.
Since the movie, people in Holland, France Belgium, Luxembourg, every state in the U.S., they write. People send money—ten-and twenty-dollar bills. I send it right back. I get letters from kids ten years old. They’re the only letters I answer, letters from kids. I stopped sending autographs to adults that asked for them because I saw they were selling them. So this little kid sent a picture and wrote, “I can’t wait to do what you guys in E Company did.” So I wrote him a letter, I told him: “You should not even think of doing what we did. You kids think war is a heroic thing. Well, let me tell you something: There are no brass bands playing, no flag waving. All you do is worry about staying alive along with the kid that’s in the foxhole with you.” I get filled up just talking about it. How foolish can these kids be? But I guess I was the same way when I was a teenager. You think it’s all glory, and you’re going to be a hero, and then you find out what it’s really about.
When we were visiting the London set, the documentary crew followed us as we visited the cemetery in Margraten, where seven or eight of our buddies are buried. It was a beautiful day, and we walked ahead of the cameras to have our private moments. Bill was standing near the grave of one of the kids that we knew pretty good, and all of a sudden he just broke down. The worst I’ve ever seen him. He was crying so hard his body was convulsing, and he
held on to the cross. I ran over to him, and the cameraman was putting the camera right in his face, and I said to the director, Mark, “Get him away from Bill! Get that goddamn camera away from Bill! That scene better not be on TV!” Mark agreed, and he stopped rolling. All of a sudden, it hit me, too, and I got bad and Bill said to me, “It’s awful, ain’t it?” I cried more for Bill crying than I did for anything else. I know he was thinking about his brother along with the kids we soldiered with. Bill’s always been the one who keeps it together better than anyone. Now as we get older, Bill’s gotten a little bit softer, and if he breaks, I break. It gets harder and harder for us to visit the graves of our war buddies.
Me and Bill sometimes go to the Irish pub in Philly at 11th and Walnut to get a sandwich and a beer. One Saturday afternoon Bill said, “Babe, let’s take a walk to Chestnut Street to see the Liberty Bell.”
I love living in a patriotic city like Philadelphia. People come from all over the world to see this place which is full of our country’s history. It’s a great feeling walking past the Liberty Bell, Betsy Ross House, and Independence Hall. These are all symbols of our freedom. The cost in blood is never counted, but places like these are reminders. I get goose bumps when I see them.
Bill and I walked a few blocks and sat on a bench across from Independence Hall to watch the tourists coming in and out of the Liberty Bell. The place was mobbed. People of all ages—grandparents and little children, families and couples. I often come to see the Liberty Bell by myself. I take the bus to 3rd Street and walk down to 5th and Chestnut. For a combat veteran, these things get you in the gut. You hope they’re more than just tourist attractions. You hope they stand for something important for all these people.
Brothers in Battle, Best of Friends Page 26