Ernie: The Autobiography (13 page)

We waved back and suddenly we heard “
¡Alto!
” which means “stop.” So we stopped and turned around. They all had their guns leveled at us. We said, “What the hell is happening?”

It seemed that they were after some crazed politician who was trying to make a name for himself in Mexico, and wanted to declare a revolution. The way we were dressed, as bandits, they thought maybe we were part of his gang. We said, “No, no, no,
artistas, artistas
, we’re artists. We’re actors!” They came over to the townspeople and inquired about us. People confirmed our story, that we were filming a picture nearby, so we were saved. Scared the hell out of me, though. Charlie, too, I’m sure, though he was too tough and taciturn to ever admit it.

Jack Elam and I shared a room at the hotel in Cuernavaca. We had been told “Don’t drink the water, whatever you do, don’t drink the water.” There was this bottle of water that was put in our room every day, by whom we didn’t know. We used the bottle to scrub our teeth and wash out things. We didn’t drink it at all. That wasn’t much of a problem, since we were drinking beer mostly.

Anyway, one day, Jack and I were lying around the pool. I was watching a girl, half interested in what she was doing because she was working in our room. As I’m sitting there, she came out and filled the bottle from the spigot right outside the door.

I bumped Jack. “Hey, kid, look, this is the water that we’ve been rinsing out with!”

From then on, we didn’t care anymore. If you’re going to catch the
turistas
, you’re going to catch it.

I got to know Gary Cooper pretty well on that picture. He was the kind of a guy who, when we were on location, instead of eating the food that was brought to him, would give it to these little Mexican kids. Then he’d go down and buy the food from the Mexicans and eat that food. He was giving them money on the side as well.

The very first day that I saw “Coop,” as he preferred to be called, he was walking down the road with one of the most beautiful girls I’ve ever seen in my life. Looking up, I could see that same beautiful girl gracing a billboard.

I said to Jack, “Boy, this guy works fast.”

Well, I honestly don’t know what they did in private, but in public that six-foot-three legend was a perfect gentleman, an absolutely wonderful man. He never got excited, never got angry, never got flustered. If he flubbed a line or bumped into a prop he apologized to the actors and director and we did it again.

Burt Lancaster was a different sort of animal. He was always in motion, hurling himself around, jumping here and jumping there. He used to be a circus acrobat, and part of him still was. Good old Gary Cooper just took his time, easy does it, but not Burt.

I mentioned earlier that Burt was very analytical. I think he felt insecure about not having had much of an education, so he worked hard to understand everything. He questioned other actors about their choices, he questioned directors about their instructions, he questioned writers about their scripts. Some of that is a good thing. For Burt, it was an obsession. But I have to say: it worked for him. He gave some of the most memorable performances in movie history, and you can’t knock success.

One day when we were between takes, Burt had his children with him. Jack Elam was walleyed and it gave him a very sinister look, perfect for playing villains and gangsters. Burt pointed to Jack and said to his children, “Look at that man—doesn’t he have funny eyes?”

Jack didn’t appreciate that too much. He and Burt got into a pretty nasty fistfight. Aldrich and Gary Cooper had to pry them apart.

Burt would also try to outdo Coop, and you just don’t outdo Gary Cooper. One day I had a late call and the production office told me to ride in the car with Gary Cooper. I was going to sit in the front with the driver, give Coop his privacy, but he said, “No, no, no, you sit back here with me. Come on.”

So I got in the back and we started talking. He looked at me for a while.

“You know,” he said, “I sure wish I could act like you.”

I said, “What do you mean? You’ve got two Oscars on your mantelpiece.”

He said, “I just got those for saying ‘yup.’ What you do comes from life, from experience. It’s real.”

He explained that it’s actors like me who make actors like him look good! Well, I sure didn’t agree with his assessment of his talents then, and I still don’t. He was one of the most brilliant actors I’ve ever worked with, and I’ve worked with some pretty good ones. Watch Gary Cooper in his pictures. He not only listens but also answers in tune with what he’s hearing. That’s the kind of acting that really makes sense to an audience and to other actors. He’s not just spouting lines, he’s giving an answer to your line. I still learn an awful lot when I watch one of his films. He’s another one who, at sixty years old, had a lot of good work still to do when he left us.

Chapter 15

Good Day at Black Rock

O
ne day while we were making
Vera Cruz
, along came Delbert Mann, with whom I had worked in New York doing live television. Delbert was going to make his first motion picture and was visiting our location to learn from director Bob Aldrich how to shoot outdoors. Back then, TV was mostly shot in black-and-white and in a studio. It’s a real challenge to know exactly what kind of settings you need and where to put the camera, especially when you’re filming a widescreen movie. In 1954, TV images were nearly square, while more and more movies were being filmed in a format nearly three times as wide as it was high.

While he was there, Bob Aldrich asked if he could read the script. Delbert said, “Of course,” so Bob read it.

At a party a couple of weeks later, I’m told that somebody asked Bob, “I hear you read the script of
Marty.
Who do you think could play that part?”

Bob answered, “I know only one man who could do it. Ernie Borgnine.”

“Come on,” the other person said. “He does nothing but kill people in pictures. This is about a lonely butcher!”

Bob said, “Don’t kid yourself. This guy can act.”

The guy Bob was talking to was Harold Hecht, the producer of
Marty
. When I finished up in Mexico, I went back to Hollywood to prepare to make a picture with Spencer Tracy and Lee Marvin called
Bad Day at Black Rock
. Shortly before I left for the location, I got a call from Hecht to come and see him.

“Listen,” he said, “we’ve heard some nice things about you from Bobby Aldrich and Delbert Mann. We’ve got a part for you in a picture called
Marty
.”

I said, “Gee, that’s wonderful. I would be very happy to play any part at all.”

He said, “You don’t understand. We’re considering you for the lead.”

I went absolutely blank for a moment as the words seeped into my brain. I didn’t say “thanks” or “great, call my agent.” What came from my mouth was “You have faith in me?” Because what Hecht had told Aldrich at the party was right: I was known for playing heavies.

He said, “Of course I have faith in you. Otherwise I wouldn’t ask you.”

I said, “That’s all I wanted to know. Mr. Hecht, I’ll give you 110 percent.”

Hecht told me that writer Paddy Chayefsky and Delbert would fly up to Lone Pine where we were shooting, so that I could read for them. But after meeting me, he said he was pretty sure I’d get the part.

As I walked from his office with a bounce in my step, I looked up to heaven and gave a silent prayer of thanks. I hoped my mom was watching.

Bad Day at Black Rock
is about a one-armed man who comes to a small town in the southwest to give a Japanese farmer his son’s war medal. Director John Sturges—who went on to make
The Magnificent Seven
and
The Great Escape
—was a very nice man and a thoughtful director. He was always dragging on a cigarette, thinking hard about what we were about to do. I’ll never forget when we were on location up at Lone Pine and we were supposed to do a scene where Spence and I had it out. I said to Mr. Sturges, “You got a guy with one arm. How’s he gonna fight a big strapping guy like me when I’m throwing two arms?”

He said, “I was thinking about that myself. What do you suggest?”

I said, “What about judo?” That was something they’d taught us in the navy.

He said, “Okay. Work it out with the stunt guys.”

Spence’s stuntman and I started playing around with it, with input from my double. I knew enough judo to get by, but these guys knew what would look dramatic on a big screen. Spence was there, watching the entire time to learn the choreography, and so was Sturges. When we had something that looked like it could work, Sturges said, “Okay, we’re gonna shoot it.”

I stepped back so the stunt guys could fight. Sturges said, “No, no, you’re in the shot.”

I said, “Wait—can we work on it a little more?”

Sturges said through a cloud of cigarette smoke, “I want it a little rough and raw. Let’s go!”

I thought, “Jesus Christ, I’m gonna get killed here.” See, there’s a famous story about how Spencer Tracy had once thrown a punch at Clark Gable in a picture called
Boom Town
. While Clark was zigging instead of zagging, Tracy hit him one right in the kisser and knocked out his front teeth. Tracy never threw another punch after that except close up.

But, no—the stunt double was going to be throwing me around. So we started the fight scene, which was taking place inside. I had this sponge full of stage blood hidden in my hand. He hit me and then he came up with his knee and just missed, on purpose. I went down then got back up, squeezing the sponge. You could see the blood spurt onto the ground.

I heard Spence say, “Jesus Christ, they killed him.”

Fortunately, we were shooting this MOS. The grunts and cracks would be added later. Anyway, I came back and threw a punch at him. He gave me the judo flip we’d rehearsed and I hit this screen door just as I was supposed to. Except for one thing. During rehearsals, the screen door opened and I fell out onto an off-camera mattress. When we got to the actual fight, somebody had closed the screen door and latched it. I can still see in my mind’s eye the hinges coming out as I hit that son-of-a-bitch going ninety-seven miles an hour. I want to tell you man,
bam!

I just lay there. I moved my fingers and toes.

“Well, shit,” I said, “it doesn’t feel like I broke anything except the door.”

I got up slowly and I was dizzy, then I threw a punch and got tossed upside down, and the scene was over. Then I remembered, because there was Lee Marvin, off camera, going “tsk, tsk, tsk.”

That son of a bitch, I thought with a little chuckle. But he wasn’t the biggest SOB. Five years later, when Sturges was shooting
The Magnificent Seven
in Cuernavaca, where I was living with my wife Katy Jurado, I went to the location to say hi.

During a break, I said, “John, I really want to know—who closed that darn door?”

He said, “I did.”

I said, “You bastard.”

He said, “I knew you could take it and I wanted it to look real.”

If he’d been there, I’m sure Lee would’ve gone “tsk, tsk, tsk.”

Everyone who’s ever worked with Spencer Tracy has only nice things to say about him, and there’s a reason for that. He was a giving actor, an unassuming star, and a real gentleman. He took his work seriously, but not himself. I asked him if it was true, as Hollywood legend had it, that his Best Actor Oscar for
Boys Town
had accidentally been inscribed, “Dick Tracy.” He said it was and said it still made him chuckle. I remember thinking at the time that if I ever had the outlandish good luck to win an Academy Award, they damn well better get my name right. But Spence was just so professional. He rarely flubbed a line or missed a mark. If you screwed up, he was never impatient. If he screwed up, he got tight and quiet and made sure he got it right the next time. As with Coop, you were on the top of your game working with him. He listened, he reacted exactly right to whatever lines you said to him, and as a result you looked real, natural—better. That back-and-forth was like a tennis match where everything was going right.

As planned, Delbert Mann and Paddy Chayefsky flew up to Lone Pine. I went to their motel room straight from the set one night. They gave me the script and told me what to read and I went right at it.

“Wait,” Delbert said. “You’re reading it with a western accent!”

Goddammit
, I thought. Now there’s a helluva first impression. I stepped out of my boots, shed the big ten-gallon hat, and started over. I was reading the part where I’m talking to my mom in the kitchen of our apartment. I forget which one of them fed me the mom’s lines, because all I saw was my own mother standing there. I read the scene and stopped.

Delbert and Paddy both had tears in their eyes.

Son of a gun
, I said to myself.
I’ve got the part!

Chapter 16

Several Close Calls

W
hen it was announced that I was going to star in
Marty
, everybody in town—including some of the most powerful columnists, couldn’t believe they’d hired me to play a lovable butcher.

Talk about pressure!

I proved them wrong, but there’s a lesson in all this. Hollywood’s got an awful lot of good actors who are just waiting for an opportunity to work in front of a camera. Those opportunities are few and far between and a lot of that has to do with preconceptions. Someone walks into an audition and some casting director immediately pegs him or her as a “Will Smith type” or a “Julia Roberts type.” That can be good, if that’s what they’re looking for, or that can be bad. My attitude has always been: let the gal or guy read their lines and give it to them on merit alone. The public is pretty open-minded. If you do a good job, they’ll accept Donna Reed as an “escort” in
From Here to Eternity
or Tyrone Power as a carnival freak in
Nightmare Alley
.