The Garner Files: A Memoir (38 page)

Blake wrote most of the scripts he directed and he made
good
movies:
Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Days of Wine and Roses, The Pink Panther, The Great Race, 10.
He was easy to work with, a total professional. He could get cranky if the set was too noisy and he had to shut everybody up, but he was open to suggestions and created a good atmosphere to work in. Blake was the first director I’d worked with who used video. He’d shoot a scene and then play it back for the actors. I never liked to see myself acting, but I would look at the video occasionally to see if a stunt looked right.

There’s a scene in which I kiss Julie, who plays a woman posing as a man posing as a woman. In an early draft of the script, my character kisses her before he’s sure she’s a woman. Blake said he chickened out and wrote it so I know she’s a woman. I’d love to have done it the first way.

Tank
(United International Pictures, 1984) C-113 min. D: Marvin J. Chomsky. Shirley Jones, C. Thomas Howell, G. D. Spradlin, James Cromwell.

Just a workaday movie with nothing outstanding about it. I had fun making it, though, because I got to drive a Sherman tank and crash into things.

Murphy’s Romance
(Columbia, 1985) C-107 min. D: Martin Ritt. Sally Field, Brian Kerwin, Corey Haim.

A sweet, American story about a normal guy and a normal girl, except for the age difference. Wonderful script by the husband-and-wife team of Harriet Frank and Irving Ravetch from the novella by Max Schott.

Sally’s character is always asking me my age, but I won’t tell. In the last scene, we’re outside her house and she asks me to stay for dinner. I say, “I won’t have dinner unless I stay for breakfast.” “How do like your eggs?” she says. On the way through the door, I tell her: “I’m sixty.” I cheated: I was only fifty-eight at the time. (See
pages 203
–6.)

Sunset
(TriStar, 1988) C-107 min. D: Blake Edwards. Bruce Willis, Mariel Hemingway, Malcolm McDowell, Kathleen Quinlan.

Wyatt Earp and Tom Mix team up to solve a Hollywood murder. Blake had wanted Robert Duvall but got Bruce Willis instead, who ad-libbed all through the picture. At one point, I took him aside and gave him some friendly advice: “No matter what you think, you’re not a better writer than Blake Edwards.” He didn’t listen. He just wasn’t serious about the work. I’ve heard he’s changed since then, and if so, more power to him.

The Distinguished Gentleman
?
(Hollywood Pictures, 1992) C-112 min. D: Jonathan Lynn. Eddie Murphy, Joe Don Baker, Charles S. Dutton, Kevin McCarthy.

I can’t remember a thing about this picture. I can live with that.

Fire in the Sky
(Paramount, 1993) C-106 min. D: Robert Lieberman. Robert Patrick, D. B. Sweeney, Henry Thomas.

Based on a supposedly true story of alien abduction in Arizona. Whether the incident actually happened, I don’t presume we’re the smartest thing in the universe. It’s
big
out there. (Maybe we’re somebody’s golf ball.)

Maverick
(Warner Bros., 1994) C-129 min. D: Richard Donner. Mel Gibson, Jodie Foster, James Coburn, Alfred Molina, Graham Greene.

Mel bought the rights to
Maverick
from Warner Bros. because, he told me, it was one of his favorite shows when he was a kid and he’d
always wanted to play the character. Dick Donner, whom Mel had worked with in the
Lethal Weapon
pictures, had wanted Paul Newman as Zane Cooper, but Paul wasn’t interested, so they decided to hire the original Bret Maverick.

Mel and I got along fine. I didn’t know that he hates Jews and everybody else. I didn’t know he was drinking, either, because he held it pretty good. But when I came on the set, I thought,
What are these people doing?
Mel didn’t know his dialogue and we had to improvise a lot. He wouldn’t rehearse, either. He was just running off at the mouth on camera. I thought it was nuts, but Dick Donner assured me Mel knew what he was doing. Jodie and I looked at each other and figured we might as well join in. When we got through with it, I’m sure William Goldman didn’t recognize his movie.

Of course, I loved working with Jodie—I had fallen in love with her when we did
One Little Indian
when she was a little girl.

My Fellow Americans
(Warner Bros., 1996) C-101 min. D: Peter Segal. Jack Lemmon, Lauren Bacall, Dan Aykroyd, John Heard, Wilford Brimley.

Jack and I are ex-presidents trying to expose a kickback scandal. It was the first and only time I worked with him. Such a sweet man. He was a joy to work with: thoughtful, generous, always prepared.

Jack had a black standard French poodle named Chloe who went everywhere with him. She always rode shotgun in his Aston Martin, even when there were other people in the car, she flew with him in the first-class cabin—they were inseparable. Chloe was a bit of a princess who drank nothing but Evian water, but she was obedient to Jack. When they were on a soundstage, Chloe knew exactly how to behave.

One day we were about to do a scene in which Jack was seated at a desk. While we were rehearsing, Chloe roamed the set. When it was time to roll the camera, she plopped down under the desk. When the director yelled “Action!” she froze and didn’t move a muscle or
make a peep until she heard the word “Cut!” That dog took direction better than some actors I’ve worked with.

I wish the director were so professional. He was a self-appointed genius who didn’t know his ass from second base, and Jack and I both knew it. He had no idea where to put the camera, he didn’t know what he wanted, and he was a whiner. The movie could have been a lot better.

Twilight
(Cinehaus, 1998) C-94 min. D: Robert Benton. Paul Newman, Susan Sarandon, Gene Hackman, Reese Witherspoon, Stockard Channing.

I play a minor character in this mystery set in Los Angeles. I was attracted by Richard Russo’s intelligent script. I don’t mind doing a small part. I’ve always felt that any time you have a film where you’ve got one or two really good scenes, it’s worth doing.

Space Cowboys
½ (Warner Bros., 2000) C-129 min. D: Clint Eastwood. Tommy Lee Jones, Donald Sutherland, Clint Eastwood, Marcia Gay Harden, James Cromwell, William Devane.