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Borgnine in Oscar-winning Marty, 1955 |
The son of a bitch who killed Sinatra
The memoirs of Ernest Borgnine offer a witty insight into Hollywood in the ’50s, writes Gerald Isaaman
THE trouble with Hollywood memoirs is that they kill the fantasy of the films they produce, the ones you have grown up with and love to bits, the movies that have indeed moved you and become part of your psyche.
Robert Vaughn did that with A Fortunate Life, revealing how The Magnificent Seven was created as a cheap Western copy of the Seven Samurai, bundled together without a proper script, yet, amazingly, now a cult movie.
Now Ernest Borgnine unravels the magic of Marty, which won him an Oscar in 1955, as the Bronx butcher desperately seeking romance in a beautiful film.
He starred alongside the wonderful Betsy Blair (she died at her Hampstead home earlier this year) playing the plain schoolteacher Clara, that captured so many hearts – and such critical acclaim.
It was intended to be a half-completed write-off tax loss for the newly formed production company set up by Burt Lancaster, and was shot in just 18 days – the actors unable to hear each other because of the noise of the New York’s elevated subway.
As a result they had to dub it in a recording studio later. “Lip-synching is the hardest thing in the world,” Borgnine recalls. “Not only do you have to summon all the emotions you felt during the shoot, you have to pay close attention so that what you’re saying matches the lip movements. It’s a bear, let me tell you.”
No wonder Borgnine – dressed in the last set of rental tails he could hire – “too small, too hot, and a little ratty” – never expected to win against Best Actor nominees James Dean, Spencer Tracy, James Cagney and Frank Sinatra. But he did – “Man, I guess I’d gone off to la-la land,” he adds.
Borgnine’s simply written but sincere and honest account of the son of poor immigrants named Borgnino, from Ottiglio in northern Italy, somewhat redeems his revelations about the nasty machinations of Hollywood studios, and the frustrations of making films.
Facts do have their own fascination, as he portrays in recalling the making of From Here To Eternity, in which he took the role of the sadistic stockade jailer Fatso Judson with Montgomery Clift, Burt Lancaster, Deborah Kerr, Donna Reed and, of course, Frank Sinatra. Indeed, he ends up killing Sinatra.
The public impact of that was he escaped being beaten up by a gang of Sinatra fans only by talking to them in his native Italian, while a policeman in Hollywood, who stopped him for a traffic offence, announced: “Hey, Joe, guess what? I caught the son of a bitch who killed Frank Sinatra.”
And promptly gave him a ticket.
Borgnine, now 92 and white-haired, tells of the sad death of Montgomery Clift at the age of 45, recalling: “He was a wonderful, loyal, quiet, self-effacing young man with more talent than anyone I ever met. Years later, when I was told he was gay, I really was surprised. The only thing I could say was that, if it were true, maybe he was having a problem coming out of the closet.
“That could also explain his alcoholism, which would take a heavy toll on him, both mentally and physically. In those days coming out wasn’t as easy as it is today.”
There are many other stories from the memorable films Borgnine appeared in, among them Bad Day at Black Rock, The Dirty Dozen, The Wild Bunch and The Poseidon Adventure.
But, for me, it’s my film memories, not the behind-the-scene sagas, that stay alive.
Borgnine, as with Robert Vaughn, considers himself a fortunate man. After failing a New York audition in 1950, he walked along Tenth Avenue, grumbling to himself about being unemployed, when he smelt chestnuts roasting.
“I saw a sign on that vendor’s cart that become my philosophy,” he poignantly remembers. “The sign read, ‘I don’t want to set the world on fire, I just want to keep my nuts warm!’” |
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