Ernie: The Autobiography (17 page)

He said, “That’s exactly the way I felt.”

It really choked me up, and nothing like that has happened to me again. But I was lucky to experience it that once.

Thanks in part to our picture, Bernie Goldsmith was reinstated in the navy.

The Vikings
(1958)

The Vikings
was a box office smash and a lot of fun, unlike anything I’d ever played. Kirk Douglas, Tony Curtis, and Janet Leigh—at that time Mrs. Curtis, and also the mother of Jamie Lee—were the stars. I played the gruff, rough Ragnar, leader of the Viking clan. Our director was Richard Fleischer, a wonderful guy and an excellent director. He had recently directed Kirk in
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
. You might say this one was
20,000 Leagues
Over
the Sea
. We spent a lot of time on the water!

We filmed on location and were feted generously all through Scandinavia. Everybody knew our pictures and everybody knew Tony, Janet, Kirk, and me. We shot much of the picture in Norway, in the Hardanger Fjord, onboard a full-size ship that had been constructed for the film. Kirk was producing the film, and had consulted several authorities on the specifics of the ship designs. Only hull fragments remained, and no one could agree on what they were really like. Kirk got fed up with these so-called experts. He personally went to a museum, measured a section of hull that had been dredged from some bog, and told his production people to make it “that big.”

When we got to the fjord we were in civilian clothes. To row the Viking boats the production company had brought in oarsmen from all over Scandinavia. Some of these guys took one look at me and invited me to go for a little rowing practice.

I said, “Sure, let’s go.”

I knew exactly what was coming. These men wanted to test me. Well, I was hoping the joke would be on them. See, like most destroyers, my old ship the
Lamberton
had a whaleboat crew. I was the bow oar, which is a bitch, believe me. That was one of the hardest oars to row because you were almost rowing straight down. Lots of water to get through that way, but I got to be pretty adept at it. So we went out to the middle of the fjord, where I prayed to myself, “Whatever you do, don’t catch a crab.” In other words, don’t miss a stroke because that screws everyone up and you’re considered a jerk.

We started out nice and easy, pulling away from shore. Then we upped the stroke a little, then again. After a minute or so we were really pulling that boat. They kept this up for about five minutes before the crew chief said, “Toss the oars!” We took the fourteen foot oars out of the water and stood them up straight. They let out a cheer for Ragnar you could have heard all the way to Oslo. It was just like when we were shooting
Marty
in New York: after that, the locals made me one of their own.

Kirk was—and still is—a prince of a guy. He’s a month older than me (funny since I was playing his father in the movie), so I’ve got to show respect…though he earned it anyway. As producer, he had the weight of the production on his shoulders. As star, he had to carry the film as well. He did both with unflappable grace. He’s also a family man, and his young sons Michael and Eric were occasionally on the set, fighting with toy swords that had been made for them.

Janet Leigh was a sweetheart. Her main trouble when we were shooting
The Vikings
was sleeping at night because she had her infant, Kelly Curtis, with her. In fact, sleep was a problem for all of us, because it was sunshine all the time up there. They had to black out the curtains in all our rooms.

When the picture came out, I remember seeing a big sign for it in Times Square. It took up a whole block with a huge Viking boat and the four of us in it. It was just beautiful. That sign, which always advertised big movies, was there till about 1980 or so. Now, there’s just giant TV screens and strobe lights. Folks used to say that huge billboard was overkill. I wonder what they’d think of Times Square today.

The Badlanders
(1958)

This film did two things for me. It allowed me to work with another legend, Alan Ladd.

Alan and I took an immediate liking to each other. He was always on my tail because he knew that I was one of the guys who never used to go out at night. He kidded me, saying, “You were out there carousing last night and having a hell of a time on your own, weren’t you?”

He knew I didn’t do that because I was a married man. Working together we got to know each other pretty well, though I didn’t know that he drank.

It was also on
The Badlanders
where I met the woman who would become my second wife. At the end of a particularly long and grueling day, the very first thing I heard the elegant and beautiful twenty-three-year-old Katy Jurado say was, “Who do I have to fuck to get off this picture?”

I was appalled! To hear a woman say that, then, left you a little bit chilled, you know?

But we got along fine and the next thing you know, Mike Connolly, the columnist, put two and two together. Actually, one and one. Because we had a love scene he thought we were an item. I complained that it wasn’t true.

He said to me, “You two are a big deal.”

I said, “Well, it’s a lie.”

He refused to print a retraction and I hated him from that day forward. That article was actually the proverbial last straw with Rhoda. Our marriage had been rocky for a long time at this point—sustaining a happy marriage is tough in Hollywood, where you’re always surrounded by temptation. I was no exception.

When I finished on location in Mexico, I called Rhoda and told her I was coming home.

She said, icily, “You can’t. My folks are visiting and there’s no room for you.”

“There’s no room for me in my own bed and my own house?”

She said “Yeah.” Seeing as how there was no rush, I took a train home with Alan Ladd. He wouldn’t fly, and the ride gave me time to think. Now I knew it certain my marriage was over. I got a divorce. Rhoda not only got my brand-new Cadillac but also my old Cadillac as well. She got the house, everything. The only things I got to keep were my good looks.

Meanwhile, the press practically pushed Katy and I into a relationship. Gossip is what some people live for and some people live on. I’m not going to get on my soapbox about that, except to say that when you’re on the receiving end it can be as personally destructive as a natural disaster. And there’s nothing you can do to stop it.

As it happened, Katy and I ended up commiserating over that, and our lives. One thing led to another and then next thing you know we got married in 1959 and moved to Mexico. I don’t think we were quite right for each other—Katy was beautiful, but a tiger. We separated and reconciled before finally separating for good in 1961. Our divorce became final in 1964—we took three years to fight over alimony.

As for Alan Ladd, I used to go up and visit him. I remember one day, about two years later, he said, “Ernie, I just can’t understand people anymore.”

I said, “What do you mean?”

He said, “I’m making this war picture,
All the Young Men
. There’s a black man there that I can’t understand and half the time I can’t hear him. Is this the way they work today? Whispering?”

I said, “I guess it is.”

The man turned out to be Sidney Poitier. That was his way of working and Alan just didn’t get it. I’ve found myself pretty flexible over the years, maybe because I had so much diversity thrown at me right out of the gate, working with guys who did things the “Method” way like Monty Clift, actors who were singers who became actors like Frank, and actors who were acrobats who became actors like Burt—all on just one picture! I found it all pretty stimulating. Alan didn’t.

Another time I was at his house when his little son David came in with a gift for his dad. It was a bottle opener.

It broke Alan’s heart. I felt it and knew he felt it. The kid was being nice, unaware that his dad was struggling with drink. It was, in fact, what killed him when he was just fifty years old.

Alan never let on how terrible it made him feel about himself. After an awful pause he just said, “Thanks a lot son, thanks a lot.”

A lot of people don’t know that Alan almost made the Olympics swimming team in 1932. He was a superb athlete but he was really self-conscious about his size. He stood just under five-foot-five and he used to complain to me about being “a little man.”

I would look at him with surprise and say, “You’re little? For Chris-sake, you’re a giant among men!”

He didn’t see it that way, and I think that was one of the reasons he drank. He stayed alone a lot. I remember once having to force him to come to a party at my house. We had Bob Mitchum, Rita Hayworth, a whole bunch of people who loved and respected him. He came and had a great time, but it was one of the few times I saw him actually having fun.

I was so very happy for his son, Alan Ladd, Jr., who did really well as the head of Twentieth Century-Fox, where he green-lighted the first
Star Wars
in 1977, and
Alien
, among many other box office hits. Alan would have been very proud of him. Alan also would’ve gotten a kick out of the later success of another friend of his who used to hang around. He didn’t have much money, and was grateful for a meal. He would help Alan with his lines, do odd jobs—a fellow named Aaron Spelling, who eventually became one of the most successful TV producers and richest men in Hollywood.

Torpedo Run
(1958)

I had an interesting first day on this picture.

Glenn Ford was the star and, God bless him, from the very first day he wanted to show a little bit of his authority. He made the director, Joseph Pevney—who went on to have a huge career in TV—kind of take a backseat to show that he was the star.

We were doing a scene with a periscope going up and Glenn taking a look before sending it down again. After the first take Glenn said, “No, I don’t like it.”

The crew pulled it up again and pulled it down again.

“No, I don’t like it.”

We did that a couple of times. Suddenly Glenn turned to me and said, “What did you think of it?”

I said, “I liked the first one.”

He blew up. Lunch was called and the producer came down to the set and said, “What’s wrong here? Who wants to go first?”

Glenn said, “I will.” He started out blaspheming everyone and everything, and then said, “If this things fails, I get the blame. I just want things to be right.”

The producer listened, then said, “Okay, fine. Anybody else?”

Nobody said a word. Not even the director. Well, Glenn
was
the star. And what he said was true, even if he made his point a little aggressively.

The producer said, “All right, then,” and we went back to work. From then on Glenn was cooperative, one of the guys, and everyone was very alert to his feelings.

I went up to see Glenn years later in the hospital, not long before his death. The very first thing out of his mouth when he saw me, was, “It was my fault, I’m sorry. I’m terribly sorry.”

He had remembered after all that time.

They don’t make stars like that anymore!

Chapter 21

Talkin’ Pictures, Part Three: Abroad

Man on a String
(1960)

N
ew decade, old director.

In 1960 I did a film based on the true exploits of a double agent. He was originally an agent for the Soviet Union until the United States found out about him. They said, “You’re going to turn around and be an agent for us,” and he did. I played the spy, Boris Mitrov, and dear Kerwin Mathews was my American contact. We shot the picture in Berlin.

When we started, André De Toth, the director, told us to be very careful because people were being taken off the streets and whisked away into East Germany, where they were never heard from again. He took me into East Berlin before the wall went up.

One day I was doing a scene with a guy on Berlin’s old Embassy Row, where my character asked him, “Can’t we just get out for a minute and have a smoke?”

He said, “Okay.”

So we got out of the car and since I was handcuffed, I asked him for a cigarette.

He gave me a cigarette and I was able to work my lighter, which was actually a small-caliber gun. A pellet went into his neck, he dropped, and I started to run. Across the street were about ten Russian soldiers. Watching the scene, they wondered what the hell was going on. As I started to run, one of them pointed his gun. I stopped and said, “
Nein, nein, schauspieler, schauspieler
,” which meant “actor” in German. Luckily they understood. It was
Vera Cruz
all over again! I’m fortunate to have survived my chosen profession.

In the same picture, we had an airplane that was supposed to be from Russia. It had CCCP on the side and all that. Well, they rolled this phony Russian plane out of the hangar. Now, alongside this airport was a row of trees and in those trees the Russians had built supposedly secret observation posts so they could watch the comings and goings of the British personnel who ran the field, and could see into the rooms where the British put information on blackboards. Naturally, they put up a lot of false information for the Russians to copy.

Well, out came this airplane. I swear to God you could actually see the trees trembling like crazy because everybody was going nuts. I could almost hear them saying, “My God, did we take over? What’s happened?”

We were supposed to taxi and take off, but suddenly the British commander came running over to De Toth.

“Excuse me a minute, sir, would you look up there?” the officer said, pointing.

De Toth looked up, and so did I. A Russian fighter plane was circling.

The commander said, “They apparently think we’ve stolen one of their aircraft and are taking it somewhere for study. Your plane wouldn’t get fifteen feet off the ground before it would be dead meat.”