Ernie: The Autobiography (22 page)

I had the great good fortune of having Mr. Lewis Gilbert come up to me one time here in Hollywood and he said, “You know, Ernie. You made that picture. You were the best.”

I said, “Thank you, Mr. Gilbert,” and walked away.

Enough said.

Suppose They Gave a War and Nobody Came?
(1970)

I’m not sure the movie really addressed the title question, though it did answer this one:
Suppose They Made a Movie and Nobody Came?

This epic was a comedy about the conflict between an army base, run by Don Ameche, and a small Southern town, with me as the local sheriff. We had my buddy from
The Vikings
, Tony Curtis, along with Brian Keith, Suzanne Pleshette, Ivan Dixon, Tom Ewell, Bradford Dill-man, and Arthur O’Connell, a fine cast.

I was glad to have it waiting for me when I got finished with
The Adventurers
. To tell you the truth, I’m not even sure I read the script before agreeing to do it.

My agent, said, “Here, you’re going to make this picture.”

I said, “Okay.”

We had a lot of fun doing it and I got a paycheck, even though it turned out terrible. I also got to know dear, dear Suzanne Pleshette, another one we lost too soon. That’s one thing about this business. You get to work closely with a lot of people. When you lose them, you really feel it. But you know—I feel privileged to have known most of these folks, so it’s worth it in the end.

Bunny O’Hare
(1971)

If you haven’t figured it out by now, I loved and respected Bette Davis. It was quite a thrill to get together again for this picture in 1971. Honestly, we didn’t know what the hell we were shooting, but had a wonderful time doing it.

Bette played a woman who had been thrown out of her home when the bank took it over. While she and the bankers were having a discussion in her house, I walked in and asked, “Where’s the toilet?”

She said, “It’s right around the corner.” So I went around the corner and pretty soon I come out with the toilet on my shoulder.

She said “Where you going with my toilet?”

I said, “Mexico.”

She said, “Mexico?”

I said, “What’s the matter, you got something against Mexicans?”

You can see what kind of a picture this was. But Bette and I were game for “whacky.”

My character took pity on this poor lady being thrown out of her home and let her sleep in the back of his truck, along with all the toilets I was taking to Mexico. Meanwhile, she finds out I was once a crook and convinces me to help her rob banks.

Sadly, the picture was not well edited and made no sense. Bette was so upset she wanted her name taken off it. I think she sued the producers. I told her, “Sue them for me, too.”

Today, it has a cult following—something for which I’m grateful, even if I still don’t understand it. But talk about a cult following…

Willard
(1971)

In late 1970 I got a call from my agent, who said, “They want you for a picture named
Willard
.”

I said, “What’s it about?”

He said, “A young man who had a couple of hundred rats as pets.”

I thought it was one of the nuttiest things I’d done. But it was a small hit and has a huge following all these years later. Bruce Davison starred as the title character, a nerd named Willard Stiles who has been forced out of his late father’s company by my character. To make things worse, I keep him on the staff and humiliate him every chance I get. This was not
Ratatouille
, folks. At the end, Willard sends a horde of rat allies to kill those who have oppressed him—specifically me—before he’s done in himself by the rats

You haven’t lived until you’ve been covered with live rats. Even trained ones, like we used, are creepy as hell. Animal trainer Moe DiSesso had to smear me with peanut butter to get the rats to attack me. They aren’t afraid of people and don’t go running when you shoo them. I kept reminding myself that, unlike back in Queens, where we also had rats, at least now I was getting paid. If you’ve ever seen
Willard
, you’ll note that the rats look like they were being tossed onto me, which is exactly how it was done. One of the rats got a little carried away and bit me. I had to get a tetanus shot. I think the rat got a shot, too.

For months after the filming, I had terrible nightmares about being attacked by rats. I actually woke up screaming more than once. Ah, the glamour of moviemaking.

We also had Elsa Lanchester in that one. She’s probably best remembered as the Bride of Frankenstein in the 1935 film. She was a character, with a quick tongue and a bawdy sense of humor, but a really lovely lady. She was about seventy when she did the picture, and had more spunk than the rest of us combined.

Willard
was a surprise smash hit when it was released in the summer of 1971, pulling in $6 million at the box office, a pretty nice piece of change at that time. I’d been offered a percentage of the profits, but once I read the script, I didn’t think the movie would find much of an audience, so I opted for a higher salary instead. Live and learn.

The success of
Willard
inspired a sequel the following year.
Ben
was a flop, best remembered for the theme song sung by Michael Jackson!

Hannie Caulder
(1972)

Hannie Caulder
gave me a chance to work with one of the great western directors, Burt Kennedy, who had made hits like
The War Wagon
and
Support Your Local Sheriff
. This one starred Raquel Welch, Robert Culp, Jack Elam, Strother Martin, Christopher Lee, Diana Dors, and me. I’m the oldest of three brothers who come into a little town, mess up a robbery, and end up hiding at a little horse ranch where they discover Raquel Welch and her husband. We kill him, rape her, then get picked off one by one after a bounty hunter, played by Robert Culp, teaches her how to shoot.

Despite the rough subject matter, we all had fun on that picture. Raquel was—and still is—a breathtaking beauty, and she had great natural instincts. The actor who really shines, though, is Bob Culp. This guy is one of our great national treasures. Watch anything he ever does, whether it’s
Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice
or
I Spy
on TV or a western like this. He’s convincing in everything because, like Gary Cooper, he’s one of the great listening actors of all time. I wish I had half of whatever he’s got.

The picture didn’t make much of a splash. It was an era of antiheroes, like we had in
The Wild Bunch
. Traditional westerns weren’t the box-office successes that had once been.

I remember at one luncheon of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, who should I be sitting across from but dear Raquel. I remember sitting there thinking,
Hey
—
I rolled her around in the hay, once
.

I hope nobody noticed me smiling.

The Revengers
(1972)

This western was an attempt to return audiences to the dark territory of
The Wild Bunch
with a dash of
The Dirty Dozen
. We had Bill Holden again, and Daniel Mann—who’d directed
Willard
—tried real hard, but we didn’t make it. The story was pretty straightforward. After his family is murdered by Indians, Bill’s character, a rancher, goes to a prison camp and asks to borrow some of the prisoners to hunt them down. I was one of the volunteers. Woody Strode, a six-foot-four former athlete probably best remembered for his gladiator fight with Kirk Douglas in
Spartacus
, was another.

We made
The Revengers
in Parras, Mexico, the same place we made
The Wild Bunch
. It was pretty remote, and the people who lived in this little town did not know anything about anything. They were still playing westerns with Tom Mix and Buck Jones. That’s how far behind they were. It broke my heart. At the time, the United States government was sending up these great big silver astronomical balloons from just across the border. The locals would see these huge silver things go by and run into their houses because they were frightened that it was the wrath of God.

I speak a little of the language, so I’d tell them “
No, es un globo grande
”—“It’s a big balloon!” I explained it as best I could, told them about the stars and this and that. I tried to explain that even pictures came out of the sky, but they didn’t understand. They didn’t know what television was. All they knew was what they did for a living: they made overalls.

For a while, I had trouble with this picture. The first four days on location, I couldn’t come up with a character. For one thing, I was worried about my marriage to my fourth wife, Donna. We didn’t part under the most pleasant circumstances—in fact, the end of our marriage was pretty nasty. She took me for all I had, including the house. But her lawyer took her for a ride, too, and she ended up selling the house back to me, for $25,000, which was what she needed. When it comes to women, I guess I was too good to them, too honest. I found out a few times that you try your best, you try to do everything you possibly can for the woman you marry, and all they want is your money. Or they don’t care about you, really—they just want to see what they can get out of you. I don’t consider myself the most good-looking man in the world, but I always felt that my heart was on my sleeve, and maybe they took advantage of it. I was giving Donna $2,000 a month for the support of my two kids and one day I got a call saying the kids were starving and despite a court order my ex-wife was taking them out of the county.

Not long after the divorce, I went to pick up my kids, who were living with her. My little daughter said, “Daddy, we don’t ever want to see you anymore!” I left the house and didn’t see them for years. Donna had turned the children against me. My children and I have since reconciled, but it was a very painful time for me.

In
The Revengers
, we were trying to capture some of the glory we’d found in the Peckinpah film. But I wanted to make my work different some how.

After a couple of flat-footed scenes, the director, Daniel Mann looked at me and said, “What’s the matter, Ernie?”

I said, “Gee, I’m sorry. I just can’t seem to come up with something here.”

He said, “That’s all right, it’ll work out.”

That night at the hotel, I was just starting to call home and the telephone rang. It was my publicity man. He said, “Sit down, I’ve got some news for you.”

I said, “What’s the matter?”

He said, “Your wife just sued you for divorce.”

I was hurt, I was shocked, but there was something else: I had my character. Then and there I decided to play my wife. You know, that wonderful person who turned around one day and told you what she really thought, that you were a dirty no-good this and that. That secret, what she was preparing behind my back, was the thing I couldn’t put my finger on. I went back to the set the next day and it really came off.

Danny came over to me after a few takes and said, “My God, where’d you find him?”

I said, “A parting gift from my wife.”

I really threw myself into the role after that. That’s what you do, when the work is suddenly all you have. I think Bill Holden found my zeal a little intimidating, though. In one scene I took a flying header into a hole that I had dug to save myself from flying bullets. I had softened the landing by stacking a bunch of cartons in there—standard stuntman tactic. I really threw myself in there with great abandon. Bill followed me in.

When the dust settled, Bill lifted his head and said, “For Christ’s sake, Borgnine, give us a break, will you?”

He didn’t want to have to work so hard to keep me from showing him up. But it really was just a good-natured dig. He appreciated it when you forced him to pump up his own game.

Chapter 28

Clowning Around

I
was on the
Tonight Show
with Johnny Carson, promoting one of my films. For the record, there has never been a TV interviewer better than Johnny. He had no problem letting the guest have the spotlight, but if you got into trouble, couldn’t think of anything to say, he was there with a question or quip to help you. Yet as outgoing as he was on camera, he was really quiet, even shy, backstage. I liked him an awful lot, though, and always enjoyed going on his show.

This night he said, “Ernie, you’ve done just about everything there is to do as an actor. What’s left?”

After thinking a bit, I said, “Well, let’s see. I’ve never been a clown.”

He said, “Boy, you’re going to get letters.”

Sure enough, the very next day a fellow by the name of Ben Barkin called me from Milwaukee and said, “You want to be a clown? We’ll make you the head clown in our circus parade. It’s going to be the greatest circus parade in the world. We go on July the 14th.”

Well, how do you say no to something like that?

I flew to Milwaukee. Ben Barkin brought in a clown from Ringling Brothers. He put makeup on me, just enough to show that I was a clown, yet left enough of Ernie showing so that people would still know I was the guy from
McHale’s Navy
.

Ben had some vintage circus wagons brought in on a big train through Chicago. It was quite an event. They set up the whole circus spectacle and all those beautiful wagons were on display. On Sunday, when we put on the parade, it was just the most colorful, epic, exciting thing you could imagine. There was just one problem: crowd-wise, it was pretty much of a bust. I don’t think we had more than 15,000 people on the streets. We’d see one person and wave like crazy.

I’d say from the side of my mouth, “Oh boy, there’s a fan.”

But Ben was undeterred. He said, “We’re going to do better next year,” and he did. I appeared in the parade from 1972 until 2002. That last year I did it, we had over 2 million people watching along the route. And it got me thinking. I think it would be great if politicians put on a clown outfit every now and then and really got to know the people. You would be surprised what you can see in people’s eyes when you’re a clown. They look upon you as a person who is bringing a little joy into their lives. That’s what I felt, and I treasured it. I remembered it every time I made a film. If a president or senator or governor could remember that look, that sense of responsibility, whenever they made a decision, the world would be a better place. In fact, if politicians wore clown makeup on the job, maybe they’d fight a little less among themselves.