Ernie: The Autobiography (24 page)

“Yes.”

“You will be working all of it, from the engine to the caboose. You’ve been working on this train for thirty years, so you better familiarize yourself with it.”

I said, “Yes.”

He said, “Okay, go get dressed.” As I started off he gave me just about the only direction he would provide. “Oh, and remember,” he said, “don’t look down when you run on top of the train.”

“Running on top?” I asked. Usually, those kinds of shots are done with special effects or stuntmen. Not this time.

He said, “Running on top, from the engine to the caboose, while it’s moving.”

I said, “Yes, sir.”

That sounded a little dangerous, so I developed a character based on the actor Jack Elam, who I’d worked with on
Vera Cruz
and
Hannie Caulder
. Jack was walleyed. Imitating him, I tried to keep one eye looking straight ahead and the other eye down on the ground. I worked on muscle control in my trailer. I found out, though, that being on top of a moving train wasn’t the only problem. It was only going twenty-five to thirty-five miles an hour, which wasn’t so bad, but it rattled like an old bag of bones. All the nails would come loose on top and I was afraid I’d trip and impale myself. My footing wasn’t so great to begin with, since they gave the characters leather shoes to run around outside with. That is not the kind of gripping surface you want on a moving train! To be on the safe side, before each shot, I actually went along with a hammer and whacked in the loose nails.

My character had a piece of lead about a foot long attached to a clothesline. Standing on top of the train, I’d play it out so that it would hit the tracks and ties and bounce underneath the train to dislodge any hoboes who were riding the rods underneath the cars. One time I was letting it out while the camera car was following on the road alongside. Suddenly, I looked up and saw that the camera car had stopped. I leaned over to see what was up. That clothesline had caught in the wheel, and the train was still moving. I let go just as it pulled me down, right over the side. I caught the last rung of a ladder that was there and hung on for dear life until the train came to a stop. I was shaking, I have to admit. I remember thinking that they couldn’t pay me enough to do real stunt work for a living!

I should probably mention that those folks who risk life and limb are pretty well paid. There was one stuntman doubling for Gary Cooper and Burt Lancaster on
Vera Cruz
. He had to do this jump over a chasm. It was about a thousand feet down and he jumped the horse twice, once dressed as Coop, once as Burt. He got $1,000 every time he did it. He earned every nickel.

I didn’t get any extra hazard pay for
Emperor of the North
. Frankly, I wouldn’t have taken ten times my salary to do that kind of stuff.

The picture only did okay business at the box office. I don’t think the public knew quite what to make of it. Still, it remains one of my favorites to make and one of my favorites to watch.

The Neptune Factor
(1973)

When a studio has a hit, somebody else inevitably tries to make the same picture again, on the cheap and in a hurry. Hollywood moguls always hope that lightning will strike twice. It rarely does, but they keep trying.

With
The Poseidon Adventure
lining ’em up at the box office, a bunch of investors put together one about a submarine that has to rescue workers trapped in an undersea lab following an earthquake. Hey, I’m not being critical here. Producers are in business to make money, and not everything has to come from the heart or be a work of art. Me? As long as I’m having fun, that’s enough.

I was having breakfast on Sunset Boulevard one morning when in came producer Sandy Howard, a friend of mine. He was about half-drunk. He said, “Damn it, I’ve got a picture shooting and you’d be perfect in it.”

I said, “Then how come I’m not in it?”

He said, “You are now. But first I got to find a goddamn director.”

Seems they were having problems with whoever had been engaged and had to replace him. A lot of submarine footage had been shot up in Canada—where it was cheaper to build sets and hire crews; it still is, in fact. Unfortunately, the lighting was unrealistic and the special effects showing the ocean outside the portholes of the lab were terrible. That would explain Sandy’s half-drunkenness.

I said, “You want a real good director? I got one for you. His name is Dan Petrie.”

Dan had directed me on TV years before and I thought highly of him. He was a good director, very encouraging.

Sandy said, “Daniel Petrie, okay. I’ll find him.”

Sure enough, he found him and we went ahead and made the picture with Ben Gazzara, Yvette Mimieux, and the great Walter Pidgeon playing one of the old scientists. We went back to Canada, where we had the same problems as they did on the first shoot.

I swear, we ended up making that picture three times before they got it right!

It’s not bad, though I doubt it’s on anyone top ten favorite movie list. I’m glad I got to work with Mr. Pidgeon, who died shortly after we finished. We exchanged stories about Irwin Allen, Mr. Pidgeon having played the lead in the film version of
Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea
. And Yvette—what a doll. I swear, I’ve spent more time with beautiful women than a guy with a kisser like mine has any right to. And I get paid for it.

Legend in Granite
(1973)

In 1973, Universal producer Jon Epstein asked me to play the part of Coach Vince Lombardi, legendary coach of the Green Bay Packers, in a television movie.

He said, “Are you interested?”

I said, “Sure, I’ll take a crack at it.”

I felt cautious because I’d be playing someone who was not only known to so many people but also beloved by the people of Green Bay. I really had to get it right, or I’d take a lot of flak.

They fitted me out with a pair of glasses and a kind of widow’s peak and the resemblance was pretty astonishing. I didn’t know what the fans would say, but when I walked on the set I felt like the coach. Fortunately, my faith was not misplaced. On the first day of shooting we were on the field setting up. Paul Hornung, the Packers’ star player, was an adviser on the picture. I walked up behind him and the director said to Hornung, “Oh, and you know the coach.”

When he turned around and stared me in the face, he nearly fell down.

He said, “Jesus Christ, I buried him six months ago.”

For me, the role turned out to be one of the easiest things I’d ever done. I had studied the newsreel footage, so I knew how he behaved on the field. I just carried that personality with me and did the rest the way I thought Lombardi would be.

For a couple of years after it was made,
Legend in Granite
was broadcast whenever Green Bay was going to play some other big team, or when they were up for another title. Since then, though, I’ve tried to get a copy, but it’s locked away in a vault somewhere for reasons no one seems to recall. I’m guessing there are rights issues, but I sure wish it was available again.

Chapter 31

Tova

I
was in the midst of getting a divorce in 1972 when my good friend, comedian Marty Allen, and his wife, Frenchy, invited me to his birthday party.

They said, “You’ve got to bring a girl.”

I said, “Are you kidding? I’m through with women. As a matter of fact, I’m thinking of taking up with men.”

They laughed and said, “We’ve got a wonderful girl for you. We’re going to set you up on a blind date.”

I said, “Do you have to?”

They told me, “Yes.” They said I had to go pick up this lady who was in from Las Vegas and staying at one of the Beverly Hills hotels. I went over and evidently she was zigging while I was zagging, because we missed each other. I went back to Chasen’s, where they were having the party,

I said to Marty, “You see? As far as women are concerned I’m a dead man. I can’t even find my blind date.”

Marty said, “She’s coming by taxi. Everything will be fine.”

So I was sitting there with all the rest, enjoying the party, when in came this great-looking redhead. I remember thinking,
Why can’t my date look like her?

Of course, it was her. We were introduced. Her name was Tova.

We found ourselves talking, she and I. We just kept talking and ignored everyone else at the party. It was like we’d known each other all our lives.

Finally, the party was over and I took her to her hotel and said good night. As I said good night I started to walk away and I said, “Oh, by the way…”

By that time she was already in the elevator. She stepped on the elevator operator’s toes and said, “Don’t you dare close that door yet.”

I said, “By the way…what?’”

She said, “You forgot to ask me out again.”

I laughed: “Jimmy Durante is having his fiftieth anniversary party over in Las Vegas and seeing as how you’re from Las Vegas, would you mind if I called on you?”

She said, “That would be wonderful.”

Later on, she admitted that she went back to her room and let out a whoop. She said she knew she had me hooked like a fish—and, I told her, I didn’t mind at all being caught.

I went to Las Vegas and I picked her up at her home. I met her stepdad and her mother, one of the greatest gals in the world. Her name was Aase. After I got to know her better, I called her pain in the Aase and she just adored it.

Tova and I went out that evening and we had a wonderful time. One thing led to another and, damn, the first thing you know we were going steady. The second thing you know I proposed marriage. That did it.

Here we are, thirty-five years later, and we’re still in love with each other. Oh, we’ve had our ups and downs, believe me, but she’s a patient lady and she knows how much I love her. It’s a mutual feeling of understanding and companionship. She’s also a real go-getter, having turned her ideas about skin care into a thriving business.

Tova’s son, David Johnson, has become a wonderful friend. I think of him as a son, as if he was my own. He’s a computer genius and a talented musician. He’s a wonderful guy.

Thanks, hon. Thanks for all of it!

Chapter 32

This ’n’ That

Twice in a Lifetime

T
elevision had changed in the five-plus years since we’d stopped doing
McHale’s Navy
. TV movies like
Legend in Granite
were quality productions and made the studios money through repeat viewings and being sold overseas for theatrical release. And, of course, TV series were making an absolute fortune in syndication—sold to local stations for rerun after their network runs had ended.

Newly married to my dear Tova, I was eager to stay home for a while. Over the years, every producer in town seemed determined to come up with a seagoing idea for me, something to rival the popularity of
McHale’s Navy
. One of these actually got made, but was never picked up for a series. It was called
Twice in a Lifetime
, and had me as a tugboat skipper with Della Reese as my partner. We also had Arte Johnson of
Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In
fame, Slim Pickens, and what I thought was a really great script. Seemed like a natural, but it didn’t sell to the front office. To this day, I don’t know why.

Law and Disorder
(1974)

Sounds like that hit series that’s on the air now, doesn’t it?

It wasn’t. This was one of those movies that came and went.

In late 1974 I went to New York City to make
Law and Disorder
, with Carroll O’Connor, who was as hot as a pistol from playing Archie Bunker on the groundbreaking sitcom
All in the Family
. Carroll played a cabbie and I was his best friend, who owned a beauty salon. We lived in a rough area of New York where the crime was out of control, so we formed an auxiliary police force. Not a bad premise, and not a bad movie. Sometimes, though, things just don’t click.

My most vivid recollection of this one was our director, Ivan Passer, having a terrible time trying to keep everything together. Shooting on location can be a bear, and this was an important film for Carroll, who was trying to make it back to the big screen after his success on television. Most people don’t remember that he had been in movies like
Lonely Are the Brave
and
Cleopatra
before settling in that easy chair as Archie Bunker. Carroll was a little anxious, and a little controlling as a result. Whenever anything went wrong, Ivan would come to me and say, “What should I do, Ernest?”

I always tried to smooth things out by staying cool

I remember one day he came to me, really upset. “Ernest,” he said, “you know how this scene calls for just you and Carroll?”

I said, “Yes, that’s right.”

He said, “Well, Carroll wants his son and his wife in the scene, and they don’t belong.”

I said, “Well, couldn’t they make a pass in the background?”

Ivan said, “No, no, he wants them to have lines.”

His reason might have been more than just trying to get them exposure. When you talk on camera, you make more money.

Well, what do you do? Carroll and I talked and we ran the scene—once with and once without his family. He then saw the difficulty of giving them dialogue. He agreed that his wife and son couldn’t be worked in.

I don’t know where Ivan used them, but if you look really close you’ll see Carroll’s wife and son in there someplace.

Other than that, my most vivid recollection of this film was bloody knees. There was one scene where I was supposed to jump on the bed with actress Anita Dangler, who played my wife. Doing take after take with bare knees rubbed them raw and the next morning it was all I could do to wear pants. It was worth it, though—the scene played beautifully.