Even This I Get to Experience

by Norman Lear

  What followed featured some seventeen hundred performers, among them five marching bands, a group of flag-bedecked single-wheel cyclists representing the fifty states, a dozen Uncle Sams on stilts, a reenactment of the raising of the flag at Iwo Jima, singers, dancers, jugglers, acrobats, the dropping of sixteen thousand red-white-and-blue balloons, and the unfurling of a thirty-by-sixty-foot American flag. At the conclusion of this mammoth opening the camera cut back to Goldwater, who, with a straight face, announced somberly, “That was the compromise.”

  With an introduction by Big Bird, the Muppets were riotous at the Continental Congress that Miss Piggy, dressed first as George Washington, then as Abe Lincoln, kept trying to crash. Kermit the Frog kicked her out because neither had attended that Congress—and besides, women had no place there.

  Martin Sheen, who would later star in the hit TV series The West Wing, looked to be honing his presidential chops as he strode across the arena floor, fervently proclaiming an open letter to George Washington from the American people, informing our first president of everything they would have to brave to build the America of today—that bellwether of hope, the world’s primary bastion of freedom, liberty, and equality.

  Burt Lancaster was electrifying as Justice Learned Hand defining the spirit of liberty. Walter Matthau and Christopher Reeve delivered a thrilling reenactment of a debate over religious freedom in eighteenth-century New England; Gregory Hines, a singer and perhaps the greatest tap dancer of his time, led dozens of like performers in a rousing medley of patriotic songs; and Barbra Streisand, backed by the U.S. Air Force Band, sang “America the Beautiful.”

  The most generically constitutional segment of the evening had a black man, a Hispanic, a Native American, a woman, and a gay man speaking of their frustrations with an America that hadn’t as yet delivered on its promise of full equality. Each one concluded by saying, “Right now America isn’t working that well for me, but—I love my country.”

  The Christian Science Monitor said: “I Love Liberty is an unabashedly patriotic, flag-waving, freedom-loving, electronic paean to America’s diversity of people and attitudes. Just about every patriotic song is sung, just about every hero of American history is quoted in this rousing rally, a flag love-in taped at the Los Angeles Sports Arena to celebrate Washington’s Birthday.”

  “A flag love-in.” Says it all.

  • • •

  PERHAPS PFAW’S most SATISFYING SUCCESS in the early years, championed on the ground in Texas by our Mike Hudson and backed up by the Tony Podesta crew in DC, was the defeat of the fundamentalist zealots who ran the Texas School Board Authority. Texas was a primary purchaser of the textbooks (published in New England and Pennsylvania) that were then acquired by school systems across the country, and Texas used that power to control content. As a result of Hudson’s tireless effort on behalf of People For, the study of evolution as science was returned to textbooks used by schools nationwide. And such classics as The Catcher in the Rye, The Grapes of Wrath, Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl, and Death of a Salesman were back on library shelves.

  While I take great pride in that accomplishment—and the growing influence of PFAW—the fundamentalist Right had its own take. “Norman Lear’s new organization will send busloads of Big Labor Bosses in Soviet tanks into your community,” warned a fund-raising letter from right-wing direct-mail pioneer Richard Viguerie, “along with homosexual teachers who are trying to stop your children from praying.” Pat Robertson threatened me with retribution from no less than the Lord Himself. A letter I received from him read, “Dear Norman, Though I am a former Golden Gloves Boxer I dislike fights. I seldom fight, but when I do I seldom lose . . . I want to warn you with all solemnity . . . ‘Your arms are too short to box with God . . .’ Sincerely, Pat Robertson.” And Jerry Falwell sent out a massive Moral Majority mailing that credited me with bringing “filth and sexual perversion into our living rooms,” thus making me “the greatest threat to the American family in our generation.”

  The most astounding thing to me about these Southern Baptists who flogged me so violently is that the most outspoken public voices against them were also Southern Baptists. It was Bill Moyers, after all, who asked to interview me for Creativity, a series he was doing for PBS, and his voice and articulation had the sound of my hero, John Henry Faulk, and of commentator Jim Hightower, journalist Molly Ivins, and future Texas governor Ann Richards.They were the voices that represented the Southern Baptist Convention for me before the establishment of a commission within the Southern Baptist community to “mobilize Christians to be the catalysts for the Biblically-inspired transformation of their families, churches, communities and the nation.”

  As much as Moyers got me to open up when it came to talking about my father, I could not bring myself to say publicly that he was sent to prison. I did talk about it off camera and that led to the inclusion in his broadcast of a clip between Archie and Mike that said more in six minutes about how Archie became Archie than any other scene or episode we made in nine years.

  Archie and Mike find themselves locked in the storeroom of Kelsey’s Bar. The bar is closed and this is going to be one long night. They begin to drink, and Archie gets soused. Then, in as open and unguarded a moment as he has ever lived, he tells Mike in a pained reminiscence how his father beat him regularly to teach him right from wrong, and in that way taught him everything he knows. Mike is horrified and saddened; he suggests that maybe, just maybe, Archie’s dad was wrong to treat him that way. A tortured Archie explodes.

  “What? Your father? The breadwinner of the house, there? The man who goes out and busts his butt to put a roof over your head and clothes on your back? You call your father wrong?” Mike, feeling Archie’s anguish, moves to embrace him. Archie won’t have it, but his expression reveals that a terrible doubt has been placed in him. It’s a heart-wrenching moment.

  Bill also interviewed Frances, whose views he sought on her husband’s creativity. She appeared her usual, very stylish self. That was real, her taste in fashion being totally grounded and impeccable. To match how she looked, though, Frances would have to have been totally at ease and eloquent. Instead, she was squeezing who she wished to be out of a worn tube that she’d polished to a high sheen for the occasion.

  • • •

  THERE WERE A NUMBER of weekends that Frances and I both recognized as once-in-a-lifetime occasions that still took everything she had to get her through them. It all started when I met Cliff Pearlman, who owned Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. He told me that Caesars had two fully staffed five-bedroom villas, one in Palm Springs and the other in La Costa, that they maintained as freebies for their high rollers. I was no high roller, but Cliff liked me and said, “There’s no one there half the time. Call my office and if one is open, it’s yours.”

  I did just that and invited four other couples—Carl and Estelle Reiner, Mel Brooks and Anne Bancroft, Dom and Carol DeLuise, and Larry and Pat Gelbart—to join us that first weekend. We all loved the mix, had the time of our lives, and spent two weekends a year together for a number of years thereafter. We called ourselves Yenem Veldt. Translation: The Other World. In the history of fun no group ever had more. We awoke on Saturday morning, had breakfast in our bedclothes, and, from the moment Dom started slicing fruit—you cannot believe how funny Dom DeLuise was slicing fruit—laughed so hard and so continuously that we often stayed in our bedclothes all weekend.

  I can bring a laugh to mind with each memory: of Mel Brooks’s impersonation of Fred Astaire; or Anne, Mel’s Academy Award–winning wife, joining Pat Gelbart and Estelle Reiner (both professional singers when they were younger) to form a trio they called The Mother Sisters; or Dom DeLuise whipping something up on the stove while singing “O Sole Mio”; or his wife, Carol, doing an amazing imitation of Imogene Coca. Honorary emcee Carl Reiner was hilarious telling each of us how funny we were, as was Larry Gelbart, whose highest praise c
ame off like a roast. As for me, I did pratfalls, fell face-first into cakes, and, as an attentive host, offered fists full of whipped cream or mashed potatoes to my guests. And that leaves one.

  Frances spent much of her time alone in our room, but once, pressed to perform, gave her impression of a character in a film that was current at the time. The woman became a murder victim and Frances elected to play her after the killing. She lay down on the floor faceup, and as Carl reports in his memoir, “Frances seemed not to breathe or move a muscle for a good minute, and her portrayal received at least as much applause as any of the seasoned professionals.”

  3

  NEXT FOR ME in the entertainment arena was the 1982 purchase, with Jerry Perenchio and Bud Yorkin, of AVCO Embassy Pictures. A year or so later Bud elected to be bought out and our three-decade professional association ended. We remained great friends, however, and our personal lives bore a remarkable resemblance. We each divorced, remarried, and had children with considerably younger wives. You who could be reflexively thinking, “Aha, trophy wives!” should know that our marriages preceded that expression, which originated in a 1989 Fortune magazine cover story. Besides, you’d have to answer to our brides of nearly thirty years, the lovely Lyn Lear and Cynthia Yorkin, whose every friend will tell you, “Don’t go there!”

  A-E was a producer and distributor of films that was considered a studio even though it owned no soundstages or real estate. In short order we dropped AVCO, folded in the Tandem and T.A.T. assets, and under our new brand name, Embassy, we were making feature films as well as series television. Among the films we made in the three years we owned the company were Fanny and Alexander, Saving Grace, and A Chorus Line, but the one I’m proudest of cost the least.

  Since AITF had gone off the air, Rob Reiner and a few buddies had been trying to get financing for a film he wanted to direct about a fictional British heavy metal band. Every studio and independent investor in town had turned down This Is Spinal Tap when Rob learned that our new company was making movies. Since the film—he called it a mockumentary—was to be improvisational, he had no script. His sales pitch was just a bare outline and the force of his personality.

  Rob had me from the minute he recited the names of the band members: David St. Hubbins, Derek Smalls, and Nigel Tufnel. (Rob would play the director, Marty DiBergi.) When Rob said he had cast Michael McKean, Harry Shearer, and Christopher Guest to play those roles, respectively, I knew this had to be an Embassy film. As he pitched it, his passion for doing it matched the hilarity and satire in the idea. When he concluded his pitch and left the room, I turned to Alan and Jerry and asked, “Who wants to tell him no?”

  “This Is Spinal Tap is one of the funniest, most intelligent, most original films of the year,” wrote Roger Ebert. “The satire has a deft, wicked touch. Spinal Tap is not that much worse than, not that much different from, some successful rock bands.” While it wasn’t the box office hit we had hoped for, Spinal Tap did become a cult classic, and currently enjoys a 95 percent “fresh” rating on the film review Web site Rotten Tomatoes. When the Library of Congress selected it for preservation they deemed it “culturally, historically and aesthetically significant.”

  One of the great kicks of my life and career has been my relationship with the Reiner clan. Carl, a friend for some sixty years now, is one of a kind. If, no matter how good you may have reason to feel, you aren’t feeling just a little bit better for being with him, I would call for a physician right away. Carl always spoke of Rob’s having two fathers, and I’m proud to have been selected as Pop II. It was no surprise to me that Rob would be as fine a director as he was a performer, no surprise that everything he touched would be one from the heart. It was also no surprise that Rob would be as important a political activist as he’s become. Few things have made me as proud as when Rob has said my social and political activism is what motivated his.

  • • •

  OWNING EMBASSY ALLOWED ME to pick up a property for film or TV far more quickly than having to go to a network or another studio first. My cousin Harold, whose dad made me jealous whistling for him when we were kids, had a massive heart attack in 1973. Months later he underwent a double bypass and was told there was little chance he would fully recover. Harold, a urologist, was married to Martha Weinman, a writer for the New York Times, who took detailed notes about his treatment and the doctors providing it.

  Harold died in September 1978, and late the next year Martha completed the book that chronicled his battle, Heartsounds. It is as relevant now as the day the New York Times Book Review called it “an indictment of present day medical care,” adding, “One sees not only that there are inadequacies in the health-care system, but occasional acts of callousness that leave one breathless, speechless with rage . . .” Talk about timeless.

  The TV movie of the book, starring James Garner and Mary Tyler Moore with a script by the inimitable Fay Kanin, was my final hug of the only family member who understood and often discussed with me our difficult heritage.

  • • •

  THE YEAR AFTER Embassy started I got that Sunday morning phone call telling me that I was to be one of the first inductees into the Television Academy’s Hall of Fame. I flew my mother out for the event despite her unenthusiastic response—“Listen, if that’s what they want to do, who am I to say?”—when I first gave her the news. I told that story to start my acceptance speech, got a giant laugh—and the camera caught my mother roaring, overjoyed to be the center of attention no matter what it took to get there.

  She reigned like a queen from her wheelchair, and, this being a celebratory week, there were a few lunches, cocktail parties, and dinners, where she met the likes of Paul Newman, Burt Lancaster, Loretta Young, and Groucho Marx. Lucille Ball and Shirley MacLaine told her she was beautiful.

  At the induction ceremony she met Milton Berle, who was lip and jowl funny all over her. She howled with delight as she looked about to be sure others were seeing this. Cast members from many of our shows were there and they were effusively nice to her.

  I don’t mean to suggest this wasn’t a big night in my life also. My daughters had flown out for the event and could not have made me prouder. Perenchio threw me an after party where I felt as loved and feted as I was able to feel at the time.

  When Mother’s visit ended and I was driving her to the airport she said she hoped I wouldn’t mind if, when she got home, she told the family in Bridgeport “a little white lie.” And what might that white lie be?

  “It’s not important,” she said. “We all tell little white lies.”

  When I pressed her further she finally responded, “I was here ten days. Who has to know I didn’t get to Las Vegas?”

  • • •

  AT HOME FRANCES AND I were empty empty nesters. Kate and Maggie had graduated from college—Stanford and the University of Oregon, respectively—and were living in New York. Between us there was nothing to hold on to. We continued to host dinners and fund-raisers for any number of political figures, and spent less and less time alone together.

  Our last home was in Brentwood, the house we bought from Paul Henreid, built originally by Henry Fonda. It had a screening room in which to view 35mm prints of newly released films that the studios made available to members of the “Bel Air Circuit,” and we’d established a Sunday evening tradition known to our friends as Loew’s Lear. One Sunday John Dunne brought a print of My Dinner with Andre, which he was reviewing for the New York Review of Books. The film, set in a restaurant, consists of a single dinner conversation between Wallace Shawn and Andre Gregory. The subject of the conversation was LIFE, as filtered through their personal stories and experiences and passed on to viewers as lessons in how to live. That was it—two men talking, not unpretentiously, for one hour and fifty minutes. You really had to be in the mood for such a film.

  The filmgoers at Loew’s Lear that evening, among them the Reiners an
d the Brookses, were in no such mood. Perhaps a half hour into the film, as if on cue, Carl and Mel exchanged a look. I either caught it or sensed it, and in half a minute the three of us were up. A card table and two chairs were set in front of the screen. Carl and Mel were seated and, with a napkin over my arm, I was waiting table. The projectionist in the booth lowered the sound in the screening room, and My Dinner with Mel proceeded hilariously alongside the one with Andre.

  • • •

  SUCH FLEETING MOMENTS of pure joy were hardly enough to sustain our marriage, and by 1983 Frances and I decided to spend the Christmas holidays apart. A friend recommended La Samanna to me, a hotel resort on the Caribbean island of St. Martin. Ben Bradlee, famed editor of the Washington Post, and his wife, Sally Quinn, were there, and although Ben and I had met before—at the 1976 Muhammad Ali/Ken Norton fight at Yankee Stadium—we didn’t really know each other. At La Samanna we became fast friends. Ben is one of those rare guys, a man’s man and a lady’s man in equal measure.

  The Bradlees were scheduled to return to DC for a New Year’s Eve party they were throwing, the first of what would turn out to be a thirty-year tradition. I was invited to join them and stay in their sumptuous Georgetown home. I did just that and found myself, as 1983 turned into 1984, chumming with the DC press corps elites and, no fault of theirs, growing sadder by the minute as the New Year approached. As everyone was counting down the last seconds to midnight I looked around the room and saw dozens of couples ready to kiss. It just might have been the loneliest night of my life since H.K. was sent to prison.