Lee Marvin: Point Blank

by Dwayne Epstein

  Marvin followed his season at Woodstock by acting in road companies of popular plays. “Let me tell you, pal, touring was fuckin’ tough,” he later said of the experience. “Introducing the Great Drama to rural areas, see—holy shit, 33,000 miles of one-night stands, all in the wintertime and you got $75 a week and had to sustain all your own expenses with the exception of travel. We’d stay in places like the Pioneer Hotel in Pampa, Texas—two bucks a night, right? And about three in the morning the duck hunters would storm out on that frozen linoleum and—aaaghh!”

  Since his father still hoped he would become an engineer, Lee had taken an aptitude test at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) in nearby Troy. RPI also housed the Veterans Administration, which provided the paperwork needed to qualify for the G.I. Bill. He learned he could enroll at the American Theater Wing (ATW) and decided to tell his parents. “Lee told my father he wanted to be an actor,” recalled Robert, “and my father almost went through the ceiling, naturally. My father told my brother, ‘If you become an actor, don’t expect any help from me. You’re on your own.’ He probably did help him. Besides, who cares? What’s the good of having parents if they don’t give you a hand every now and then?” A summary of Monte’s ledger shows several loans made to Lee at the time, all of which his son paid back in short order.

  He was accepted into the ATW’s training program in April 1948, less than two years after it officially opened its doors. It was as if both the ATW and the G. I. Bill were created specifically with Lee Marvin in mind. The purpose of each was to help veterans get badly needed training. The G.I. Bill provided the money Lee needed with the ATW providing the hands-on training in the field he had chosen. The ATW did not have the lofty goals of the American Academy of Dramatic Arts or The Actors Studio, both of which sought to explore acting as art. Marvin took to the classes with all the enthusiasm and energy he had not mustered since first joining the Marines. “It was marvelous, like a halfway house,” he said of the added bonus of the social interaction the classes incurred. “All the guys had been in the service, we knew one another’s problems.”

  The actor also knew how to manipulate the instructors for maximum attention, a trait he would later use successfully on film directors. The foremost saber and foil expert, Giorgio Santelli, taught his fencing class. “Lee walked in and they showed him the saber,” recalled David Ballantine. “Lee looked at the saber and said, ‘A man my size should easily be able to beat the shit out of a little squirt like you.’ Of course, the purpose of this taunting remark was so that none of the other people got any instruction at all. Lee got the shit beaten out of him. But he learned to do saber.”

  Practical advice in getting work was the ATW’s main goal and proved to be the instruction that made the greatest impact on Marvin. As he made the usual rounds of agents, casting directors, and producers he often found work on live TV, radio, stage, and even military training films. However, what he desperately sought was a part in an original Broadway production. His datebook showed call-back auditions for the original runs of “Death Of A Salesman,” “Mister Roberts,” and other recognized classics. When he was turned down for the service comedy “At War with the Army” (later retooled into a vehicle for Martin & Lewis), he wrote in his runner, “I could turn that part inside out if they’d give me a chance which they won’t.”

  Fellow New York actor Bert Remsen recalled the routine: “There used to be an agent in New York named Max Richards. He was one of the agents you would go see when you made the rounds looking for work. You would stick your head in the door and say, ‘Anything for me, today?’ I remember many years later, when Lee was a big star, he dropped by the Max Richards office, stuck his head in and asked, ‘Anything for me, today?’ The secretary said, ‘Sorry, nothing today.’ Everybody would see each other and talk about it. That’s how you got work in those days. When Lee did Paint Your Wagon, he said to Josh Logan, ‘You don’t remember me, Mr. Logan. I tried out for “Mr. Roberts” but you said I was too skinny.’ Life was different for actors in those days. We used to hang out at Nedick’s or Horn and Hardart. They had the best coffee in the world. You make friends with actors and talk about work. I remember I used to see James Dean a lot in those days. See, kids starting out nowadays, don’t have that. There’s no apprenticeship.”

  Audiences after the war were seeking more believable stories and characters, and plays and films moved towards more realistic productions to meet this demand for realism. There would always be a call for the handsome matinee idol, but villains and juicy character parts required the kind of performance that would keep Marvin working regularly once he got his foot in the door. “I think he might very well have ended up on the stage anyway,” recalled Betty Ballantine. “He had a theatrical personality. You could see that right away. I don’t think he had any second thoughts. You know, Lee was not a deep thinker. He went from moment to moment reacting, being himself, and doing what he wanted to do. I think he found a home in the theater. It acted as a release for some of his problems. Obviously, not all of them because otherwise he wouldn’t have become a drunk. I think the theater or acting as a career is a form of release for a great many actors. I don’t think Lee was confused about himself or who he was but he needed to express a lot of feelings that are not acceptable in common society and he was able to do it through acting.”

  While the ultimate goal of any New York actor was to land a role on Broadway, Marvin honed his craft, establishing himself with critics who often singled him out for praise. The stage work was in revivals of “Murder in the Cathedral” as well as off-Broadway runs of plays like “The 19th Hole of Europe,” “A Sound of Hunting,” and tours of “A Streetcar Named Desire,” “Home of the Brave,” and “The Hasty Heart.”

  Fellow movie tough guy Leo Gordon would often run into Marvin at auditions, and recalled those days: “New York is a totally different scene than out here in L.A. is for an actor. Used to go to the Astor Drug Store and hang out. It was in the Astor Hotel, which is no longer there. There was the Green Room up at NBC. You know, you’re fluid. You run into people continually, the same people. At any rate, I had some casual conversations with Marvin. One afternoon, I was walking down 6th Ave. Lee comes along and says, ‘I’m looking for a place to move.’ I told him I just moved in to a place on 46th St. He said, ‘Yeah? How much?’ I said $45.00 a month.’ He said, ‘Oh man, I could never cut that.’ That was around 1949, I guess.”

  One of the few constants he was able to rely on was a hot meal every Tuesday night at Ian and Betty Ballantine’s New York apartment. Many of their friends were struggling in the arts and with Ballantine’s publishing company doing well, the couple was able to ensure them at least one home-cooked meal a week. Betty took note of the fact that, each week, Marvin sported a different injury somewhere on his person, but he brushed it off to simple clumsiness. Eventually she confronted him, and he told her the truth. “Look, I’m a trained killer,” he told her in a moment of rare candor. “I’m very good at it. I can kill with my bare hands. I have a need for violence. I go into a bar and pick on some little guy. I make sure that there are at least four big guys that could take me because I don’t want to hurt anybody. Okay, if I get a black eye or pick up a few bruises, nobody got seriously injured. Look, it’s something that I gotta do.”

  The reason the actor felt as he did would remain unidentified throughout most of his life. According to historian Thomas Childers, author of 2010’s Soldier from the War Returning: “Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) went undiagnosed until 1980. Yet in the aftermath of WWII, depression, recurring nightmares, survivor guilt, outbursts of rage (often directed at family members) and anxiety reactions —all of which are recognized today as classic symptoms of PTSD—were as common as they were unnerving.”

  The diagnosis was based on the high level of problems noted in returning Vietnam-era veterans. Childers notes, “If veterans of WWII were mentioned at all, it was to draw a striking contrast. They had fought ‘the good war’ and r
eturned home to a grateful nation, healthy, happy and well-adjusted, or so the story went… The reality was a great deal more unsettling. Although largely forgotten today, many of the profoundly disturbing social and personal problems arising from the wars in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan were glaringly present in the aftermath of WWII.”

  Between bar room brawls, classes, auditions and short run work, lightning finally struck for the actor when Marvin answered a casting call put out by film director Henry Hathaway. Hathaway’s call let it be known that, for his next film, he was interested in young New York actors who did not look like typical actors. Marvin remembers: “I hung around for three days. Then somebody came out and said, ‘It’s over.’ I said, ‘No, it ain’t, pal. I’ve been waiting for three days.’ So they let me in to see Hathaway, and he hired me as an extra. Charlie Bronson and I both got speaking parts later on.” While filming in Norfolk’s Naval Yard, Marvin also turned in a quick appearance as an extra in uniform for the film Teresa. Filming finished on the Hathaway film on the soundstages of 20th-Century Fox in Hollywood.

  Neither film would be released for over a year, allowing Marvin to return to New York in hopes of finally making his Broadway debut. It finally happened in an almost insignificant role in a major production being mounted at the experimental American National Theater and Academy (ANTA) originally titled “Uniform of Flesh.” Through workshops and lengthy tryouts it eventually became a lushly produced version of Herman Melville’s “Billy Budd” on Broadway with Marvin on stage as a Marine in His Majesty’s Service, 1798.

  On opening night one of the play’s authors, Bob Chapman, sent out traditional good luck notes to the cast. Lee Marvin’s read, “Dear Lee, Good luck tonight, and if you feel the irresistible impulse to fire that flintlock, try [New Yorker theater critic Wolcott] Gibbs, in the sixth row on the aisle.” On February 10, 1951, four years after debuting in “Roadside” he had finally made it to Broadway, with disillusionment following quickly. “There I was in a theater, and my entire part was seven sides of saying ‘Yes sir, no sir.’ There I was on this big stage thinking I really belonged in theater, and all that crap, and all I could see of the audience were those signs that said ‘Exit.’”

  David Ballantine recalled that “He stood at attention through three acts. He had, I think, one line in the whole thing. He didn’t say, ‘This part is below me,’ or ‘I won’t take this part because it won’t show what I can do.’ He was a working actor. He went with what he could get and he did it well. I’m sure he stayed at attention. Somebody else who did it, who had never been a Marine, I’m sure would have melted somewhere along the line.” The play opened at the Biltmore Theater, impressing critics but finding enthusiastic audiences hard to come by, forcing the production to close after a respectable 103 performances.

  It was around this time that Marvin met up with James Doohan on a busy New York street corner. Marvin told Doohan that he finished work on the Hathaway film in Hollywood and had met an agent there who promised him more work if he came west. Marvin confided that he was not sure what to do since he finally made it to Broadway and had hoped it might lead to more work. “I said, ‘Give Hollywood a try, for gosh sakes,’ because I hadn’t seen him in any plays or TV or anything else,” recalled Doohan. Helping to seal the deal was the experience of finally being on Broadway. “It was a damned bore,” admitted Marvin. “The New York stage is a hustle. The audience is half-boozed and you can’t really wake them. I got my tail back to Hollywood.”

  PART TWO

  IN THE TRENCHES

  In costume as ‘Chino’—rival of Marlon Brando in 1954’s The Wild One— Marvin cradles his infant son, Christopher Lamont Marvin.

  CHAPTER 5

  The Merchant of Menace

  IN THE MIDDLE of what has often been called the American Century, Lee Marvin was at the crux of a serious decision concerning his fledgling career. Having to choose between making films in Hollywood or continuing to struggle in New York, he ultimately chose Hollywood.

  The agent he had mentioned to James Doohan was Meyer Mishkin. The son of Russian immigrants who was raised on the Lower East Side of New York, the diminutive Mishkin had been a part of the movie business since the 1930s. As a casting director, he had convinced Hollywood executives that movie usher Gregory Peck was worthy of a screen test, and advised strangely ambling Tony Curtis to take the deck of cards out of his shoes when meeting producers. When director Henry Hathaway searched in vain to find the right actor to portray a demented killer in his film Kiss Of Death, Mishkin introduced Hathaway to a part-time schoolteacher named Richard Widmark, who landed the role and an Oscar nomination. His eye for talent convinced Mishkin to launch the Mishkin Talent Agency, which was established in Hollywood with his first major client, Ira Grosell, better know as Jeff Chandler.

  Believing the fledgling talent agent should check out some of the novice cast, Hathaway had invited Mishkin to the set of You’re In The Navy Now. An assistant was sent out to find the young extra Hathaway had hired out of New York to play one of the film’s sailors opposite star Gary Cooper. Twenty minutes later, Lee Marvin showed up grumbling, “Geez, can’t I take a crap on my own time?” Marvin had actually been smoking a cigarette, but did not like being ordered around by the famously authoritative Hathaway, who was known for always getting his way. Mishkin, nonetheless, was impressed by the actor’s brashness.

  The dictatorial Hathaway then suggested that Mishkin take Marvin on as a client, to which the emboldened agent replied, “Let me see him work. I don’t represent anybody unless I know they can act.” Hathaway proceeded to give Marvin a few lines of dialogue and filmed the sequence. After it was shot, Mishkin asked Marvin if he needed an agent, to which Lee responded, “Before you showed up I didn’t have a fucking thing to say. You arrive and I got lines in the picture. I’m with you.”

  The Cooper film was released in February 1951 as U.S.S. Teakettle, a WWII service comedy about an experimental steam-driven ship that, in spite of good reviews, sank quickly at the box-office. Re-released as You’re in the Navy Now, the unsuccessful comedy still fared badly at the box-office, but the title has remained ever since. The mostly male cast included Eddie Albert, Jack Webb, and featured the debuts of Marvin, Jack Warden and Charles Bronson, in a showier role as an amateur boxer. “In my first picture I played seven sailors,” Marvin later joked. “They even had me talking to myself over the intercom.”

  His even smaller role in Teresa, in which he appears briefly talking to someone against a ship’s railing, hit theaters first. The film’s story centered on the problems faced by returning veteran John Erickson in trying to get his Italian war bride Pier Angeli to adjust to America. Rod Steiger made his film debut as an understanding psychiatrist, but Marvin was merely an extra in the film directed by the legendary Fred Zinnemann (From Here to Eternity, High Noon, etc.). He probably had no contact with the Austrian director which is unfortunate since Zinnemann’s first job in Hollywood was also as an extra in All Quiet on the Western Front, Lee Marvin’s favorite film.

  When both films were completed, Marvin told Mishkin he had to go back to New York for “Billy Budd.” Mishkin assured him that if and when he returned to Hollywood, there would be work waiting for him. “I said to him, ‘Before you go, I want you to do something…’” Mishkin remembers. “I had to give Christmas presents to the casting heads. I told Lee, ‘I want you to come and deliver them with me.’ They were ceramic ashtrays that a friend of mine was selling. So, what we did was, we went to each one of the studios, and I introduced Lee to each one of the casting directors. He then took off for New York.”

  “I got a telephone call from Lee. He had been in a play. He was going to drive the star’s car to California… I said, ‘Okay, when will you be here?’ he said, ‘It’ll take me five days. I’ll be there.’ So, I called Hathaway on the phone and I said, ‘Henry, I want to tell you, Lee Marvin is coming back here. He’s driving back. He’ll be back in a week to ten days…’ To me, when Lee says
five days, he could have stopped off somewhere, who knows. So, I said, ‘You know, there’s a role in your new film that Lee could play.’ I mentioned the part, and Henry said, ‘Yeah, he’s good for it. You’re right.’ So, by the time Lee arrived in town, he had a part in another Henry Hathaway picture. I guess it was Diplomatic Courier [as an M.P. encountering star Tyrone Power]. It ran for four weeks and he got $500 bucks a week, which in those days, was fairly good money… And so, when Lee arrived, I said to him, ‘I got to tell you, you start working. You’ll have to go to 20th Century Fox. You get $500 bucks a week,’ and he went crazy. I had called every one of the casting directors that he had met, and I said, ‘By the way, I just wanted to tell you, Lee Marvin is coming to do another picture with Henry Hathaway.’ See, that was important. I also told them he was going to live here. ‘Oh, you mean the guy who gave us the ashtray.’ So, I had accomplished my mission. Lee and I, from that time on, were together for thirty-seven years.”

  It wasn’t until after the production of “Billy Budd” had run its course, that Lee Marvin took James Doohan’s advice; he sold most of what he could of his possessions, took his life savings of $1,100, and migrated west. He had been in Hollywood before, when he was stationed in San Diego, and his mother had worked there in the 1930s. Courtenay had written about it to Monte at the time, stating, “Hollywood is the funniest place—all gossip and talk and dirt. Yet it is so funny. It would be grand to live here for a while and associate a little with the acting world. You have never known such morons. Lilyan Tashman, for example, has a huge appetite but she likes to keep svelte. So after gorging she goes upstairs and makes herself vomit. Did you ever?”