Beautiful insightful post, Jonathan. Thank you.
I often think that that whole "missed opportunity" thing (ie: Raft turning down these key roles) is just another word for being too stupid to know what's good for you. I've seen it time and time again with actors I know ... the ones who say "yes" to every opportunity - who are generous not only with themselves but with other actors - are often the ones who go furthest. It's not that people can't have quirks and problems and insecurities ... it's that someone like Bogart (at least in the anecdote you provide) knew when to cave to the Alpha Dog - for the good of the movie - and Raft (from all the stories I've heard) did NOT have that sensibility. He had too much to prove and protect. Nothing against Raft but I truly believe in "kismet", I guess you'd call it ... and that Bogart had the spirit and the wherewithal to fully embody these parts and make them mythic - and I think that makes him unique. I don't think "oh, if Raft had played those parts HE would be famous and not Bogart ..." Nope. I've heard too many bitter unsuccessful actors say stuff like that in order to boost their own egos!!
I once got a friend a job in a show I was doing. It was a great part and he was perfect for it. He was such an unbelievable pissy prima donna nightmare that he has never worked again. And I will NEVER recommend him for a part again.
That stuff really does matter!!
Sorry to go on and on like that. Basically it's a long way of saying I loved your post.
Sheila | | Email | Homepage | 07.15.08 - 12:30 am | #
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Thanks Sheila! I agree wholeheartedly. Except for Raft, I haven't read of other actors disliking Bogart or Robinson or the many other actors Raft had a problem with. And Raft himself has many a researchable quote about how Bogart should thank him for his career. Baloney. I saw Bogart in The Petrified Forest and Dead End in 1936 and 1937 and he clearly has a charm and charisma that bleeds through. Without those later roles that were supposedly Raft's he still would've been a star, it just would have been with different movies. And Leslie Howard loved working with Bogart and Howard himself was known to be a bit of a stuffed shirt on sets at times, so there Raft!
I have a similar type story only it's a director instead of an actor. When I was at CUA there was a director there named Ken ****. Anyway, he cast me early on in his time there in the MFA Directors Program in Picnic. It was tough going from start to finish as he kept "showing" me what I should be doing and was never satisfied with what I did. After that he did another play that someone had to back out on and the cast members recommended me. They told me that he said, "No way! I'm not working with **** ever again!" At first I thought, "Oh my god, am I one of those problem actors?" Then with each successive play Ken had an entirely different cast until he had run through the entire acting branch of the school and for his last play (an awful play about a college break that I can't remember the title of now) he literally cast two tech students in the leads because NO ONE auditioned because we all knew that with Ken as a director, everything the actor did was wrong. After only two years, no one wanted to work with him, and I was still being cast so my fears had long since dissipated.
My tech friend Andy, who was cast in that final play, and did as best a job as he could God bless him, described Ken the best. He said the reason Ken was never satisfied with actors was because he was an awful communicator who could never get his ideas across to the actor. When the actor became frustrated Ken assumed they were being beligerent or obtuse and the tension would start to mount. Then Andy provided the perfect example of this. He said he knew there were going to be problems when one of the first confusions over what to do arose. Ken gave Andy the direction, "I want you to walk towards me but move to the back of the stage." Huh? So Andy tried making a forward kind of a motion with his body while moving backwards and Ken said, "No, no all wrong - towards me!" So Andy went towards him and got "No, no towards me but moving back!" Finally, there was the inevitable "just fucking show me what you want" to which Ken got on stage and did his thing to which Andy said, "that's the first one I did." Ken disagreed and it was downhill from there.
Same thing with Picnic. My god, he obsessed over how I was coming onto the stage - "Run but don't look like you're running!" - until he finally did it and it looked no different than what I had been doing. When told this he disagreed and well you know the rest.
Jonathan Lapper | | Email | Homepage | 07.15.08 - 8:32 am | #
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This behavior is not limited to acting, but it seems to get the most notice in the arts and sports (where some very talented players, such as ones named Marbury and Bonds, have a habit of burning through teammates quicker than an arsonist through matches). With respect to Robinson, someone I had a lot of respect for, Charlton Heston, had nothing but superlatives to say about the man. He even made sure to get Robinson his last role in Soylent Green, knowing that Robinson was terminally ill and his premature death could doom the project.
In my own life, when I was coming up as a young attorney, I worked for an attorney who was an absolute expert on securities law. Joe had plenty of clients, but had burned through some of the top law firms in NYC, not to mention countless associates and secretaries. Within a year of going to work for him, I knew why. He was nasty, insufferable and ill tempered. When I left the firm, he didn't say goodbye, so I left him a pamphlet on anger management on his chair. I never found out if he read it or not, but for his own sake and that of his family, I hope he did, but I doubt it.
By the way, nice reference to Dave Mason.
Fred | | Email | 07.15.08 - 3:47 pm | #
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Fred - I'd have to bet in favor of him not reading it. I've known a couple of people like that and unless they are absolutely and indispensably at the top of their field, eventually it all comes crashing down for them.
And also, Steve McQueen, who worked with him on The Cincinatti Kid, had nothing but nice things to say about Robinson, who from what I've gathered, seemed like an all around good guy.
Unfortunately with sports attitude rarely gets you sidelined. Unlike movies where directors and actors stop ringing your doorbell, in sports, if you've got the talent and the records, you've got a job. And sometimes that really annoys the hell out of me.
Jonathan Lapper | | Email | Homepage | 07.15.08 - 5:07 pm | #
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I had an actor (in fact, my roommate at the time) go overboard in a scene with me once, get too physical, too rough, and I overreacted and delivered a round house punch to his head, full force, closed fist. If he had been a smaller man, I might easily have killed him but because he was built like an ox the blow didn't even seen to faze him. Twenty-some-odd years later and I'm embarrassed by my heated response but at the time it seemed like the right thing to do. As David Mamet once put it, "Go understand actors."
Arbogast on His Ass | | Email | 07.15.08 - 6:26 pm | #
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I've had actors I felt like punching. When I was doing "Nineteen Eighty Four" years ago, a pretty shabby adaptation of the book, and I played O'Brien and, you know, had to slap the actor playing Winston in the interrogation scenes. Well, he sucked and sucked bad. I really have no idea how he was cast unless he was really good at oral sex or something. Anyway, because it's so much harder to play off of a corpse than a fine actor I'd be mad at him by the end of each performance and slap the living hell out of his face to get out my aggressions. Of course, he just said things like "that was pretty hard tonight, I think you're getting lost in the moment." Yeah, he was pretty dense too.
Jonathan Lapper | | Email | Homepage | 07.15.08 - 6:34 pm | #
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I would imagine Raft hated Bogart even more after High Sierra since that film pretty much catapulted him into mega-stardom. And wasn't it just a year before when Raft was top billing above Bogart in They Drive By Night?
I love all those guys.
Fox | | Email | Homepage | 07.16.08 - 12:11 pm | #
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Well that's the thing. Raft turned down good roles then got mad when others turned them into successes. According to the IMDB trivia, the only reason Edward G. Robinson was in "Manpower" was because it was supposed to be Bogart and Raft refused to work with him.
Also, as stated in the Wikipedia entry and in any film bio of him, are the reasons he'd turn down roles: High Sierra - didn't want to die in the end. The Maltese Falcon - Refused to work with a rookie director. Those reasons say something about him and it's not entirely flattering.
There is an amusing story on the Wikipedia entry in which Tallulah Bankhead accused him of giving her gonorrhea.
Jonathan Lapper | | Email | Homepage | 07.16.08 - 12:29 pm | #
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Weird... this must have been only when he was in the lead role, yes? I mean... um, Scarface?
That kinda bums me out about Raft. I always assumed he was a pleasant man simply based on the fact that I liked his mug.
On your Wiki tip:
"In 1933, Bankhead nearly died following a five-hour emergency hysterectomy for an advanced case of gonorrhea, which she claimed she contracted either from George Raft or Gary Cooper. Only 70lbs when she left the hospital, she stoically said to her doctor, "Don't think this has taught me a lesson!"
Old movie stars were the coolest!
Perhaps Nicole Kidman (aka Marilyn) can fill us in on if modern Hollywood still operates like this.
Fox | | Email | Homepage | 07.16.08 - 12:54 pm | #
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I don't Raft was a bad guy just that by the time he achieved stardom I think he let ego dictate role choices more than good judgment and became resentful of others rather than looking at himself. And that doesn't make him a bad guy but as Sheila said, he had a chip on his shoulder that made him come off as difficult.
And since your Nicole's Svengali (alas, Wikipedia has finally removed the edit) you could probably get the info out of her more easily than I. Or is it me? Wait a minute, what were we talking about?
Jonathan Lapper | | Email | Homepage | 07.16.08 - 1:59 pm | #
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Well... yes, I was very close with Nicki before she fell for that neo-country superstar Keith Urban. When they hooked up she went all uber-nationalist and fired everyone that wasn't from down under.
It's typical of her people to erase me from Wiki. More than anything, it just hurts... you know?
You know... with my stories on Nicki and your stories on Stan, we could wrote a couple of tell all books.
A tease: I have many awkward stories from the sets of To Die For and Birth.
And just let me say that, uh hum... the character of hers in Margot at the Wedding??? Yeah, um, she's not acting.
Fox | | Email | Homepage | 07.16.08 - 2:30 pm | #
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I'll contact some publishers today, see what I can get going.
Jonathan Lapper | | Email | Homepage | 07.16.08 - 2:36 pm | #
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Awwwwwww.... I love that new banner!!! Creepy and sad, just like the movie.
Silent Running was one of the first movies I watched when I moved into my last apartment. The TV was on a box and the place was kinda bare and empty. It was fitting.
I can just watch that movie over and over. Have you seen Phase IV??? It's another of those weirdo sci-fi films that I can just kinda zone out too without ever deciding if I really like it or not.
Fox | | Email | Homepage | 07.17.08 - 12:10 am | #
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No, it's one of those sci-fi I want to see then I forget about wanting to see it. But now there's Netflix so I can load it up now that I've been reminded again. Thanks for the reminder.
Jonathan Lapper | | Email | Homepage | 07.17.08 - 8:22 am | #
