my evening with a man who once had been called 'A Beautiful Viking God.'
'Down these mean streets a man must go,
'Down these mean streets a man must go,
who is neither tarnished or afraid.
He is the hero. He is everything.
He must be a complete man and a common
and yet an unusual man...
and yet an unusual man...
He is a lonely man and his pride is that you
will treat him as a proud man or be sorry
that you ever met him...'
Raymond Chandler
A PRUSSIAN GENERAL WAS ONCE QUOTED AS ,SAYING "COURAGE, ABOVE ALL THINGS...
IS THE FIRST QUALITY OF A HERO." AND ALTHOUGH I DIDN'T KNOW IT AT THE TIME, I was about to meet one. It was back in December of 1977. I was in a cocktail bar on Main Street in Houston called Captain Foxhearts' Bad News Bar and so was he. The place was crowded and I quickly became aware that everyone was furtively staring at a man who was seated at a table: Men were open mouthed and silent. Women whispering and giggling. So I turned to have a look for myself and immediately recognized him. When he spotted me at the bar hunting a seat, he motioned to me and said with a smile: Come on over and sit with me.
I had first laid eyes on him in Denver, Colorado back in 1950 when I was 14 years-old sitting in a darkened movie theater and there he was up on the big screen playing opposite Marilyn Monroe and Sam Jaffe in a movie by the name of The Asphalt Jungle, had seen him again in 1958 in another movie called Terror In A Texas Town with Sebastian Cabot; and had never forgotten him playing the part of General Jack D. Ripper in Doctor Strangelove with Peter Sellers in 1964. After I had taken a seat in a chair opposite of him and ordered my drink he smiled and said: I can tell you recognized me. I'm here in Houston on a publicity tour for the new book I've written called 'The Voyage.' Would you like another drink? It's on me.
His name was Sterling Walter Hayden.
At 61, still lean, bearded, with a tweedy look to his face, he had now also become a writer of note. He was born in Montclair, New Jersey on the 26th day of March in 1916, at the age of 16 he took a job as a mate on a schooner. At the age of 22 he was awarded his first command. He eventually became an agent of the OSS (the predecessor of the CIA) during World War Two sailing supplies from Italy to Yugoslavia partisans and then parachuting fascist Croatia and the city of Belgrade, earning himself a Silver Star and a commendation from Yugoslavia's Marshall Tito for bravery under fire. All of which came several years after the 6'-5" young man had gone out to out to Hollywood at the age of 25, became a model and contract player with Paramount Pictures, made a movie with Madelaine Carroll called The Virginian, and became the man the Hollywood tabloids called 'The Most Beautiful Man in Movies' and 'The Beautiful Viking God. He and Madelaine Carroll had fallen in love on The Virginian set and were married in 1942 just before he went off to war. He left active duty on the day of Christmas Eve in 1945, returned to Hollywood, and divorced Madelaine in 1946.
In 1947, he then married a classy blond with movie-star looks by the name of Betty Ann de Noon and they eventually had 4 children. By 1958 that marriage was over too. He was awarded custody of the children: Christian, Dana, Gretchen, and Matthew because it seemed that Betty Ann had a violent temper and loved to slap the children around. He made a decison to defy a Court Order and sailed from San Francisco to Tahiti on his ship The Wanderer with all 4 of the children aboard, as well as a photographer by the name of Dody Weston Thompson, who recorded on film and in photographs a documentary of life aboard a ship with colorful prints of his children, beautiful Tahitian women, as well as wonderful artifacts along the shore. All of which was turned into his autobiography in 1963, a book was was aptly named The Wanderer. By then, he had grown weary of the synthetic Hollywood lifestyle, feeling that he had been on a treadmill, and weary of making movies; so he docked his newly purchased houseboat in Sausalito, California and put the finishing touches on his autobiography.
We were well into sipping our fourth drink when I asked him what the most memorable day in his life had been. Other than the birth of his children he said that it was a winter day in Belgrade, Yugoslavia near the end of 1943 shortly after he had parachuted behind enemy lines. He said that the day had begun when he and 5 partisans blew up a Nazi ammunition's dump at the city's edge and when evening came all 6 of them moved through the city with their guns bristling and eyes of soldiers alert for sudden movement. While people along the streets stood silent. A department store had been blown up during the day by German troops, Nazi soldiers had fired upon innocent women and children, 38 citizens were slaughtered, and it was clear that another tragic day lay ahead. They knew at once that if it took a Thompson sub machine gun, a gelignite in the night, no matter; they would not allow such a day ever to happen again.
A plan of retaliation was devised overnight by the partisans of Belgrade in the basement of Saint Sava, a Serbian Orthodox Church. Shortly before dawn on the slate-gray morning that followed, the partisans were hurrying across a field to the edge of a long and winding road. They went through groves of trees, and hid themselves on a bridge above the road when the saw a convoy of German trucks and marching soldiers headed in their direction with a huge German flag attached to the front of the lead car. Without a moment's hesitation they began firing at the Germans below. German soldiers began to run. Some dived into ditches beside the road. Others died where they had stood. Killed before they were able to move. At first there had been only the snapping of small firearms, and then came the heavier chung-chung-chung of rifles. The Germans were firing now. The lead car pulled violently off the road, and smashed into the side of a small building. Both the driver and the German general who had sat beside him were dead. Then there was no return fire from down below. As quickly as the firing had begun, it had now stopped. The Germans were raising their hands in surrender. We looked around and knew we were free. We had saved a city, Hayden said. For the first time in my life I knew that I had done something truly significant.
It was when we ordered our fifth drink that he returned to talking about the movie business and the shooting of the movie The Godfather in 1972, where he played the part of Captain McClusky a corrupt cop and was shot by Al Pacino in a Bronx restaurant after Pacino had obtained a hidden handgun from the restroom. He went on to say that Marlon Brando who was playing the title roll of Vito Corleone loved to drink iced-tea between takes. Hayden and two other actors by the name of Abe Vigota and Al Lettieri had been watching Brando shoot a scene when they came up with the bright idea of spiking Brando's tea with a laxative. Every time he was about to speak his lines, he pooped his pants, Hayden said with a hearty laugh. This went on for the majority of the afternoon and into early evening up until Brando was almost too weak to walk and between trips to the bathroom he was farting like crazy. He realized what we had done so he staggered over to the director, Francis Ford Copla, told Copla what what we had done. Copla tossed us off the set. Abe and Al and I then went down the street to a bar, got drunk, and laughed and laughed and laughed. Brando wasn't the most likable guy in the world and although his career had been on a downward slide, he was still pretty much of a primadonna. It was like we were kids in a candy store and had just heisted all the candy we could eat.
As he paid for our tab and we walked onto Main Street as he hailed a cab. The final thing he said to me was: Just remember that the key to life is not just staying alive. It is to find something to live for...
...By then, Hayden pretty had much disappeared from the Hollywood scene, bought a canal barge in the Netherlands, eventually moving it to Paris, and living on it part of the time as well as spending his time in Wilton, Connecticut and Sausalito, California. He made an occasional appearance on Tom Snyder's the Tomorrow Show and the Johnny Carson's The Tonight Show talking about his career and his adventures around the world; and would die of prostrate cancer in Sausalito on May 26th in 1986, at the age of 70...
...And yet...
...I would forever remember a brave man of dignity, humor, and grace who had once bought me 5 drinks back in 1977 in a place called Captain Foxhearts' Bad News Bar...
IS THE FIRST QUALITY OF A HERO." AND ALTHOUGH I DIDN'T KNOW IT AT THE TIME, I was about to meet one. It was back in December of 1977. I was in a cocktail bar on Main Street in Houston called Captain Foxhearts' Bad News Bar and so was he. The place was crowded and I quickly became aware that everyone was furtively staring at a man who was seated at a table: Men were open mouthed and silent. Women whispering and giggling. So I turned to have a look for myself and immediately recognized him. When he spotted me at the bar hunting a seat, he motioned to me and said with a smile: Come on over and sit with me.
I had first laid eyes on him in Denver, Colorado back in 1950 when I was 14 years-old sitting in a darkened movie theater and there he was up on the big screen playing opposite Marilyn Monroe and Sam Jaffe in a movie by the name of The Asphalt Jungle, had seen him again in 1958 in another movie called Terror In A Texas Town with Sebastian Cabot; and had never forgotten him playing the part of General Jack D. Ripper in Doctor Strangelove with Peter Sellers in 1964. After I had taken a seat in a chair opposite of him and ordered my drink he smiled and said: I can tell you recognized me. I'm here in Houston on a publicity tour for the new book I've written called 'The Voyage.' Would you like another drink? It's on me.
His name was Sterling Walter Hayden.
At 61, still lean, bearded, with a tweedy look to his face, he had now also become a writer of note. He was born in Montclair, New Jersey on the 26th day of March in 1916, at the age of 16 he took a job as a mate on a schooner. At the age of 22 he was awarded his first command. He eventually became an agent of the OSS (the predecessor of the CIA) during World War Two sailing supplies from Italy to Yugoslavia partisans and then parachuting fascist Croatia and the city of Belgrade, earning himself a Silver Star and a commendation from Yugoslavia's Marshall Tito for bravery under fire. All of which came several years after the 6'-5" young man had gone out to out to Hollywood at the age of 25, became a model and contract player with Paramount Pictures, made a movie with Madelaine Carroll called The Virginian, and became the man the Hollywood tabloids called 'The Most Beautiful Man in Movies' and 'The Beautiful Viking God. He and Madelaine Carroll had fallen in love on The Virginian set and were married in 1942 just before he went off to war. He left active duty on the day of Christmas Eve in 1945, returned to Hollywood, and divorced Madelaine in 1946.
In 1947, he then married a classy blond with movie-star looks by the name of Betty Ann de Noon and they eventually had 4 children. By 1958 that marriage was over too. He was awarded custody of the children: Christian, Dana, Gretchen, and Matthew because it seemed that Betty Ann had a violent temper and loved to slap the children around. He made a decison to defy a Court Order and sailed from San Francisco to Tahiti on his ship The Wanderer with all 4 of the children aboard, as well as a photographer by the name of Dody Weston Thompson, who recorded on film and in photographs a documentary of life aboard a ship with colorful prints of his children, beautiful Tahitian women, as well as wonderful artifacts along the shore. All of which was turned into his autobiography in 1963, a book was was aptly named The Wanderer. By then, he had grown weary of the synthetic Hollywood lifestyle, feeling that he had been on a treadmill, and weary of making movies; so he docked his newly purchased houseboat in Sausalito, California and put the finishing touches on his autobiography.
We were well into sipping our fourth drink when I asked him what the most memorable day in his life had been. Other than the birth of his children he said that it was a winter day in Belgrade, Yugoslavia near the end of 1943 shortly after he had parachuted behind enemy lines. He said that the day had begun when he and 5 partisans blew up a Nazi ammunition's dump at the city's edge and when evening came all 6 of them moved through the city with their guns bristling and eyes of soldiers alert for sudden movement. While people along the streets stood silent. A department store had been blown up during the day by German troops, Nazi soldiers had fired upon innocent women and children, 38 citizens were slaughtered, and it was clear that another tragic day lay ahead. They knew at once that if it took a Thompson sub machine gun, a gelignite in the night, no matter; they would not allow such a day ever to happen again.
A plan of retaliation was devised overnight by the partisans of Belgrade in the basement of Saint Sava, a Serbian Orthodox Church. Shortly before dawn on the slate-gray morning that followed, the partisans were hurrying across a field to the edge of a long and winding road. They went through groves of trees, and hid themselves on a bridge above the road when the saw a convoy of German trucks and marching soldiers headed in their direction with a huge German flag attached to the front of the lead car. Without a moment's hesitation they began firing at the Germans below. German soldiers began to run. Some dived into ditches beside the road. Others died where they had stood. Killed before they were able to move. At first there had been only the snapping of small firearms, and then came the heavier chung-chung-chung of rifles. The Germans were firing now. The lead car pulled violently off the road, and smashed into the side of a small building. Both the driver and the German general who had sat beside him were dead. Then there was no return fire from down below. As quickly as the firing had begun, it had now stopped. The Germans were raising their hands in surrender. We looked around and knew we were free. We had saved a city, Hayden said. For the first time in my life I knew that I had done something truly significant.
It was when we ordered our fifth drink that he returned to talking about the movie business and the shooting of the movie The Godfather in 1972, where he played the part of Captain McClusky a corrupt cop and was shot by Al Pacino in a Bronx restaurant after Pacino had obtained a hidden handgun from the restroom. He went on to say that Marlon Brando who was playing the title roll of Vito Corleone loved to drink iced-tea between takes. Hayden and two other actors by the name of Abe Vigota and Al Lettieri had been watching Brando shoot a scene when they came up with the bright idea of spiking Brando's tea with a laxative. Every time he was about to speak his lines, he pooped his pants, Hayden said with a hearty laugh. This went on for the majority of the afternoon and into early evening up until Brando was almost too weak to walk and between trips to the bathroom he was farting like crazy. He realized what we had done so he staggered over to the director, Francis Ford Copla, told Copla what what we had done. Copla tossed us off the set. Abe and Al and I then went down the street to a bar, got drunk, and laughed and laughed and laughed. Brando wasn't the most likable guy in the world and although his career had been on a downward slide, he was still pretty much of a primadonna. It was like we were kids in a candy store and had just heisted all the candy we could eat.
As he paid for our tab and we walked onto Main Street as he hailed a cab. The final thing he said to me was: Just remember that the key to life is not just staying alive. It is to find something to live for...
...By then, Hayden pretty had much disappeared from the Hollywood scene, bought a canal barge in the Netherlands, eventually moving it to Paris, and living on it part of the time as well as spending his time in Wilton, Connecticut and Sausalito, California. He made an occasional appearance on Tom Snyder's the Tomorrow Show and the Johnny Carson's The Tonight Show talking about his career and his adventures around the world; and would die of prostrate cancer in Sausalito on May 26th in 1986, at the age of 70...
...And yet...
...I would forever remember a brave man of dignity, humor, and grace who had once bought me 5 drinks back in 1977 in a place called Captain Foxhearts' Bad News Bar...
No comments:
Post a Comment