The Magnificent Elmer Read online

  “Keeping the wolf from the door,” I suggested.

  “What on earth am I doing here!” he repeated. “I am watching actors read the Hollywood Reporter. I’m drinking cold coffee from a cardboard cup.”

  “No Danish?”

  “Did you know that this director is michuganah?”

  “I suspected it but I didn’t know the precise medical term.”

  “This man is obsessed. Ernie is right. He mistakes himself for God. I keep wanting to ask him ‘How are the apostles?’” Elmer sighed. “I’m coming home. We’ll take in a ballgame.”

  “Elmer, if you leave now, doesn’t that create a problem for Otto?”

  “Otto’s problem began when he was born. He was strapped to this table, and then the scientist yelled, ‘It’s alive!’”

  “The Dodgers are playing the Cubs. Koufax is pitching.”

  “That settles it. I’ll pick you up in thirty minutes.”

  So you see, composers can be every bit as peremptory as Viennese directors.

  A bit of baseball context. The year before our beloved Brooklyn Dodgers had moved to Los Angeles. Dodger’s owner Walter O’Malley had persuaded the L.A. city fathers that they could perform no greater civic duty than to evict several hundred Latino families from their homes at Chavez Ravine. The previous summer, like many other refugee New Yorkers, Elmer and I had marched through the loose soil that was to become an infield, he had pointed to a patch of sand (a gesture not unlike his signaling for more woodwinds) and said, “We want our seats there.” Now, as the Dodgers and the Bernsteins waited for their new stadium to be built, as the venerable Ebbetts Field felt the wrecking ball of Brooklyn, the boys of summer—Jackie Robinson, Duke Snider, Pee Wee Reese, et al.—were playing their games in the Los Angeles Coliseum on the USC campus.

  In our transition seats at the Coliseum, Elmer and I watched Sandy Koufax set down the Cubs one after another. For once the easily bored L.A. fans were not trying to beat the traffic. Ears pressed to transistor radios, thirty thousand souls, included the composer and his wife, listened to Vin Scully render the events unfolding before them. Koufax walked to the mound to pitch the eighth inning. He had struck out eleven.

  “We got something going here,” said Elmer. “It could be that extraordinary thing in baseball—a perfect game. No runs, no hits, no one reaching base!”

  Koufax conferred with his second baseman on the infield grass. And having seen the stress of these past few days on Elmer, I watched with satisfaction as his face settled into placid lines, far from the demands of megalomania. There was nothing that could assault Elmer in this magical retreat.

  “Batting for the Chicago Cubs, Number 14, Ernie Banks…” said the public address announcer.

  Then a pause. Then the voice resumed.

  “Elmer Bernstein—please phone Otto Preminger!”

  CHAPTER SIX

  ATTICUS

  “Like Ss-ss-spellbound and Duel in the S-sss-sun.”

  —Gregory Peck

  A good friend of mine, an actress who shall remain nameless, fell in love with every leading man she ever appeared with on the stage. I would not want you to think I fell in love with every leading man Elmer ever composed a movie around. And he had some humdingers. But I was always able to hold my feelings in check.

  Take Charlton Heston of The Ten Commandments. I could never get my mind around his politics. And his acting was not exactly riveting. At the Academy dinner the year they released the DeMille epic, Bob Hope said, “Is Charlton Heston here tonight?” and when someone shouted, “Yes,” Hope said, “Why?”

  Frank Sinatra was the leading man in The Man with the Golden Arm, but I had always been able to resist the charms of Ole Blue Eyes, at least since I’d outgrown bobby socks. Call me aloof, call me irresponsible, but Frank’s reputation as swinger, drinker, fighter, lover, always left me cold, as did his pals in the Rat Pack.

  Burt Lancaster, who played the loathsome Winchellesque columnist in Sweet Smell of Success, always turned me off. Though his politics were flawlessly progressive, my negative impression of Burt was borne out by the story of how Burt had punched out his leading lady on a movie set in Ottawa.

  None of the seven leading men of The Magnificent Seven moved me terribly—Yul Brynner didn’t really excite me till he shaved his head for The King and I, and I always suspected that Steve McQueen’s long silences concealed a lack of acting ability.

  Indeed, there was only one of Elmer’s leading men for whom I harbored deep feelings of longing, dare I say lust, and that was Gregory Peck. Such an image of handsome decency, such intelligence and unpretentiousness, such dignity and nobility.

  I had met other purportedly irresistible movie stars at house parties. Sprawled on the living room floor at one such farrago, Cary Grant had made an indecent proposal to me that involved an upstairs bedroom. I hastily declined. As the Grant legend has grown, any friends who hear this anecdote usually smite their brows at my bad judgment. Admittedly, it was not my finest hour. Or even my finest half-hour.

  But Gregory Peck. Now, there is a mockingbird of a different color.

  When I learned that Elmer had been asked to write the score for the screen version of Harper Lee’s bestselling novel To Kill a Mockingbird and that Gregory Peck was playing the widowed lawyer who defends a black man wrongly accused of raping a white woman—well, I was in midair. What perfect casting. The perfect actor had found the perfect role. And I’m sure the producer, Alan Pakula, felt he had found the perfect composer.

  Yet somehow Elmer found the film a daunting assignment. I had never seen him stumped before, but this time he was definitely flummoxed. He had found the right notes to convey the Jews crossing the Red Sea, Sinatra going cold turkey, and seven mercenaries saving a Mexican village. But how to convey the themes of racism and poverty in the Depression-era Deep South?

  You must understand something about the invisible art of movie music. Hollywood composers have a limited time to write the score once the picture has finished shooting. And so the clock was ticking. Film had to be edited, prints produced, advertising designed, publicity primed, entertainment writers informed, reviewers had to review, and a release schedule met. Time was money.

  Elmer was usually a very brisk composer. Talent and genius were married to inexorable timetables. His talent always seemed to gush when the clock started ticking. But this time the Muse was late.

  Elmer had certain clues to the qualities of the music he was seeking. He knew it had to be understated. He knew it had to have an American sound. He knew it had to be intimate. But what form should it take?

  “Why do you suppose the theme is so elusive this time?” I asked him.

  Elmer shrugged. “I don’t know. There are certain things that are obvious about the film, but they’re a little too obvious. It’s a film about really serious themes—racism and poverty. And the raising of children. And it’s about the South that lands you some place musically. But where?”

  It took Elmer six weeks. But one day it hit him what the film was really about. It was all about these sober issues—injustice, segregation, hatred, racism—as seen through the eyes of children. Elmer’s music was warm, lyrical, buoyant, all qualities of a child’s life.

  Years later, Elmer conducted the Royal Scottish National Orchestra in the performance of Mockingbird’s whole rapturous score. At the time he said, “I started to think about this piano being played one note at time. The way kids do. The childlike sounds. A lot of harps, a lot of bells, solo flutes, simple melodies…”

  The simple score was played by a small ensemble. At times he used single piano notes, like a child picking out a tune. Those hesitant notes took me back to our fifth-floor walkup when I was teaching a nine-year-old and Elmer was looking on distractedly, his nose peeking over a copy of Newsweek. But apparently he had been listening.

  ***

  I had always adored Gregory Peck. I had seen him in The Keys of the Kingdom, The Yearling and Gentlemen’s Agreement. And now battli
ng for justice in a Southern courtroom. So you can imagine my excitement when Elmer said, “Put on your hat, Pearly. We’re having dinner tonight with Gregory Peck.”

  Gregory Peck! I’m having dinner with Gregory Peck!

  There would be seven of us at the table in Chasen’s—Peck and his wife Veronique, director Robert Mulligan and wife, and Alan Pakula, the film’s producer.

  After we surrendered our car to the valet, we were directed to the table. My heart was not behaving. Peck and his wife had already arrived; the producer and director had not. I hastily took the seat next to Gregory Peck. He was wearing a dark blue suit, a white shirt and a figured blue tie.

  I was sitting at a restaurant table beside Gregory Peck, for God’s sake! There beside me was the rangy frame, the shock of black hair, the dark brows and hazel eyes, the aquiline nose, the sensual lips. And I would soon be hearing that deep, fluid voice. Gregory Peck turned to Elmer and spoke. “You know Elmer, that theme music is beautiful. I’ve heard it several times and it’s impossible to tire of such a piece of music.”

  Well, no, that’s not exactly what the voice said. What Gregory Peck’s voice said was more like: “I’ve heard it s-ss-several times and it’s imposs-ssible to tire of ss-such a piece of mus-sic.”

  Because Gregory Peck spoke with a pronounced sibilant “S.” Why had I never heard it before?

  “I think Mockingbird is going to be a classic,” said Veronique.

  “Like SS-spellbound and Duel in the S-ssun,” said Gregory Peck.

  “Atticus Finch is such a wonderful character. So real and human,” said Veronique.

  “So compass-ssionate and ss-sympathetic,” said Peck.

  “Are you ready for drinks?” asked the waiter.

  “A double vodka for me,” I said.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  THE MAGNIFICENT ELMER

  “Daaa-da-da-da-da-daaa.”

  —Ted Danson in Cheers

  Elmer’s music for Magnificent Seven rang in a new era for the Western film. The vigorous main theme quickly outgrew its source material to become, via the Marlboro Man commercials, the most memorable advertising theme of all time.

  Elmer was never a man to hide his light or his music under a bushel. The robust theme that he reprised several times in the film brings to mind all that is gallant about the Wild West. Small wonder that John Wayne chose Elmer to score eight of his films. Elmer also must take some credit for the spate of spaghetti westerns that lifted Clint Eastwood to stardom.

  One of my favorite moments in the sitcom Cheers was when bartender Ted Danson and his barroom buddies leave for his home at midday. “Where are you going?” asks Shelley Long, the resident intellectual. Danson waves a videotape of The Magnificent Seven. The boys are off to wallow in their favorite macho movie. Shelley registers disdain. And the guys exit singing, Daaa-da-da-da-da-daaa…”

  ***

  Perhaps I should make it clear that Elmer was born in Brooklyn and raised in Manhattan. His upbringing was in sharp contrast to the setting of the Western that United Artists and Walter Mirisch had signed him to score. And yet there was an authentic vibrancy to Elmer’s music that came pounding through the house.

  The sound lifted me from my chair, drew me down the corridor and through the open door of Elmer’s studio. As I entered the room, I was caught up in a sweeping melodic portrait of the western countryside. Then a menacing, Latin-flavored theme that I would later learn was for the bandit chief who was played in the film by Eli Wallach.

  Elmer stopped when he saw me. “I want you to hear something,” he said. “This is the main title theme.” There followed a furiously syncopated musical sound. “What do you think?”

  “I love it! It has such energy!” Elmer always brought a great excitement to his work, but there was a special verve today. He returned to the keyboard as I slipped out of the room. But my ears were wide open for the rest of the day, listening to the sound of his piano for more of the sounds of the Western countryside…

  The Magnificent Seven for me, was always one “magnificent” short. Elmer and his music were number eight. His theme helped make the film one of the most admired of the sixties—the Gone with the Wind of the West. In it, as everyone knows, a destitute Mexican village is pillaged by a ruthless band who perceives that their victims will always surrender the fruits of their labor. The peasants travel to a nearby village in search of a group of lethal mercenaries. Eight, not seven!

  ***

  Frank Mankiewicz, whose father Herman Mankiewicz had written Citizen Kane, once told me that his father had died at 56, before he fully grasped where his incredible film stood in movie history. I found that very sad. It made me think: Thank heaven Elmer lived long enough to see where his music to The Magnificent Seven stood in the musical canon. It thrilled people in the eleven hundred theaters in which the film was first released, and on millions of TV screens since. Part Copland, part Rossini’s William Tell, part Ferde Grofe’s Grand Canyon, and all Elmer, it became a staple of the musical scene—exhilarating movie audiences everywhere, as a punchline on Cheers, in a Bush-bashing Michael Moore documentary, in the sounds of Herb Alpert’s Tijuana Brass. And of course it made Marlboro the most powerful force in selling cigarettes in Europe, Asia, and (until the commercials were banned) in the United States. Every time they needed soaring brass and hoof beats, there was the music from The Magnificent Seven.

  And, despite the ubiquity of that infectious theme, I think I know when Elmer most enjoyed hearing it. Many years later, he was driving through the tiny town of La Bisbal outside Barcelona. His rented Vespa—whitened by mountain travel until it was almost indistinguishable from the dust that swirled around it—sizzled under the Spanish sun. He pulled the car over to the veranda of a squalid café. As Elmer sipped a cool drink, a little boy of six or seven appeared. He was dressed in ragged jeans and his face wore a look of despair. As Elmer watched, the child mounted a mechanical horse that stood on the veranda. He fished a coin from his pocket and deposited it in a slot in the horse’s flank. The horse began to buck and pitch, and seconds into the ride, the robust theme of The Magnificent Seven filled the plaza. The boy’s face lit with joy. And then observers agree that, for some unaccountable reason, the face of the Americano with the cool drink was suddenly wreathed in a satisfied smile.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  “THAT DAVID COPPERFIELD KIND OF CRAP”

  “Pvt Bernstein is assigned TDY to write arrangements for Mjr Glenn Miller of AAF band eff 25Apr42.”

  —Army Order No. 057776

  In one of the most famous opening lines of an American novel, Holden Caulfield in Catcher in the Rye says, “If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was born and what my lousy childhood was like, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap.”

  Well, if that’s what you’ve been waiting for, I’m afraid I’m going to disappoint you. From the day I began this memoir, I decided that it will not be a formal biography of Elmer or a schematic autobiography of me. I was not going to give you the kind of story that begins: “There was joy in the home of Eddie and Selma Bernstein that April day in 1922 when their son Elmer was born…” and then proceed, step by step, to trace his life and career.

  ***

  Suffice it to say that Elmer was born during the Teapot Dome Scandal, President Harding’s version of Watergate. It was the year when self-improvement courses were running wild, the most popular motto of which was “every day in every way I am getting better and better.” Elmer didn’t need such guidance. Every day he was getting better and better without really trying. In fact, by the time he had reached thirteen, Elmer had acted, composed, painted, written, and danced. His piano teacher was especially impressed by his gifts at the keyboard and introduced him to legendary composer Aaron Copland. Copland steered Elmer to teachers who could refine his style. But Elmer’s ascent was temporarily stalled by World War II. Elmer went into the army. He played the piano in an officers club in a train
ing camp in North Carolina. And when an arranger on the Army Radio Network went AWOL, a colonel asked Elmer: “Can you arrange and conduct?” Elmer, being Elmer, saluted and said, “Yes, sir.” (It was essentially what he said to DeMille ten years later, without the salute, which got him the breakthrough job on The Ten Commandments.) Elmer was thus introduced to the art of scoring music. He was assigned to writing orchestral arrangements of folk songs for Major Glenn Miller and the Army Air Force Band. Later he scored a dramatic radio program for the Armed Forces Radio Service. By VE Day he had composed music for eighty-two Air Corps radio shows.

  Now, if you really want to know, let me tell you about my David Copperfield crap. First of all I should tell you that, during the early years of the twentieth century, girls did not play the piano in officers clubs or write arrangements for Glenn Miller. Unless you were an actress or a Washington madam, you did not reach fame and fortune. Society’s glass ceiling was unyielding. My brother went to college and became a lawyer; little Pearly went to secretarial school and became a taxi dispatcher.

  When I was seventeen, a new boy moved into my neighborhood. We started to walk to high school together. His name was Leon Uris. He didn’t want to carry my books. He wanted to write them. And he wanted to get married. I wanted to see the world. So I rebuffed him. So Leon joined the Marines and he saw the world. Mainly he saw the South Pacific during the war with Japan, as a member of Fox Company, Sixth Regiment, Second Marine Division, on Guadalcanal and Tarawa. He sent me a letter every day, and since he had joined the Marines because of me, my guilt about his safety was overwhelming.

  After the war Norman Mailer wrote The Naked and the Dead, Irwin Shaw wrote The Young Lions, and Leon wrote Battle Cry. “You’re the girl in the book,” he told me. I saw myself more as the drill sergeant. After the war, Leon distributed newspapers for the San Francisco Chronicle, and when Battle Cry cried out to the MGM story department, the studio optioned his book and launched Leon on a prolific career.