A Third Face: My Tale of Writing, Fighting and Filmmaking Read online

  Not only did the stroke make me realize the preciousness of every hour of every day, it also made me see that I've got one more great yarn to tell: my own. Hell if I'm going to sit around here with a goddamned somber face, grinning cynically, fretting about my demise. For Chrissakes, I feel like Irving Berlin, ready to sing until I'm a hundred and one! My life is a helluva tale. I've been too busy living it until now.

  I'm going to tell it to you, dear reader, as if we were sitting around the Mark Twain table in our dining room, where so many stories and laughs have been shared. My wonderful Christa is helping me delve into these marvelous memories. We aren't overlooking demons that need to be exorcised or sugarcoating setbacks and frustrations. Our aim is to shape my eight and a half decades of experiences into a brisk and emphatically positive narrative.

  All human beings are in the same mortal boat, each of us with our own baggage of defeats and victories. Why not carry our load with a smile, stubbornly optimistic, getting the most out of what remains of our lives? Why allow defeats to defeat us more than once?

  The story of my life resembles that of Candide's, wandering around this Earth searching for truth, still laughing after so much adversity. Then again, maybe Don Quijote de la Mancha was my real role model. I've been inventing utopias and fighting for what I think is right for as long as I can remember. In the spirit of the great Miguel de Cervantes, I offer the following tale to you, whoever the hell you are and wherever on this great planet you live.

  "If a man could mount to heaven and survey the mighty universe," wrote Cervantes, "his admiration of its beauties would be much diminished unless he had someone to share in his pleasure."

  You, dear reader, are my someone.

  Plunging in

  Head First

  2

  was born Samuel Michael Fuller on August i2, 1912, in Worcester, Massachusetts, the son of Rebecca Baum from Poland and Benjamin Rabinovitch from Russia. My parents had already changed their surname from Rabinovitch to the more American-sounding Fuller, probably inspired by a Doctor Benjamin Fuller who came over on the Mayflower in 162o, when doctors still thought bleeding their patients would cure them of their ills. There were plenty of other accomplished, more contemporary Fullers who could have motivated my parents.' But my mother had tremendous admiration for the courage of those ioi Pilgrims-the first Europeans to settle in America-who endured the hardships of bitter New England winters to found the Plymouth colony. Rebecca probably saw herself as a modernday Pilgrim. She wanted her children to have a family name firmly embedded in the American dream. It was my mother who awakened in me a love for history.

  The year I was born, lots of blood was being spilled in my father's old country under the oppressive rule of Czar Nicholas II. His son and heir to the Russian throne, Alexis, had been diagnosed as a hemophiliac. In their vain attempts to find a cure for the boy, Nicholas and his wife, Empress Alexandra, became prey to quacks and religious fanatics, notably the Siberian monk Grigory Yefimovich Rasputin. In 1912, China became a republic, the United States admitted New Mexico and Arizona to the Union, the Titanic sank, Robert Falcon Scott reached the South Pole, Ludwig Borchardt discovered Queen Nefertiti's painted limestone head, eternally gorgeous, in an Egyptian crypt, and Dr. Isaac K. Funk and Dr. Adam W. Wagnalls published the first Funk & Wagnalls Standard Encyclopedia.

  I grew up believing that people make things move, like the word "movie." The world, like a moving picture, was moving forward. I wanted to advance too, as rapidly as my quick mind and fast legs would carry me. I also grew up believing in truth-not just the word itself, but the deeper conviction that getting to the truth was a noble cause. My nature has always been to tell people the truth, even if they feel insulted. I care too much about people to bullshit them. If they're offended by the truth, why waste my time on them? When a young director comes to me for advice on a script, I don't pull any punches, especially if the thing's overwritten.

  "Your script's got too much gibble-gabble," I say. "Show the action, for Chrissakes, don't describe it! It's a motion picture you're making, not a goddamned radio show. A motion picture with emotion, so let your characters speak from their hearts."

  "But Sam, I'm worried about the budget," says the greenhorn.

  "Don't ever worry about the goddamned money when you're writing a script. You can worry about the money later."

  I come from a generation for whom telling the truth meant everything. I suppose I'm still pretty naive about people being truthful. See, I still believe what James Cagney said in one of his movies: "You shake a man's hand and look him straight in the eyes and everything will be all right."

  Recounting the story of one's own life means facing up to the truth. Why the hell even attempt it in the twilight of my years? See, I'd like to inspire others to be hopeful and daring, to follow their dreams, no matter the odds. Life is risky. It's like the film business, with its nectar and poison, its guile and greed, its commingling of idealism, betrayals, friendships, and hard work. Sometimes you have a smash hit; other times, a flop. There's no guarantee how you'll make out, yet in life and movies, pluck, perseverance, and a sense of humor will keep your head above water.

  I trust my life story will be especially encouraging to young filmmakers trying to survive in the shark-infested waters of the movie business. Even sharks are more respectable than some of the hypocrites and parasites circling around moviemakers. It's an industry full of those who profess lofty ideals and artistic sensibilities even as they exploit and double-cross the real creators. Big budgets have fouled up this business. In America, the word "artist" is never attributed to a filmmaker unless his or her last picture sold a helluva lot of tickets at the box office. Then you become an "A" director, but the initial has nothing to do with "Art," only dollars.

  It wasn't always this way. When I made I ShotJesseJames in 1949 for producer Robert Lippert, we closed the deal on a handshake because he liked my yarn. It was a business, damn straight, though big profits weren't the only motivation. My contract didn't even show up until six months later. When the movie unexpectedly made some dough for Lippert, I was happy for the guy. He shared the profits with me exactly as we'd agreed. His financial success made it possible to go on producing more movies with me and other directors.

  With Alexandre Rockwell in Paris, 1991. I've always tried to befriend young directors, giving them encouragement in a damn tough business.

  Jokingaround with Tim Robbins during the filming of ' The Typewriter, the Rifle & the Movie Camera, Paris, 1994.

  Regardless of the obstacles, passionate, honorable artists will always be making good stories into good movies. Some of the younger ones, members of a new generation of writer-directors, have gotten close with me: Martin Scorsese, Jonathan Demme, Peter Bogdanovich, Curtis Hanson, Wim Wenders, Mika Kaurismaki, Alexandre Rockwell, Tim Robbins, Quentin Tarantino, Jim Jarmusch, and many more. Once, Jarmusch got a big laugh out of my advice to him about writing scripts, except I was dead serious: "If a story doesn't give you a hard-on in the first couple of scenes, throw it in the goddamned garbage." As corny as it sounds, I love all those young filmmakers like a benevolent papa and wish them continued success.

  Even during the lean years, I've never stopped writing my own yarns. Working on all those stories got me excited viscerally, preventing me from ever becoming bitter or melancholic. Hell, I could live another hundred years and come up with plenty of original tales that, when turned into movies, would still grab audiences by the balls!

  People are either amused or confused by the way I talk. Coming from Worcester gave me a nasal voice and a New England accent. My formative New York years changed everything. As a teenager, I started smoking cigars and had to learn to articulate words around the ever-present stogie in my mouth. In those days I puffed on "twofers," so called because you got two for a nickel. Veteran journalists like Gene Fowler, Damon Runyon, and Ring Lardner took a liking to me and slipped me a Havana from time to time. Without even knowing it, I also acquired their
big-city, straightshooting streetspeak. Naturally impatient, I found this quick-tongued vernacular a timesaver. Besides, it was the only way to make myself understood with the cops, firemen, pimps, whores, bartenders, bookies, and subway nickel changers I frequented on the tough streets of New York. Believe me, we weren't discussing Balzac.

  Writing has always been my first calling. Since childhood, the power of the printed word has fascinated me. I am a great admirer of the foundations of our nation-the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution-because first and foremost, they're damn good writing. My ability to write punchy prose and my nose for news got me a job as a teenage newspaperman in the bustling, effervescent Manhattan of the twenties. After a stint as a freelance reporter, I went out to California to take a crack at writing yarns for the movies in the thirties. Inspired by the mastersTwain, Dostoyevsky, Dickens, Zola-I also tried my hand at fiction, knocking out about a dozen books over the years.

  I got into journalism at a time when Americans learned about their country through newspapers, magazines, and books. The advent of televi Sion, with its immediacy and candor, has had an enormous influence on every facet of our society, an influence that I'm afraid hasn't been quite the boon to democracy that was predicted. Former Israeli prime minister Shi- mon Peres said that the good side of television is that it makes dictatorship impossible and the bad side is that it makes democracy unbearable. The real worth of all our newfangled, high-speed communication made possible by computers will be judged by one thing and one thing only: their contributions to democracy.

  Before anything else, I am a democrat, firmly believing that democracy is the best system on this Earth for people to live under. I've fought for democracy and made movies exposing antidemocrats, whether they be false patriots, racists, mobsters, or fascists. One of my pictures, Park Row, is about the birth of modern American journalism at the end of the nineteenth century. A free press is an essential component of any democracy. It's protected by the First Amendment, but it lives and breathes because of hardworking reporters and editors at newspapers across this nation.

  My long life has run parallel with most of the twentieth century, intersecting with some of its memorable characters and momentous upheavals. I've seen my fellow Americans at their best and at their worst. Their enthusiasm, gutsiness, ingeniousness, and sheer industry are truly remarkable. Yet into the fabric of my times have been woven devastating world wars, poverty and ignorance, social rifts based on race and wealth, psychopathic hate groups like the Ku Klux Klan, political witchhunters and religious fanatics. For me, the hatemongers and reactionaries are the most loathsome, thorns in the eye of a great democracy. Every generation will have their own. They must be fought and defeated.

  I've never lost my ardor for history and its illuminations. Nor have I ever mislaid my optimism. Living on the edge of Hollywood for many years, physically and spiritually, I remain to this day an outsider. As for life, I've always plunged in head first without worrying about failure.

  If there's one reason to recount my personal history, something inspirational that I'd like my life experiences to offer you, the reader, be you young or young at heart, then it would be to encourage you to persist with all your heart and energy in what you want to achieve-no matter how crazy your dreams seem to others. Believe me, you will prevail over all the naysayers and bastards who are telling you it just can't be done!

  Mama's Boy

  3

  In Worcester, we lived in a small house on Mott Street, near Holy Cross Church. One of my earliest memories was of those church bells on Holy Cross. I was laid up in bed with a bad cold and a high fever. The bells started ringing like crazy. I heard loud voices in the street. Through my bedroom window, I could see it was snowing outside. I got up and opened the window to listen to the exuberant tolling. It was November it. People down in the street were shouting that the "Great War" was over. I remember staring out at the snow, listening to the bells, watching the excited people scurrying by, wondering what was so great about a war anyway. My mother burst into the room, gave me a helluva spanking, and sent me straight back to bed.

  Rebecca Fuller was a spitfire of a woman, afraid of nothing and no one, a remarkable human being. She loved to tell stories, listen to jokes, meet new people, and drink Irish whiskey. Coquettish up to the end of her days, she always wore a strand of pearls around her neck. She was my first and greatest booster. When I was about seven, she took me on an excursion to Plymouth. There was a sign at Plymouth Rock that explained that this was the "legendary" spot where the Pilgrims had landed, on November 21, 162o, from England. My mother pointed up the coast some distance from the sign to the north end of Cape Cod near Provincetown, where the Pilgrims had actually touched shore. I was appalled. Why did they have to lie? Why couldn't they have put the sign where the event really took place?

  My mother explained that, as long as the date was commemorated, no one cared about the exact spot where the Pilgrims landed. But I cared, goddamnit. Our discussion that day at Plymouth Rock is vividly burned into my memory. Ever since I was a little boy, I've had a penchant for veracity, always looking for the real thing. This nose for facts remained with me all my life and served me well.

  Hell, it still bothers me when they inaccurately label landmarks, arrang ing historical markers for the convenience of tourists. When I visited Waterloo in Belgium, I realized that the fighting hadn't taken place anywhere near the official signposts, but in ditches out in the surrounding fields. Without those ditches to defend the massed armies of Great Britain, Prussia, Russia, and Austria, Napoleon would have probably won that battle on June 18, 1815. As it turned out, he was defeated and shipped off to exile on the island of Saint Helena. Those goddamned ditches were important to the course of European history. Why not show people where the battle really took place? Likewise, Cecil B. DeMille didn't direct his 1914 film The Squaw Man, starring Dustin Farnum, at the corner of Hollywood and Vine where there used to be a false plaque. DeMille made the picture in a nearby alley.

  That day at Plymouth Rock was important because it showed my mother that I could think for myself, to the point of even disagreeing with her. She wisely encouraged me to articulate my own opinions. Ours wasn't a major argument, but it made for more interesting dialogue. Ever since, I've always liked to contradict others for the sake of thought-provoking conversation. Putting the shoe on the other foot, nothing is more boring than a person who agrees with everything I say. For Chrissakes, voice your own ideas instead of rubber-stamping mine!

  I recall my father as a tall, handsome, taciturn man with black hair and blue eyes. Benjamin Fuller worked long hours in a factory that imported lumber from Canada, manufacturing all sorts of paper products, wallpaper, toilet paper, wrapping paper, newsprint. He only came home to eat and sleep. I always felt cheated that my father didn't have time for the stuff that fathers and sons do together. We never went fishing.

  Polish by birth, Rebecca Fuller was determined to give her family a chance to share in all that America could offer.

  My father yearned to follow the dictates of strict Judaism, but my mother wouldn't have her children raised that way. She was vehemently opposed to the excesses of orthodoxy, no matter the religion. She thought it would be a disadvantage to us in America, where we were supposed to fit in, not stand out. Papa gave in and rarely took us to the local synagogue. None of the Fuller kids had any real religious training to speak of.

  Benjamin died at fifty-one years of age, when I was eleven. I don't remember being devastated by his death. Nevertheless, his absence must have created an enormous vacuum of paternal support. Throughout my life, I'd search for father figures and, fortunately, find them, instinctively attracted to their experience, thriving on their wisdom.

  From the time I was a little boy, I loved going to the Poli Theater in Worcester, the biggest movie house in town. I couldn't wait for Saturday morning to come around so I could stand in line outside the Poll with all the other kids, holding my nickel for a matinee
ticket, rushing inside to get a seat to see those thrilling silent Westerns starring William S. Hart, Ken Maynard, Jack Hoxey, Buck Jones, and the great Tom Mix. They always threw in a serial with Pearl White, Eddie Polo, or Dick Talmadge, too. Each episode closed with the heroine in an agonizing situation-say, lying on the floor of a jungle, hands tied behind her back. A gigantic cobra would be slithering toward the terrified girl. The screen went black with the snake closing in on her. Those were the beginnings of pure Hollywood entertainment, a kind of fairy-tale approach to storytelling that gripped us in the same way that previous generations had been moved by the fables of Aesop, the Brothers Grimm, and Hans Christian Andersen. All I knew at the time was that, come hell or high water, I'd be back at the Poll for the following Saturday matinee.

  I also remember seeing silent films from Germany and France at the Poli, my first contact with the two countries that would have such an enormous impact on my life. There was The Man Who Laughs, directed by Paul Leni, adapted from Victor Hugo's classic, starring the great Conrad Veidt. I can vaguely recall having watched silent French versions of Falstaff, adapted from Shakespeare's Henry IV, and Volpone, adapted from Ben Jonson's seventeenth-century play. I remember that the high drama mesmerized me.

  The first book I remember reading was a pulp novel for kids that my mother gave me, entitled John Halifax, Gentleman, by Dinah Maria Mulock Craik (r8z6-87)-or "Miss Mulock," as she signed her book. Almost eighty years later, I still smile when I recall the first sentence of John Halifax, Gentleman, spoken by a man in a wheelchair as he runs into a bum and threatens the poor man with his cane, shouting, "Get out of my way, vagabond, out of the way of Phineas Fletcher!"'

  What an opening line! Beginnings are always so important. So many works of fiction start off with boring, intellectual introductions or unneeded explanations. From early on, I loved action-packed openings. I still do, as long as the action tells us something essential about the characters' emotions.