Chapter 10
We got off that old rattler feeling dirty, disheveled, and exhausted. There were numerous delays due to track problems and I felt like my butt had been permanently flattened from having sat in that thinly cushioned seat. In the cool early morning, we walked up a hill toward the Barter Inn, where my buddy had been told to go. We waited there for Mr. Robert Porterfield, the head of the theater.
Mr. Porterfield arrived late in the morning, looked at Fred, and said, “Well, you didn’t show up on time, so we filled your position.”
We were both too tired to react. When the words sunk in, I wanted to pop the guy.
But then he said, “If you want to work on costumes or something like that, you’re welcome to stay.”
To my surprise, Fred said, “No, no, thank you.”
I guess he never heard of the concept of getting your foot in the door.
Mr. Porterfield looked at me. “And what do you do?”
I said, “Well, ah—I’m an actor.”
“I’m up to here in actors,” he said, indicating the chin where I’d been thinking of hitting him. “But if you’re willing to work in the scene docks and things like that, we’ll put you to work. I’ll give you three squares a day and a place to sleep.”
That sounded okay to me—the navy without the water. I replied, “Well, that sounds pretty good.”
Fred went back to Hartford, dejected, and I found myself working in the scenery docks. I was put in the charge of an actor named George Burns—he later changed his name to Bart Burns because they already had a George Burns in show business. Burns had “Captain, U.S. Marine Corps” sewn on the sleeve of his jacket. When we were introduced, I said, “How’re you doing, sir?”
“Fine,” he said curtly—intrigued that I’d called him “sir” but suspicious, because marines tend to give the time of day only to marines.
“So, what the hell are we supposed to be doing here?”
“We’re washing the paint off these old flats so they can be used in new sets,” he said.
“Just like I used to on my destroyer,” I replied.
So now he knew I wasn’t USMC. I waited to see how he would react.
He just looked at me and grinned. “Welcome to showbiz, Borgnine.”
We became good friends.
I worked my fool head off. At night, after I had my dinner at the Barter Inn, I used to go over to the theater and watch them work. I’d sit in the balcony and I’d be a critic. I liked what this one did, I liked what that one did, maybe not so much with this one, and so on. I thought about how I would have played it, memorizing some of the lines and running the scene in my head. God, it felt good. The navy had become my home, but sitting up here the theater immediately felt like a new home. And no disrespect to Yale University or the Randall School, but this was how you trained and educated an aspiring actor. The old-fashioned way, by having him apprentice in a real-life setting to learn the trade. That’s something we’ve lost in our overeducated modern world.
Finally, after I’d been there a few months, Mr. Porterfield said to me, “Didn’t you tell me you were an actor?”
I blurted, “Yes! Yes!”
He said, “Well, now’s your chance to prove it.”
They needed somebody to play a union leader in State of the Union.
“I accept!” I said. “Where are my sides?” (For all you nonactors, those are the pages of script that have your lines, your part on them.)
“There are no sides,” Mr. Porterfield told me. “All you do is cross from one side of the stage to the other and just look important as hell.”
I was a little disappointed, but I absolutely refused to show it. That’s acting, too. I said okay: it was a part.
I went to wardrobe and got myself a coat with a vest. I got a cigar and when they told me to walk I put the cigar in my mouth and I walked across the stage with my finger in my vest. Let me tell you something: I never felt as alive as I did when I walked from the wings and those bright lights hit me. Despite what they show you in the movies, you can’t see more than a row or two into a theater. But you can sure feel everyone out there. You can feel them watching you, and that magnifies every nerve in your body, every sense you have. You feel alive at a level that renews itself from second to second. It just doesn’t get better than that.
Naturally, there was a local critic in the audience on opening night. Her review was lukewarm, but she said that of all the people in that show, the only one who made an impression on her was me.
“Here was a man who literally stole the show. All he did was walk across the stage, but he captivated you.”
Of course, my brain told me that not every review I’d ever get would be that good, but I didn’t care. Right then it was the shot I needed. I sent it to my mom and she wrote back that she couldn’t be prouder. That meant even more to me than the review.
Unfortunately, mom didn’t get to read too many more of those.
Mom passed away a few weeks later. I was toggling between acting and working on the sets. We had just finished a show and were packing up when Larry Gates, one of the actors in the show, came up to me and said, “Ernie, I’ve got some bad news for you.”
I said, “What is it?”
He said, “There was a call during the show. Your mom just passed away.”
I started to cry as I helped pack away all the stuff. Everyone gave me space. I tried to think of what my mother would want me to do. I had obligations here and I said that to the cast. But everyone said, “No, no, you’ve got to go home.”
They were right. I made arrangements to leave the next day. I sat outside on the loading dock and cried all night long, out loud. I cried myself out.
The next morning I caught the train to go home. I couldn’t cry any more. I was just thinking of all the things that had happened in my lifetime with my mother. I said to myself “I’ve lost my life. I’ve lost the person that I love the most alongside my dad.” My dad lived long enough to see me become a star. But my mother was the one who gave me the inspiration and she barely got to see any of it.
It wasn’t fair. But it wasn’t fair about Joey dying, either. Or Pearl Harbor being attacked. “Fair” just isn’t on life’s menu.
When I got home I felt better. I saw Mom in her coffin, and the last thing that my sister and I did was something my mother had actually discussed with her. My mother loved whipped cream. We used to take a little bottle of heavy cream and we’d whip it up for her. She would just adore it.
One day she had said, “When I pass away some day maybe you could put a bottle of whipped cream in my coffin so I’ll have it when I get up to St. Peter’s gate.”
Evie and I were both standing by the open coffin and I looked at her and she looked at me and I didn’t have to say a word. My little smile said it all.
“No,” she insisted. “We shouldn’t do that.”
I said, “Why not? You know she’ll be happy.”
But my sister insisted it was disrespectful and I yielded to her wishes. To this day I kick myself in the behind for not having done it.
I stayed in Connecticut for a week. After making sure that my sis and Dad were okay, I returned to Virginia ready to honor my mother’s faith in me. During that next year I acted more and painted less. I was in fourteen different shows. Then, thanks to a rave review that somehow made its way to an agent’s desk in New York, I got the call to go to Broadway. Brock Pemberton, the theatrical producer, had seen me in Virginia and offered me the part of Wilson, the attendant in the mental hospital in Mary Chase’s hit comedy Harvey. I would be replacing Jesse White (the original Maytag repairman on those commercials), who was leaving.
I finished in Virginia and flew that night to New York. I figured Broadway was worth the extravagance. Plus, there wasn’t time to take the train.
I reported to the theater as instructed. Mind you, this was opening day for previews. The director was busy, so the stage manager took me to his small office, walked me through the play, a comedy, and after a few scenes said, “You’ll do.”
That wasn’t a rousing commendation, but it was enough to get me the gig. I didn’t believe it would always be so easy. But they were up against an opening date, I’d gotten good notices in a similar part, it was a small role, and the tumblers had just fallen into place.
The stage manager gave me the script and told me to learn the lines. Boy, did I cram. All those nights sitting in the balcony of the Barter, memorizing what the actors said onstage, had paid off. The first time I met the cast was when I walked onstage in front of the audience.
You know that super-reality I mentioned that comes from being onstage? Not this time. The whole thing was a blur. I was nervous and perspiring and living from moment to moment as I tried to keep the lines in my head and respond to what the other actors were giving me. In other words, to act.
After the show, still in a daze, I got myself a hotel room—I didn’t know where else to stay—and walked up to a place at the end of 48th Street and Broadway. I hadn’t eaten and I was starving. As I sat at the counter, I was finally starting to relax.
I thought, “Goddamn, Borgnine, you did it! You’ve conquered the Great White Way!” It seemed like yesterday that I was here on in-shore duty for the navy and didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life. Now I was a Broadway actor. It was amazing.
I was in another world, but I came back to this one fast. Some woman walked by who had just seen the show and she said, “There’s that jerk who was talking between the laughs. What a bore!” (She obviously had no idea that’s how the play was written, but that didn’t make me feel any better.)
Well, it burst my bubble. So much for being a conqueror.
The director gave me a few notes and that night I really tried to get in there and do it right. I did better, of course, and the reviewers were eventually pretty kind. After about a month, though, I realized I wasn’t happy. Something just wasn’t clicking and I knew what it was: I didn’t have enough experience, yet, for the big time. I’m not being unduly modest; it just takes more confidence than I had at the time. I went back to Brock Pemberton—our producer, and one of the founders of Broadway’s famed Tony Awards—and said “Sir, I’ve got to leave.”
“What d’ya mean you got to leave?” he said. “Where you going?”
“Back to the Barter Theatre.”
“Leave Broadway for regional? What the hell for?”
I was too embarrassed to tell him the real reason, so I gave him another—which was also true. “Well, you know, Mr. Porterfield gave me my first break and did so much for me and I feel I owe him a debt of gratitude.”
Mr. Pemberton said, “Gratitude, my ass! He never paid you anything. I’m giving you $150 a week and you feel you got to go back there for gratitude?”
“Yes, sir.”
He grinned. “Well, okay. Good luck and I hope we’ll see you again.”
He was a wonderful guy. I don’t know what actor got my part, but I hope it did better for him than it did for me!
I went back to Virginia with a vengeance, determined to learn my craft. As it happened, no sooner had I returned than I was put into Hamlet, of all things—the ultimate theatrical man killer. Fortunately, I wasn’t playing the Dane.
I didn’t let Shakespeare faze me, not even when I heard that the State Department was interested in sponsoring the troupe on an overseas engagement. They wanted us to perform Hamlet at Kronberg Castle in Elsinore, Denmark—where the play supposedly had its historical roots.
A deal was worked out where Uncle Sam would cover our expenses and handle all the publicity. Okay, I guess you could call it propaganda: Washington wanted to help repopulate the war-weary world with culture as well as food and industry.
The reviews weren’t the most glowing in the history of theater. Seems the Danes didn’t like Brits playing Danes, and they appreciated Americans even less. But what the heck. I sure didn’t come out of the experience empty-handed. I got to channel historical people—figuratively, of course—and it was a valuable acting lesson about opening myself up to the environment. I also got to see some of Europe. The Air Force took us around to all these different places. I got to see Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest. We also saw Dachau, where this sergeant reached into an oven and pulled out something charred. I looked at it and said, “What is it?” Mind you, there had been some stories written about the concentration camps, but not a lot.
He said, “A human bone. They burned people in here.” He handed it to me. “Take this back and show it to the people at home. This will prove what these bastards were doing.”
I didn’t take it, of course, but gently replaced the bone in the oven. I was assured the remains were going to be interred with respect.
When we walked through the yard there, it seemed like the sun became clouded over. Maybe it did, or maybe it just felt that way. It was a terrible experience. It reminded me of one of the reasons we had fought this war, why it was sometimes necessary to go to such lengths to remove despots and genocidal maniacs.
I learned a lot during our monthlong run in Denmark, and then back in Virginia. I gained the confidence I felt I had lacked the first time I was on Broadway. At the end of that season, I said, “Mr. Porterfield, I’m going back to New York.”
He said, “I’m not surprised. You’re a talented kid, Ernie. Do you have any idea what you’re going to do?”
I said, “I’m going to try to get into theater and into this new thing they’ve got up there, television.”
He said, “Good luck.” I knew he meant it.
And I knew something else: I’d need it.