Chapter 37
In 1982 I was invited to do a two-part episode of The Love Boat playing the husband of Shelley Winters. After fifty years they decide to get a divorce. The children had grown up and their feelings for each other had faded. But I ended up singing love songs to her in Italian on a gondola in the Grand Canal in Venice and we rediscovered our love.
This is a case of life not imitating art.
It was the first time I’d worked with Shelley since The Poseidon Adventure ten years earlier. There were choppy seas on The Love Boat.
When we were on location it was fine. When we returned to the studio in Los Angeles it got to the point where I just couldn’t stomach her anymore. She was the damnedest woman you’ve ever seen in your life.
She’d come in after being out half the night, and say, “Oh, Ernie, I feel terrible. Could you help me with my lines?”
I knew my lines and, like most actors, knew the gist of what the other person had to say, so I helped her. But I would have to go over it again and again. Of course, when she came to the set the stuff was fresh in her memory and I’d forgotten my lines.
Exasperating is a good word for her. She said at one point, “You better be nice to me or I won’t put you in my autobiography,” which she was writing at the time.
I said, “Thank God.”
Before we get to one of my most disappointing work experiences, there’s a sort of prelude story. Ages before, in 1960, Sam Gallu, the author of I’m Going to Make You an Offer You Can’t Refuse, had written a documentary about the Blue Angels. They’re the navy’s famous aerobatic team, made up of some of the best pilots on earth. He asked me to do the narration, and it was an honor to do so. After that, we went to meet the team in Pensacola, Florida. Of course, we all went out and got blasted.
The next morning these guys got up and flew like crazy while I watched with a blazing headache. The Blue Angels made me an honorary skipper and I’ve been their skipper ever since. It’s been a tremendous pleasure to watch these young pilots—who are drinking a lot less, these days—who are part of the team for two years, then they move on to make room for the boys coming up.
I’ll never forget my first trip on one of the planes. It was about five years later. I came down from Alabama where I was making a picture. No sooner had I got there than they welcomed me and put me right into a flight suit.
“Come on,” they said. “We’re going to give you a ride.”
As soon as I was belted in, the pilot, Lieutenant Mike Nord, said to me, “Mr. Borgnine, we’re going to go straight down the runway.”
“Okay.”
“Then we’re gonna go straight up into the air.”
We did. We went up and my neck hit my backbone and seemed to travel down to my butt. I couldn’t move my head for a month. He told me to turn so I could see Pensacola. Well, I couldn’t turn my head at all because of the Gs we were pulling.
While we were up there, he called one of the aircraft carriers that were having maneuvers out in the Gulf, and said, “Listen, I got a VIP aboard, can we make a pass?”
They wanted to know who it was and he told them. They said, “McHale? Give us ten minutes.”
So we went along the coast. He knew a nude beach where all the naked ladies were. Talk about torture. I still couldn’t turn my head, I couldn’t see for nothing.
But there was one thing I could see. The pilot made sure of that. We made a pass by the ship and I’ll never forget this as long as I live. They had called all hands on deck to salute Ernest Borgnine, Lieutenant Commander McHale. I got the biggest lump in my throat you could imagine.
What a wonderful honor.
I mention this now because my next TV project was about fliers. Only it turned out not to be such an honor or very much fun.
In 1984, Don Bellisario offered me a part in a pilot he was doing called Airwolf, about the crew of a hi-tech helicopter. I was thinking that audiences would have a great time if we could capture some of that “right stuff” Blue Angels spirit I had experienced.
I’ll never forget the first day of shooting. We watched the pilot, Tommy Jones, take our customized helicopter through an amazing series of maneuvers, right there at the studio. He went behind a building and backed it out again and ran it around like an automobile. I couldn’t believe my eyes.
We got along fine for the first few weeks. Then everything started to dribble away. People were showing up late and they weren’t really that anxious to make the thing. It lasted for three seasons, from 1984 to 1986, and it was a chore.
At the beginning, our leading man, Jan-Michael Vincent, was absolutely sensational. I mean, he’d look at a piece of script, one glance, and say, “Okay, let’s go.” He had a photographic memory.
I said, “My God, how can you do that?”
He’d just shrug. Some people got it and some people—like me—have to get hypnotized.
Unfortunately, Jan-Michael was having personal problems that infected the set and brought everyone down. There was drinking, altercations, a whole lot of stuff that really distracted him. After Airwolf limped to its finish, the poor guy’s luck got worse. In 1996 he broke his neck in a car accident and messed up his voice, permanently. He also served jail time for probation violations. Last I heard he was living in Mississippi, where he has a horse ranch. I hope he’s happy.
My next TV job was another disappointment: a sequel to The Dirty Dozen called The Dirty Dozen: The Next Mission. Lee Marvin returned, looking tired and unhappy. He had been the center of a huge legal mess, a historic palimony suit brought by his live-in lady, Michelle Triola. It had taken everything out of him, and he’d taken to drinking heavily. He only made one more movie, Delta Force, after this one, before dying of a heart attack in 1987 at the age of sixty-three. We did our work, reprised our roles in this uninspired clambake, and got the hell out of there. I can’t remember a more bittersweet experience on a picture.
Lee, by the way, was Steven Spielberg’s first choice for the role of Quint in Jaws. Lee thanked him, but replied that he’d rather go fishing. As great as Robert Shaw was in the picture, I still wonder how Jaws might have turned out with Lee as the salty old shark hunter.
I still miss the hell out of him.
Next up was a TV version of Alice in Wonderland for Irwin Allen. It was great to see him again, in what proved to be his last hit and his second-to-last film. As usual, he’d assembled quite a cast: Red Buttons, Sammy Davis, Jr., Donald O’Connor, Telly Savalas, Shelley Winters (whom I avoided), Imogene Coca and Sid Caesar, Ringo Starr—just a slew of great names. I ended up locked in a lion suit with a big heavy head. When they took that thing off between shots I was redder than a cooked lobster.
One time I practically fainted inside that thing. They wanted to take me to the hospital.
I said, “I don’t need a hospital. All I need is fresh air.” It was terrible.
Irwin was very concerned and kept making sure I was okay. It was a case of déjà vu for us. During The Poseidon Adventure, there was a scene where I was dragging Gene Hackman from the water. I pulled so hard that I actually threw my back out. I couldn’t straighten up, so they took me to the hospital and they took X-rays. Irwin Allen came by, wringing his hands and saying, “Oh my God, we’re lost.”
I said, “Don’t worry about it. It’s just a slipped disc.”
They put one of those corsets on me and I wore it for about a half hour. I couldn’t breathe, so I said, “To hell with this,” and pulled it off and went back to work. I was fine, though I didn’t pull anyone else from the drink.
Luckily, I only had to stay in the lion suit for two days. Frankly, out there in the hot sun, I don’t know how lions do it!