The Last Movie Stars (2022) s01e04 Episode Script
Chapter Four: Paying the Price
1
♪♪
♪♪
Hey. We got to play
for something.
Well, I'll think
of something.
He just wants to win.
He doesn't care
what the stakes are.
She's got a fix on you,
Frank.
That's why I married her.
Yeah, well,
it must be nice
to wake up next
to somebody you recognize.
Yeah, it is nice.
♪♪
You're a winner.
What else?
♪♪
♪♪
[Woman speaking indistinctly
over loudspeaker]
[Applause]
Crudup: "'Winning' opened
at Radio City Music Hall.
[Chuckling]
I mean, there were lines.
Yeah, I had to say
that I was nervous.
I went up to the closed door
into the marquee
and tapped on it, and the usher
came over, and I said,
'Is anybody in there?,
And he said, 'Yeah, it's full.'
And I explained to him
that I was the director,
and he said,
'Do you want to come in?'"
Hawke: James Goldstone, who
was the director of "Winning"
he's kind
of a forgotten director.
Gets invited into Paul's
house first-time director
and there's Paul Newman
and Joanne Woodward
in the middle
of their family life.
And they have
real family troubles.
And Paul wants to put
his life into the movie.
He doesn't want to just make
a racing movie.
He wants it to be
about relationships, right?
He completely
changed the script,
made it completely personal,
and fell in love with racing.
The thing I love about
the Goldstone transcript
is he's not
some big-shot director.
He's so he tells the story,
and it's gonna be
in the transcript I send,
of being so nervous
about when the movie opened
and then the fucking thing
was packed.
It was the new
Paul Newman movie.
Crudup:
"I came in right at the point
where Paul parked his car, walks
across the motel parking lot,
and
and opens the door, and I
I could feel the breathing
of 6,000 people
really watching.
And then I could hear
6,000 people going,
'[Gasps] Oh!'
And not a sound.
And And some man's voice
from one of the balconies,
you just you heard,
'Jesus Christ.'"
♪♪
"That was a moment that
we discovered in rehearsal."
Man: Gentlemen,
start your engines!
[Engines rev, crowd cheering]
♪♪
Crudup: "I needed a series
of shots of cars passing Paul,
and so we started out Paul
in first position,
you know, 16 cars behind him.
By the time I had done all
my shots with the camera car,
Paul was in last place.
Put up the green flag, and Paul
was driving a very fast car,
and he put his foot in
[Laughing] and didn't know
what was gonna happen.
You know, they're driving
with this star.
I had impressed on them
over and over again,
'We cannot kill him.
He's an amateur.
You're pros,' and Paul started
driving it past them,
passing one car after another.
And the safety guy
was saying to me,
'I'm gonna put the light up
and get them off the track,
They're driving too damn fast,
'cause now they're
actually racing.'
We put on the light,
and Paul came into the pit
to second position.
He had passed 14 or 15 people,
and this wonderful,
sheepish grin on his face.
He knew he wasn't supposed
to do it."
♪♪
"You know, he's getting out
there, and he's proven
not how much you get paid,
you know, what kind of prizes
you get.
It's about who has control.
You know, yeah,
we talked about his mother
and his relationship
with his father
when he was a kid
his father's store.
He got on to the subject
of alcoholism,
and his fear was that, you know,
he didn't think
he could not drink,
though he'd never be
an alcoholic.
Well, he is one,
and he could not handle it
if he tried to handle it.
Something in his past
with his mother
I guess, apparently a quite
neurotic, compulsive person
that I get this feeling
that he fears tremendously
somewhere underneath that
he's very much like his mother,
you know, that given the chance,
you know,
that he'd lose control."
I'll tell you for a squirrel,
he looked pretty good,
for an old squirrel.
"Paul
he wants desperately
to have control of himself.
His mother didn't,
and he's always had, you know,
the feeling that, when he left
to go into the Navy
and to college, that he was in
a terrible pressure cooker,
that he didn't have control."
[Indistinct conversations]
♪♪
I can't hear you!
[Indistinct shouting]
I can't hear you!
What?!
[Indistinct shouting]
♪♪
They won't let me
talk to him.
Well, you'll just
have to stand in line
and wait your turn,
Charley.
Crudup: "In preproduction,
Paul was working in New York
and was sort of running back
and forth to Westport,
and I'd spend the weekends there
with him,
and Scott was going through
this dreadful period,
and he was kicked
out of prep school
and and there was something
about a car accident.
Paul was trying to repair
that relationship."
I've got to start sometime.
I'm 16.
You wouldn't even like it.
Well, how do you know
unless you try?
Take a sip.
Salud.
Good.
Oh, my God.
Hey!
Look, I'm gonna get
drafted in two years.
So you drink
when you're drafted.
Yeah,
but I won't know how.
"I happened to be staying
at his house,
and it was in the middle
of winter, you know,
heavy snow
and had a blizzard.
And Scott had returned home
from Pennsylvania,
and I felt
I don't know kind of
like a terrible tension
this beautiful, handsome,
young man and his father, who
didn't know how to reach out"
"how to span that thing."
[Giggling]
"And at the same time,
of course,
we're dealing
with the script's relationship
between the racers
and the kid and Paul's character
and the Richard Thomas
character."
Do you think I'm drunk?
Stephanie: I remember being
in my bedroom when I was 8,
and my mom
and a friend of hers
were in Scott's bedroom
next door,
and all of a sudden,
I heard a gasp.
And I went running in,
and they had discovered
that Scott was sniffing glue.
So this was at 12 years old.
[Whistles]
Crudup: "And I can remember
sitting in that pool house
late at night,
watching him and Scott work out,
you know,
this painful relationship
that wasn't being worked out
playing pool, drinking beer,
each of them trying
and neither knowing how."
You go up the stairs.
You do not drop your clothes
on the floor.
You fold them.
You jump into a pair
of pajamas,
and you glide very stylishly
into bed.
"Oh, in the 'teaching your son
to drink' scene,
it didn't have to be discussed
between Paul and me.
I was father,
and he was a father, so
it all worked its way
down the line
and into the movie."
He's drunk!
He's with me!
Crudup: "And when Paul takes
Richard Thomas home,
saying, 'He's with me,' it"
Charley:
Goodnight, Mother.
"it was that was
a very important line"
Goodnight, Father.
"which could have been
could well have been Paul's,
you know, 'cause,
you know, 'cause it came out
of those rehearsals."
♪♪
♪♪
You are so lucky.
You sit there,
all closed in
by machinery and bolts
precise things.
There's hardly any room
for you.
[Sighs]
It must be a nice,
safe feeling.
[Chuckles]
[Sighs]
Eh, you got to learn
to trust something.
Might just as well be
the seat of your pants.
"There's a part of him that's
always standing back,
looking at himself.
I wonder whether some of that
isn't that he knows
everyone else
is watching him, too,
that they've been watching him
for, you know,
30-some-odd years,
no matter what he does, and"
Where's the cab?
"therefore, he joins them
observing."
Well, maybe he picked up
another fare on the way.
No, if they take the call,
they come.
"Anguish.
Anguish between Paul and Scott
became a given
in our conversations."
I want to stay with you.
We'll see, Charley.
"We'll see, Charley."
"You get trained as an actor
to study
all your own internal reactions,
and the thing with Scott
is just the most important thing
of his life.
And he stood outside
watching that
instead of being able
to to let loose,
somehow be inside it."
Give you some money.
I've got money.
"He saw happening
what was happening with Scott.
He saw it.
But he couldn't
he couldn't get over that wall."
The Hoosier Motor Inn.
Take care.
"And we talked about
how you span that gulf
with your child
the most important relationship
you can have."
"And if you're
a well-trained actor,
you can watch yourself
abandoning yourself
to something.
But a little part of you
that's
that's always censoring."
Kazan: "I think that there are
kids who are predisposed,
and I think
that Scott was one of them."
Crudup:
"I remember such a dance
dance of death between Scott
and his father,
because Scott had
Scott had learned
that he could really
manipulate things,
and I wrote him a long letter,
asking him to please communicate
what he was feeling
and not stay shut off
from his father
or from from anyone else
that might be able
to help him out,
because Paul was he was
he was just demolished.
But he didn't know where
to start or or what to do.
And obviously, Scott was
Scott was desperate."
[Sighs]
Charley: My grandmother
used to get mad at me
because I slept with the light
on all night.
So I finally got a flashlight
and turned it on
under the covers.
What were you scared of?
I never really knew.
It went away finally.
♪♪
[Door closes]
Just like the car lights.
Well, they come in
and go across the ceiling
and down the wall.
Then they disappear.
[Sighs]
♪♪
Paul: There's Joanne really
as a movie star.
God, what delicious, sweet,
innocent days those were,
and I certainly didn't
take much advantage of them.
I taught them how to drive well.
That's probably the extent
of my parenting.
♪♪
♪♪
Nivola:
"The thing about Paul was that
he was very realistic
about who he was.
He knew the world of hyperbole
and distortion he was in."
Can you get a mob together?
After what happened to Luther,
I don't think I can get
more than 200, 300 guys.
[Calliope plays]
"If you're in a position
of being viewed iconically,
you better have a mechanism
to take yourself down
to keep the balance.
I think we did that
for each other."
♪♪
She picked him clean.
He never missed it.
My God, it's like he's expecting
a big night.
[Muttering]
"Whatever success
one of us would have,
the other one
would knock it down."
He's waiting for you
in the card room.
Let him wait.
"We used to play
lots of pranks on each other.
He began to get into racing,
and he got really good.
But he talked so much about it
that I got sick of it.
So I had a beaten-up
Porsche shell
delivered to his porch
for his 50th birthday.
He never said anything.
But not long after,
I found a crate of molten metal
delivered to the living room
of my house.
It dented the floor.
[Laughs]
I then had it turned into
a really ugly sculpture
and dropped into his garden.
[Laughs]
To this day, neither one of us
has ever mentioned it."
Just worry
about your end, kid.
If we ever get to it.
[Train whistle blowing]
Rockwell:
That's another great one.
That's another great one.
Hawke: Have you ever
Yeah.
Do you remember the
card-playing scene in that?
When he pretends to be drunk?
Yeah, it's incredible.
He borrows the tie and then
wipes his mouth with it.
It's my favorite
fucking scene.
It's the best
fucking scene.
[Inhales sharply]
[Exhales deeply]
Sorry I'm late, guys.
I was taking a crap.
[Door closes]
The name's Shaw.
Hamilton: "The card-game scene
with Bob Shaw
is really just Paul doing
things that I'd seen him do.
And all I did was
remind him of the things."
We usually require
a tie at this table.
If you don't have one,
we can get you one.
Hey, that'd be real nice of you.
Mr. Lyman.
Lonnegan.
[Belches]
Well, finishes me.
Don't worry about it, pal.
[Laughs]
[Sneezes loudly]
[Groans, sniffs]
Three 10s.
[Laughs]
Tough luck, Longhand,
but that's what you get
for playing
with your head up your ass.
A couple more like that,
we can all go to bed early.
Name's Lonnegan
Doyle Lonnegan.
Woman:
You drink too much?
Paul:
I don't drink too much now,
but I certainly went
through a period when I
was out of control.
When was that?
'70s.
Hawke: One of your sisters might
very easily say to me that,
you know,
"Dad was an alcoholic," right?
And then one of your other
sisters said to me,
"Oh, that's bullshit."
Can you help me have
some insight as to, like
I kind of I'm trying
to make sense
out of all this talk
about alcohol.
Who said Pop
wasn't an alcoholic of us?
[Laughs]
[Snoring]
The great Henry Gondorff.
Hawke: I think basically at the
end of everybody's interview,
everybody kind of agreed that
he was a functioning alcoholic.
Nell: Yes.
But there was
a lot of resistance to it
just to using that word.
You know, it was
it was definitely destructive.
It was definitely destructive,
you know,
because there were times
where he was impossible
and that maybe
if he didn't drink so much,
it would have
been different.
How does somebody
get so much done?
That is
a really good question.
Lissy: You know, it's almost
more frustrating to live
with a very high-functioning
drinker,
because he could go pretty hard,
but he wasn't gonna
miss work in the morning,
and he was gonna be on time,
and he was gonna be ready.
But you know,
before going to work,
He would fill the sink
with water and ice
and plunges face in there
before he went to work.
And it wasn't until I got older
that I realized that,
yeah, when you've been
drinking all night,
you want to take
some of the swelling down.
Is Lonnegan after you, too?
I don't know.
I ain't seen anybody.
You never do, kid.
Our characters rub off
onto the actor.
Probably one of the areas
of great discontent
is they probably feel
that, as human beings,
there are merely a series of
a collection of old characters
that they played.
I sometimes get that feeling
about myself,
that I
have
you know, become
a series of connectives
between the the parts
of the characters
that I really like
and I've strung them together
into kind of a human being.
Very interesting.
Linney: "This was in Ojai,
and it's up from Los Angeles.
We went up to spend
an Easter holiday.
Paul was away on location, and
I took the girls and the nanny,
and it was such a great time.
It was a lot of you know, we
just remember special moments,
and"
Clea: You know, I think that
most daughters feel
you want to be kind of
the center
the center of your dad's
attention, right?
And, you know,
Dad had a lot on his plate.
And he also had a lot of kids
and, you know, an ex-wife.
And it was complicated,
and, you know, when you're
a kid, you don't weigh those.
You know, that doesn't
mean anything to you.
What do you feel like
is that you're, you know,
you're not important.
And, you know,
I guess I felt that way.
Paul: I knew that I didn't
want two things
written on my tombstone
"Here lies Paul Newman,
who died a failure
because his eyes turned brown."
[Laughter]
And the other one was that I
[Laughter]
I did not want my children
to lay me in the tombstone
and said,
"Here lies the old man who was
never part of his times."
[Jet engine roars]
♪♪
Belafonte: I know that
all of the artists
who sit on this panel tonight
feel very strongly
about the war in Vietnam,
and you oppose it.
Well, how do you answer people
who say to you
that, as a top star, living in
the luxury of American life,
that you could turn your back
against the nation?
Paul: What do you do?
Do you give up your citizenship
because you've become an actor?
Woodward: Four little girls, who
went to Sunday school that day
and never came back home at all,
but left instead
their blood upon the wall
with spattered flesh
and bloodied Sunday dress
torn to shreds by dynamite
that China made
Before one was an artist,
he was a human being.
Before one was an artist,
he was a citizen of the nation
and of the world.
I dip my broom in blood,
my mop in blood,
and blame you for this
because you are their enemy.
It's hard to blame me
because I am here.
So I kill you and you kill me.
My name,
like your name, is war.
He presented himself
as the man that he was.
He discussed the issue
very frankly and openly.
And then
an extraordinary thing happened.
The young people took the man
Man: And Paul Newman became
the political
box office smash
If you have areas where you feel
your own rumblings
Sherman: "You finally know
people by what they do.
It's not by what they say."
Clooney: "It's the biggest
feeling I ever had in my life,
to be actively involved
in being part of my own times."
Sherman:
"And Paul has proven to me
a man, that when
I first knew him,
was fundamentally apolitical
He's become genuinely committed
to the most liberal of causes.
And that in itself
is not important to me
because I've never
confused ethics and politics.
I know some very liberal guys
who are shits
and some very
conservative people
who are quite
good people ethically.
But I think both Paul
and Joanne,
they're fundamentally
very good people."
Newscaster: Big surprise in the
first primary of Campaign '68
has been the strength
of Senator Eugene McCarthy.
Paul: You know, I'm fed up
with the machinery.
I'm fed up with patronage.
I'm fed up
with all of that jazz.
I am announcing today
my candidacy
for the presidency
of the United States.
Paul: How can you beat the
machinery? How can you
beat the Kennedy money?
How can you beat
the Rockefeller money?
You're looking at a very tired,
aging juvenile here.
I really don't
Clooney:
"This thing I'll always remember
about the whole
McCarthy campaign
was this cop in New Hampshire.
We were going somewhere
with a police escort,
and one of the cops
received word the night before
that his son
had been killed in Vietnam.
I offered the cop my sympathy,
and he thanked me.
Then we stood there.
Finally,
I blurted out something.
What did he think
about some creep,
some Hollywood peacenik
coming in there
and telling him about the war?
The cop said, no, he didn't
represent what I was doing.
'Even if a war takes your boy,'
he said,
'it doesn't make it right.'"
Announcer:
This is the CBS Evening News
with Walter Cronkite.
Good evening.
Dr. Martin Luther King
has been shot to death
in Memphis, Tennessee.
Dr. King was standing
on the balcony
of his second floor
hotel room
[Indistinct
police radio chatter]
Man: Do you feel that
individuals can really
make a difference in that sort
of political process?
I don't know whether they can,
but I know they must try.
Thanks to all of you,
and now it's on to Chicago,
and let's win this.
Thank you very much.
[Crowd cheering]
[Indistinct conversations]
died at 1:44 a.m. today.
He was
Newscaster:
While supporting the police,
the guard exchange shots
with snipers
Paul: I don't have very much
sympathy for the people who
who honestly feel that history
is out of control,
because it's been shown
that people can control history,
that they can make fools
out of all the political pundits
and all the cynics.
My stepson just had his
he just graduated
from high school,
so I sent him
a copy of "Don Quixote."
And I said and a copy, also,
of Gore Vidal's book,
"Reflections
on a Sinking Ship,"
which is it's essays
about the United States.
And I said,
you have your choice now.
You can either go the way
of Don Quixote and try to,
you know,
to save the world.
And then you read
Gore's book,
and you'll see
what you've got to save.
And so but all you
can do is try, you know
Ashmanskas: "I think
that some people may feel
that their outspokenness
could have been harmful.
It's never helpful in a country
as sectarian
as the United States,
where everybody is
in a state of, you know,
some sort of agony
about something."
Newscaster: the convention,
the stockyards.
I don't want my stepson
to be drafted and all of that.
What do you say to him
your stepson
about being drafted?
My stepson?
I wouldn't allow him
to be.
Ashmanskas:
"So many groups that say,
'We will never again
buy your products
and go see your films.'
I think it takes a bit
of courage to go out there,
and I think they both have it."
I keep hoping, somewhere,
as I suppose we all do,
that there must come a moment
in time when people say,
"Let us grow up. Let us have
some kind of humanity."
Killing one person or
"I think it evolved when
they were young actors.
They were young actors,
and young actors
are like young actors
everywhere.
It's, 'Me, me, me, me, me,'
and then they grew up,
and they became grown people
as well as actors.
So it became a little bit,
'Us, us, us,' as well."
Paul:
simple act of conscience.
We are sorry
that it affects other people,
and yet maybe
that's the real force of it.
I mean, it is business as usual,
and we go about our lives,
and there is no pain
in our lives.
And I don't know
what war is all about
if it isn't to create pain.
Clooney: "There aren't many
smart people who have power,
and you have to use your power
to advance truth.
What's money and power worth
if you don't do that?"
Newscaster: In other news,
actors Paul Newman,
Sidney Poitier,
and Barbra Streisand
have joined forces
to take on Hollywood,
starting a company
called First Artists,
who aspire to give the talent
more creative control
in their moviemaking
in exchange for lower salaries.
♪♪
Announcer:
First Artists present
All right!
"Uptown Saturday Night"
"WUSA"
love it or leave it.
There's a film that you did
called "WUSA"
that's just coming out,
and no one has told me
what the title stands for,
and all day I've been thinking
of things
that WUSA stands for, like
It's the call letters
for a radio
a right-wing radio stations.
Oh, so it has a political theme,
more or less.
Oh, yeah.
Stephanie: Please include
my favorite quote of my dad.
The best advice
he ever gave me was,
"If you're gonna crash,
crash decisively."
WUSA ♪
Rheinhardt: Now will leave you
with one message,
the big message
the future
of America is up to you.
♪♪
The children of the night
what beautiful music
they make, huh?
Yeah, I think I'm zeroed in
to the big pulse.
I can hear all those
dirty feet tapping.
They're all
delighted upstairs.
They must have big things
in store for you.
Yeah, they're very sweet.
I think they've got big things
in store for everybody.
I'll see you, swinger.
Man: What makes some actors
political and some not?
Paul: Oh, I don't know.
You count up
your number of children,
and I think the political
commitment somehow with me
grew every time
I had another child.
These people are hurting,
Reinhardt.
They're hurting, and they don't
really know what's hurting them.
We're trying to help them
find out.
Oh, well put, Bing.
They need us.
We need them.
So we hit the issues
crime.
The decline
of patriotism.
Welfare checks.
Welfare checks.
[Chuckles]
Rockwell: "'WUSA' was a project
Paul brought to me.
He bought the rights
to the Robert Stone book,
and Paul, much more so
than 'Cool Hand Luke'
he had a real solid fix on how
he wanted to be that guy."
You know,
sometimes I feel like
I'd just like
to run to water and drown.
Don't.
Don't drown.
Don't let them
force you to extremes.
You've got to be like me.
You've got to be
a master of disguise.
You chase me to water,
I'll grow gills
and disappear
into a flurry of fins.
"Paul tries to explain
to the character of Joanne
in that film at one point
what happened to him.
He tries to explain to her
that he learned to play
the clarinet through the nuns,
and he was an exceedingly
good musician.
And if you have talent and
you have the creative energy,
you have to use it,
because if you don't, it rots
and turns against you
and ruins you."
and poisons you,
and you sort of die of it.
[Sighs]
"And the way he describes it is
that he woke up one morning"
I woke up
"and he fell off his life."
and looked down
and fell on my life.
Now you think it's easier
just being a drunk?
Helps me sleep.
"I just I thought that was
a beautiful, brilliant way
of putting it."
You got a lot of spite in you,
Reinhardt.
"Yeah, well, I think the
character came more personally
from who Paul was, because
he understood the struggle
that a man has
with particular demons inside."
You're not gonna tell me
how it is, are you, friend?
♪♪
Woman: Do you feel
that the wind has gone out
of the anti-war groups?
Oh, yes.
Almost as though
it had been a fad?
That's a very accurate word.
Do you get disheartened?
No, I just get tired.
[Coughing]
It's very difficult
to sustain your rage.
I mean, if you've been doing it
for seven years like I have,
and with apparently no effect,
that's the worst part.
God, it's getting heavy,
isn't it?
[Laughter]
But the young people
really found something,
or they merely found
something to do.
It was not a long-term
political commitment.
♪♪
Man: You know, do you ever worry
about the segment of your fans
that you may alienate,
who may love you in the movies,
but they don't agree
with you politically?
Oh, I don't know.
I guess that can't really be
a consideration. Yeah.
Well, one of my favorite
memories of Pop was
when he was named number 19
on Nixon's enemies list,
and he was so filled with glee.
It was just exciting to watch
how it filled him,
and he considered it an honor.
It's interesting.
I suppose
if you offend nobody,
in the final analysis,
you have no character.
Clooney: "Audiences hated it.
You know, with the heights
that I'd reached
with 'Cool Hand Luke,'
that was the depths
I'd reached with 'WUSA.'
I was a pariah. Nobody wanted
to touch me in this town.
How could I take the best, most
formidable actor in the world
and come out with something
that nobody wanted to see?"
All of my favorite actors had
given catastrophic performances.
Like, absolutely insensate shit.
Just, like,
not an iota of it works.
What do you know about the value
of any life,
you crippled freak?
And it's because the ambition
to stretch themselves
and their capacity,
to me, is heroic.
I fucking love that.
It is and, I mean, he got
mocked for this performance.
When someone says something
that's a drag,
I got to try to say something
that's a worse drag!
Sherman: You know, for people
who have properly seen "WUSA,"
who are still alive, and you go,
"Holy shit, what is this?"
And I feel like he's putting his
alcoholism in that movie,
they're putting their
relationship in that movie,
and it's a continuation
of the vow,
which is, "I'm putting
my life in front of you."
Right.
"I'm opening up
even the dark parts of myself.
♪♪
Paul:
That's me trying to be funny.
Not good.
Linney:
"From the first time I met Paul,
I always knew he was a drunk.
We always had Christmas Eve
dinner,
and Paul would just get drunk
and pass out,
leaving me feeling like the last
of the great Christian martyrs
at 1:00 in the morning,
filling all the stockings
and putting the things
under the Christmas tree."
"What a wonderful person I am,
and that shit over there
is getting drunk
while I'm being nice
and loving and adorable."
Clooney: "My drinking must have
driven Joanne crazy.
We drove each other crazy
in different ways.
There's a wonderful kind
of balance
about things like that
asymmetrical but equal,
like the arms race.
She had all her missiles
and land-based equipment,
while most of mine
were on submarines."
♪♪
♪♪
Stern: Joanne, if you were
doing a biography of Paul
and you were searching
for his Rosebud,
what would you be
searching for?
Woodward: For what it appears
he's searching for
a kind of peace,
serenity
what his father
was searching for.
I ♪
Hey, that boozing
is really
gonna get the best of you,
good buddy.
Woodward: Paul has a vast
identification with his father.
For years, he was convinced
that he was gonna die at 55,
because that's when
his father died.
Someday, we'll go to Tibet,
and we'll sit on a mountain,
and we'll work it out.
Me too?
Yeah, you too.
I sometimes think that the only
peace he really finds
is the peace he used to find
in being dead drunk.
Now he finds it in racing
cars peace and grace.
Grace the comfort of knowing
he's done something well.
Closer, Lord ♪
We'll be ♪
[Applause]
[Gunshots fire]
♪♪
[Gunshots fire]
[Crowd screaming]
♪♪
[Speaking indistinctly]
♪♪
[Screaming continues]
Let us consider
the American way.
The American way is innocent.
In each and every situation,
we must display an innocence
that is so vast and awesome
that the entire world is reduced
by it.
When our boys drop a napalm bomb
on a cluster
of gibbering slants,
it's a bomb with a heart,
and inside the heart
of that bomb,
mysteriously but truly present,
there's a fat, little, old lady
on her way to the world's fair.
[Screaming continues]
Our shoulders are broad
and sweaty.
But our breath is sweet.
Americans
remember, no matter
what anyone says, we're okay.
Clooney:
"Now, that was the comment
about where we had come to
in the world
and that the whole thing
was such a mess
that nobody has any answers
anymore."
Now, I want you
to say that with me.
We're okay!
Come on now.
Say it with me.
We're okay!
Paul: I get despondent,
I suppose,
and I despair as much
as the next person,
at the size of things
and the acceleration of things
and the irreversibility
of certain things.
But
I don't know.
My God, they're interesting
times, though, aren't they?
[Horn blaring, crowd shouting]
[Whistle blowing]
[Alarm rings]
Woodward: It was a notably
unsuccessful film.
I loved the part.
Aah!
I understood that part.
I don't quite know why.
Linney: "I could never
make him understand that I had
the most awful terror
of what might
have been happening.
I said, 'I don't care what
it is, but I need to know.'
The worst is not knowing
when something is wrong,
because you do know.
I know.
My instincts are incredible,
which is obviously why
he finally confessed it all."
Woodward: Nobody understands
anybody else's relationships.
I mean, you know how you can see
people who are married
to people, and you think,
"Why are they
married to each other?"
[Laughter]
And nobody knows
because only the two people
who are involved know what binds
that relationship together.
Cavett: Your wife said a lot
of interesting things
when she was here.
She's not here, is she?
[Laughter]
No.
No?
[Laughter]
That's amazing, I think.
If you were Paul Newman's wife,
ladies,
would you let him
go out alone like this?
[Audience shouting
indistinctly]
Man: I'm not sure if it was
Johnny or a guest host
asked Paul Newman if he ever
thought about cheating
without taking a beat,
he said,
"Why should I go out
for hamburgers
when I have steak at home?"
[Applause]
Woman: Did you hear
what Joanne said?
I heard it.
"I'm a vegetarian."
[Laughter]
Woodward: That could have
ended our relationship.
Woman: Seriously?
Yeah.
I mean,
what a chauvinist statement.
I am not a piece of meat,
for God's sake.
I ugh!
I mean, every time
that quote pops up,
I want to kill.
Why are you so mean?
Self-defense.
Self-defense.
Nell: You know, the whole, "Why
go out for steak when I can
or why go out for burgers
when I have steak at home?"
I mean, that whole line
Drunk as it gets,
aren't you?
That's right.
I you know, between you
and I and the microphone,
those were hard times, you know?
'Cause I can walk out
any goddamn time!
I can walk out on anything!
I know how it's done!
Lissy: I've always felt,
with my mom, it's kind of like
you make your bed,
and you lie in it.
You don't think I would?
You know,
you have to lie in it.
You son of a bitch.
Well, you know,
you take a risk
by having a relationship
with someone
who was willing to do that.
If they were willing to do it
to someone else,
then it is likely
that they would be willing
to do it to you,
and I think that any woman
that embarks
on that kind of relationship
always has that
in the back of her mind.
Nell: I found a book
that was written by somebody
he'd had an affair with,
and it was in the drawer
in the bathroom.
And I remember, you know,
there's a terrible moment there,
where, you know, you realize
that your parents
or your dad is fallible.
♪♪
Woodward:
And the suicide scene in it was
one of the most rewarding scenes
I've ever done.
It really was some kind
of catharsis for me.
[Clattering]
[Music plays, applause]
♪♪
Talking with the Newmans.
Oh, I almost said
"the Woodwards."
[Laughter]
Not bloody likely.
Listen, it'll help me
an awful lot if you'd do that
quite a bit.
You must trust him.
You've put
your career in his hands now.
You've let him direct you,
and you've let him direct
one of your actual children,
and say,
you are so good for your age.
[Laughter]
No, I'm saying
[Laughs]
There's no way
to not sound vapid,
you know, on a talk show,
when you send somebody's film
and you have them on
as a guest.
But let's take a look
at part of "Marigolds."
It's really quite
an affecting movie to see.
Here we go.
Yeah, that's some things
you never forget, Ruth.
Just little moments
you never forget.
In your whole life, you never
forget certain moments.
Announcer:
Four years ago, he directed her
in the award-winning film
"Rachel, Rachel."
Now Paul Newman has directed
Joanne Woodward again
in the motion picture
of the 1971 Pulitzer
Prize-winning play
"The Effect of Gamma Rays
on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds."
Man:
[Speaking French]
Man: 1972, you made
"The Effect of Gamma Rays
on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds."
You didn't actually
like the part, did you?
Woodward:
To say I didn't like it
is the understatement
of the year.
I hated it.
I hated it.
That goddamn rabbit is gonna
drive me straight up the wall.
This house is just filled
with rabbit crap.
Everybody has a certain amount
of ugliness in them,
but it's very difficult
to take all of that ugliness out
and just display it
and say, "Here is the ugly me."
As a matter of fact,
this entire junk heap
gets a thorough cleaning
tomorrow.
I hated the person.
I understood her,
but I hated what she was.
Also, my own daughter
was playing my daughter,
and in the picture, of course,
I was very unkind to her.
That was very difficult
for me to do.
Are you all right?
Lissy: It was really,
really evident that my mom
was bringing home the character,
and Beatrice Hunsdorfer
is a horrible character
to bring home.
I'll say something simple.
If you win, I'll say
"I'm very proud."
[Sniffles]
And I'll say,
"My heart is full."
That's all right, isn't it?
I don't have to go
into a big thing, do I?
No.
[Sniffles]
I won't even win.
Then I don't think
you'd have to say anything.
[Sniffles]
"My heart is full."
Classy.
Paul: Each of us have a certain
amount of monster in us.
[Horn blares]
But we're not called upon
to deliver that
8 hours a day and look at it
when you go home
and stick your face
in the mirror.
So it was just
it was an actual,
almost organic change
that happened
with her.
It was visible.
It was a physical change.
Her whole face changed.
♪♪
Nell:
I mean, I'd read the script.
I know what was
knew what was gonna happen.
I was 13 years old.
And Dad came over,
and he said,
"Your mother is going to act
very strangely,"
and, you know, to just remember
that she's just acting.
And it was
And her performance
was so astonishing
She's feeling pretty good.
Let's not embarrass her.
when she, you know
staggers down that aisle,
that it did
You can see from the expression
on my face,
you know, it was shocking.
My heart is full.
[Sobs quietly]
My heart is full.
[Giggles]
My heart is full!
Lissy:
I think she was channeling,
using as a source for her regret
and her sadness and her rage
and whatever she was doing
with Beatrice Hunsdorfer
and that she was drawing
on a complex relationship
with my father,
who was then directing her.
And I think a lot of that rage,
you know, and that complexity
was generated
from the relationship.
You know, that's part
of the complexity that,
to me, it's fascinating.
♪♪
She said it was just
one of those things.
Things happen.
♪♪
Well, what if people
get married before then?
That's a good question.
♪♪
♪♪
People stay married 'cause they
want to, Charley,
not because the doors
are locked.
♪♪
♪♪
♪♪
Clooney: "Joanne and I
have had our hurdles.
Sometimes Joanne was just
as adolescent as I was."
♪♪
♪♪
"It's relativity in all things.
No absolutes.
There's no absolute in truth.
There's no absolute in falsity.
There's no absolute in
what constitutes a middle way.
Relativity in all things."
I think
we could make it now.
♪♪
♪♪
Otherwise
Otherwise, we just went through
the whole painful mess
for nothing.
♪♪
"Orphans grow up late, I think."
♪♪
"At least these two did."
♪♪
Now, if you think we can
make it, we can make it.
♪♪
[Birds chirping]
[Intro to "Peaceful Morning"
playing]
♪♪
♪♪
♪♪
I thought I heard the angels,
Lord ♪
When I was
on the chapel floor ♪
But I'll never be sure ♪
Those old,
familiar harmonies ♪
They carried us
through New Orleans ♪
In ice water ♪
Smacking kisses ♪
Sour lemon mouthfuls ♪
Of black hours ♪
Seersucker ♪
Powdered sugar ♪
Moon glow ♪
I know when you're with me ♪
That your spirit's
gonna lift me ♪
So I never change directions ♪
And I never ask no questions ♪
Oh, I wish I could hear it ♪
'Cause I still
feel the spirit ♪
From the rafters
to the ceiling ♪
♪♪
♪♪
Hey. We got to play
for something.
Well, I'll think
of something.
He just wants to win.
He doesn't care
what the stakes are.
She's got a fix on you,
Frank.
That's why I married her.
Yeah, well,
it must be nice
to wake up next
to somebody you recognize.
Yeah, it is nice.
♪♪
You're a winner.
What else?
♪♪
♪♪
[Woman speaking indistinctly
over loudspeaker]
[Applause]
Crudup: "'Winning' opened
at Radio City Music Hall.
[Chuckling]
I mean, there were lines.
Yeah, I had to say
that I was nervous.
I went up to the closed door
into the marquee
and tapped on it, and the usher
came over, and I said,
'Is anybody in there?,
And he said, 'Yeah, it's full.'
And I explained to him
that I was the director,
and he said,
'Do you want to come in?'"
Hawke: James Goldstone, who
was the director of "Winning"
he's kind
of a forgotten director.
Gets invited into Paul's
house first-time director
and there's Paul Newman
and Joanne Woodward
in the middle
of their family life.
And they have
real family troubles.
And Paul wants to put
his life into the movie.
He doesn't want to just make
a racing movie.
He wants it to be
about relationships, right?
He completely
changed the script,
made it completely personal,
and fell in love with racing.
The thing I love about
the Goldstone transcript
is he's not
some big-shot director.
He's so he tells the story,
and it's gonna be
in the transcript I send,
of being so nervous
about when the movie opened
and then the fucking thing
was packed.
It was the new
Paul Newman movie.
Crudup:
"I came in right at the point
where Paul parked his car, walks
across the motel parking lot,
and
and opens the door, and I
I could feel the breathing
of 6,000 people
really watching.
And then I could hear
6,000 people going,
'[Gasps] Oh!'
And not a sound.
And And some man's voice
from one of the balconies,
you just you heard,
'Jesus Christ.'"
♪♪
"That was a moment that
we discovered in rehearsal."
Man: Gentlemen,
start your engines!
[Engines rev, crowd cheering]
♪♪
Crudup: "I needed a series
of shots of cars passing Paul,
and so we started out Paul
in first position,
you know, 16 cars behind him.
By the time I had done all
my shots with the camera car,
Paul was in last place.
Put up the green flag, and Paul
was driving a very fast car,
and he put his foot in
[Laughing] and didn't know
what was gonna happen.
You know, they're driving
with this star.
I had impressed on them
over and over again,
'We cannot kill him.
He's an amateur.
You're pros,' and Paul started
driving it past them,
passing one car after another.
And the safety guy
was saying to me,
'I'm gonna put the light up
and get them off the track,
They're driving too damn fast,
'cause now they're
actually racing.'
We put on the light,
and Paul came into the pit
to second position.
He had passed 14 or 15 people,
and this wonderful,
sheepish grin on his face.
He knew he wasn't supposed
to do it."
♪♪
"You know, he's getting out
there, and he's proven
not how much you get paid,
you know, what kind of prizes
you get.
It's about who has control.
You know, yeah,
we talked about his mother
and his relationship
with his father
when he was a kid
his father's store.
He got on to the subject
of alcoholism,
and his fear was that, you know,
he didn't think
he could not drink,
though he'd never be
an alcoholic.
Well, he is one,
and he could not handle it
if he tried to handle it.
Something in his past
with his mother
I guess, apparently a quite
neurotic, compulsive person
that I get this feeling
that he fears tremendously
somewhere underneath that
he's very much like his mother,
you know, that given the chance,
you know,
that he'd lose control."
I'll tell you for a squirrel,
he looked pretty good,
for an old squirrel.
"Paul
he wants desperately
to have control of himself.
His mother didn't,
and he's always had, you know,
the feeling that, when he left
to go into the Navy
and to college, that he was in
a terrible pressure cooker,
that he didn't have control."
[Indistinct conversations]
♪♪
I can't hear you!
[Indistinct shouting]
I can't hear you!
What?!
[Indistinct shouting]
♪♪
They won't let me
talk to him.
Well, you'll just
have to stand in line
and wait your turn,
Charley.
Crudup: "In preproduction,
Paul was working in New York
and was sort of running back
and forth to Westport,
and I'd spend the weekends there
with him,
and Scott was going through
this dreadful period,
and he was kicked
out of prep school
and and there was something
about a car accident.
Paul was trying to repair
that relationship."
I've got to start sometime.
I'm 16.
You wouldn't even like it.
Well, how do you know
unless you try?
Take a sip.
Salud.
Good.
Oh, my God.
Hey!
Look, I'm gonna get
drafted in two years.
So you drink
when you're drafted.
Yeah,
but I won't know how.
"I happened to be staying
at his house,
and it was in the middle
of winter, you know,
heavy snow
and had a blizzard.
And Scott had returned home
from Pennsylvania,
and I felt
I don't know kind of
like a terrible tension
this beautiful, handsome,
young man and his father, who
didn't know how to reach out"
"how to span that thing."
[Giggling]
"And at the same time,
of course,
we're dealing
with the script's relationship
between the racers
and the kid and Paul's character
and the Richard Thomas
character."
Do you think I'm drunk?
Stephanie: I remember being
in my bedroom when I was 8,
and my mom
and a friend of hers
were in Scott's bedroom
next door,
and all of a sudden,
I heard a gasp.
And I went running in,
and they had discovered
that Scott was sniffing glue.
So this was at 12 years old.
[Whistles]
Crudup: "And I can remember
sitting in that pool house
late at night,
watching him and Scott work out,
you know,
this painful relationship
that wasn't being worked out
playing pool, drinking beer,
each of them trying
and neither knowing how."
You go up the stairs.
You do not drop your clothes
on the floor.
You fold them.
You jump into a pair
of pajamas,
and you glide very stylishly
into bed.
"Oh, in the 'teaching your son
to drink' scene,
it didn't have to be discussed
between Paul and me.
I was father,
and he was a father, so
it all worked its way
down the line
and into the movie."
He's drunk!
He's with me!
Crudup: "And when Paul takes
Richard Thomas home,
saying, 'He's with me,' it"
Charley:
Goodnight, Mother.
"it was that was
a very important line"
Goodnight, Father.
"which could have been
could well have been Paul's,
you know, 'cause,
you know, 'cause it came out
of those rehearsals."
♪♪
♪♪
You are so lucky.
You sit there,
all closed in
by machinery and bolts
precise things.
There's hardly any room
for you.
[Sighs]
It must be a nice,
safe feeling.
[Chuckles]
[Sighs]
Eh, you got to learn
to trust something.
Might just as well be
the seat of your pants.
"There's a part of him that's
always standing back,
looking at himself.
I wonder whether some of that
isn't that he knows
everyone else
is watching him, too,
that they've been watching him
for, you know,
30-some-odd years,
no matter what he does, and"
Where's the cab?
"therefore, he joins them
observing."
Well, maybe he picked up
another fare on the way.
No, if they take the call,
they come.
"Anguish.
Anguish between Paul and Scott
became a given
in our conversations."
I want to stay with you.
We'll see, Charley.
"We'll see, Charley."
"You get trained as an actor
to study
all your own internal reactions,
and the thing with Scott
is just the most important thing
of his life.
And he stood outside
watching that
instead of being able
to to let loose,
somehow be inside it."
Give you some money.
I've got money.
"He saw happening
what was happening with Scott.
He saw it.
But he couldn't
he couldn't get over that wall."
The Hoosier Motor Inn.
Take care.
"And we talked about
how you span that gulf
with your child
the most important relationship
you can have."
"And if you're
a well-trained actor,
you can watch yourself
abandoning yourself
to something.
But a little part of you
that's
that's always censoring."
Kazan: "I think that there are
kids who are predisposed,
and I think
that Scott was one of them."
Crudup:
"I remember such a dance
dance of death between Scott
and his father,
because Scott had
Scott had learned
that he could really
manipulate things,
and I wrote him a long letter,
asking him to please communicate
what he was feeling
and not stay shut off
from his father
or from from anyone else
that might be able
to help him out,
because Paul was he was
he was just demolished.
But he didn't know where
to start or or what to do.
And obviously, Scott was
Scott was desperate."
[Sighs]
Charley: My grandmother
used to get mad at me
because I slept with the light
on all night.
So I finally got a flashlight
and turned it on
under the covers.
What were you scared of?
I never really knew.
It went away finally.
♪♪
[Door closes]
Just like the car lights.
Well, they come in
and go across the ceiling
and down the wall.
Then they disappear.
[Sighs]
♪♪
Paul: There's Joanne really
as a movie star.
God, what delicious, sweet,
innocent days those were,
and I certainly didn't
take much advantage of them.
I taught them how to drive well.
That's probably the extent
of my parenting.
♪♪
♪♪
Nivola:
"The thing about Paul was that
he was very realistic
about who he was.
He knew the world of hyperbole
and distortion he was in."
Can you get a mob together?
After what happened to Luther,
I don't think I can get
more than 200, 300 guys.
[Calliope plays]
"If you're in a position
of being viewed iconically,
you better have a mechanism
to take yourself down
to keep the balance.
I think we did that
for each other."
♪♪
She picked him clean.
He never missed it.
My God, it's like he's expecting
a big night.
[Muttering]
"Whatever success
one of us would have,
the other one
would knock it down."
He's waiting for you
in the card room.
Let him wait.
"We used to play
lots of pranks on each other.
He began to get into racing,
and he got really good.
But he talked so much about it
that I got sick of it.
So I had a beaten-up
Porsche shell
delivered to his porch
for his 50th birthday.
He never said anything.
But not long after,
I found a crate of molten metal
delivered to the living room
of my house.
It dented the floor.
[Laughs]
I then had it turned into
a really ugly sculpture
and dropped into his garden.
[Laughs]
To this day, neither one of us
has ever mentioned it."
Just worry
about your end, kid.
If we ever get to it.
[Train whistle blowing]
Rockwell:
That's another great one.
That's another great one.
Hawke: Have you ever
Yeah.
Do you remember the
card-playing scene in that?
When he pretends to be drunk?
Yeah, it's incredible.
He borrows the tie and then
wipes his mouth with it.
It's my favorite
fucking scene.
It's the best
fucking scene.
[Inhales sharply]
[Exhales deeply]
Sorry I'm late, guys.
I was taking a crap.
[Door closes]
The name's Shaw.
Hamilton: "The card-game scene
with Bob Shaw
is really just Paul doing
things that I'd seen him do.
And all I did was
remind him of the things."
We usually require
a tie at this table.
If you don't have one,
we can get you one.
Hey, that'd be real nice of you.
Mr. Lyman.
Lonnegan.
[Belches]
Well, finishes me.
Don't worry about it, pal.
[Laughs]
[Sneezes loudly]
[Groans, sniffs]
Three 10s.
[Laughs]
Tough luck, Longhand,
but that's what you get
for playing
with your head up your ass.
A couple more like that,
we can all go to bed early.
Name's Lonnegan
Doyle Lonnegan.
Woman:
You drink too much?
Paul:
I don't drink too much now,
but I certainly went
through a period when I
was out of control.
When was that?
'70s.
Hawke: One of your sisters might
very easily say to me that,
you know,
"Dad was an alcoholic," right?
And then one of your other
sisters said to me,
"Oh, that's bullshit."
Can you help me have
some insight as to, like
I kind of I'm trying
to make sense
out of all this talk
about alcohol.
Who said Pop
wasn't an alcoholic of us?
[Laughs]
[Snoring]
The great Henry Gondorff.
Hawke: I think basically at the
end of everybody's interview,
everybody kind of agreed that
he was a functioning alcoholic.
Nell: Yes.
But there was
a lot of resistance to it
just to using that word.
You know, it was
it was definitely destructive.
It was definitely destructive,
you know,
because there were times
where he was impossible
and that maybe
if he didn't drink so much,
it would have
been different.
How does somebody
get so much done?
That is
a really good question.
Lissy: You know, it's almost
more frustrating to live
with a very high-functioning
drinker,
because he could go pretty hard,
but he wasn't gonna
miss work in the morning,
and he was gonna be on time,
and he was gonna be ready.
But you know,
before going to work,
He would fill the sink
with water and ice
and plunges face in there
before he went to work.
And it wasn't until I got older
that I realized that,
yeah, when you've been
drinking all night,
you want to take
some of the swelling down.
Is Lonnegan after you, too?
I don't know.
I ain't seen anybody.
You never do, kid.
Our characters rub off
onto the actor.
Probably one of the areas
of great discontent
is they probably feel
that, as human beings,
there are merely a series of
a collection of old characters
that they played.
I sometimes get that feeling
about myself,
that I
have
you know, become
a series of connectives
between the the parts
of the characters
that I really like
and I've strung them together
into kind of a human being.
Very interesting.
Linney: "This was in Ojai,
and it's up from Los Angeles.
We went up to spend
an Easter holiday.
Paul was away on location, and
I took the girls and the nanny,
and it was such a great time.
It was a lot of you know, we
just remember special moments,
and"
Clea: You know, I think that
most daughters feel
you want to be kind of
the center
the center of your dad's
attention, right?
And, you know,
Dad had a lot on his plate.
And he also had a lot of kids
and, you know, an ex-wife.
And it was complicated,
and, you know, when you're
a kid, you don't weigh those.
You know, that doesn't
mean anything to you.
What do you feel like
is that you're, you know,
you're not important.
And, you know,
I guess I felt that way.
Paul: I knew that I didn't
want two things
written on my tombstone
"Here lies Paul Newman,
who died a failure
because his eyes turned brown."
[Laughter]
And the other one was that I
[Laughter]
I did not want my children
to lay me in the tombstone
and said,
"Here lies the old man who was
never part of his times."
[Jet engine roars]
♪♪
Belafonte: I know that
all of the artists
who sit on this panel tonight
feel very strongly
about the war in Vietnam,
and you oppose it.
Well, how do you answer people
who say to you
that, as a top star, living in
the luxury of American life,
that you could turn your back
against the nation?
Paul: What do you do?
Do you give up your citizenship
because you've become an actor?
Woodward: Four little girls, who
went to Sunday school that day
and never came back home at all,
but left instead
their blood upon the wall
with spattered flesh
and bloodied Sunday dress
torn to shreds by dynamite
that China made
Before one was an artist,
he was a human being.
Before one was an artist,
he was a citizen of the nation
and of the world.
I dip my broom in blood,
my mop in blood,
and blame you for this
because you are their enemy.
It's hard to blame me
because I am here.
So I kill you and you kill me.
My name,
like your name, is war.
He presented himself
as the man that he was.
He discussed the issue
very frankly and openly.
And then
an extraordinary thing happened.
The young people took the man
Man: And Paul Newman became
the political
box office smash
If you have areas where you feel
your own rumblings
Sherman: "You finally know
people by what they do.
It's not by what they say."
Clooney: "It's the biggest
feeling I ever had in my life,
to be actively involved
in being part of my own times."
Sherman:
"And Paul has proven to me
a man, that when
I first knew him,
was fundamentally apolitical
He's become genuinely committed
to the most liberal of causes.
And that in itself
is not important to me
because I've never
confused ethics and politics.
I know some very liberal guys
who are shits
and some very
conservative people
who are quite
good people ethically.
But I think both Paul
and Joanne,
they're fundamentally
very good people."
Newscaster: Big surprise in the
first primary of Campaign '68
has been the strength
of Senator Eugene McCarthy.
Paul: You know, I'm fed up
with the machinery.
I'm fed up with patronage.
I'm fed up
with all of that jazz.
I am announcing today
my candidacy
for the presidency
of the United States.
Paul: How can you beat the
machinery? How can you
beat the Kennedy money?
How can you beat
the Rockefeller money?
You're looking at a very tired,
aging juvenile here.
I really don't
Clooney:
"This thing I'll always remember
about the whole
McCarthy campaign
was this cop in New Hampshire.
We were going somewhere
with a police escort,
and one of the cops
received word the night before
that his son
had been killed in Vietnam.
I offered the cop my sympathy,
and he thanked me.
Then we stood there.
Finally,
I blurted out something.
What did he think
about some creep,
some Hollywood peacenik
coming in there
and telling him about the war?
The cop said, no, he didn't
represent what I was doing.
'Even if a war takes your boy,'
he said,
'it doesn't make it right.'"
Announcer:
This is the CBS Evening News
with Walter Cronkite.
Good evening.
Dr. Martin Luther King
has been shot to death
in Memphis, Tennessee.
Dr. King was standing
on the balcony
of his second floor
hotel room
[Indistinct
police radio chatter]
Man: Do you feel that
individuals can really
make a difference in that sort
of political process?
I don't know whether they can,
but I know they must try.
Thanks to all of you,
and now it's on to Chicago,
and let's win this.
Thank you very much.
[Crowd cheering]
[Indistinct conversations]
died at 1:44 a.m. today.
He was
Newscaster:
While supporting the police,
the guard exchange shots
with snipers
Paul: I don't have very much
sympathy for the people who
who honestly feel that history
is out of control,
because it's been shown
that people can control history,
that they can make fools
out of all the political pundits
and all the cynics.
My stepson just had his
he just graduated
from high school,
so I sent him
a copy of "Don Quixote."
And I said and a copy, also,
of Gore Vidal's book,
"Reflections
on a Sinking Ship,"
which is it's essays
about the United States.
And I said,
you have your choice now.
You can either go the way
of Don Quixote and try to,
you know,
to save the world.
And then you read
Gore's book,
and you'll see
what you've got to save.
And so but all you
can do is try, you know
Ashmanskas: "I think
that some people may feel
that their outspokenness
could have been harmful.
It's never helpful in a country
as sectarian
as the United States,
where everybody is
in a state of, you know,
some sort of agony
about something."
Newscaster: the convention,
the stockyards.
I don't want my stepson
to be drafted and all of that.
What do you say to him
your stepson
about being drafted?
My stepson?
I wouldn't allow him
to be.
Ashmanskas:
"So many groups that say,
'We will never again
buy your products
and go see your films.'
I think it takes a bit
of courage to go out there,
and I think they both have it."
I keep hoping, somewhere,
as I suppose we all do,
that there must come a moment
in time when people say,
"Let us grow up. Let us have
some kind of humanity."
Killing one person or
"I think it evolved when
they were young actors.
They were young actors,
and young actors
are like young actors
everywhere.
It's, 'Me, me, me, me, me,'
and then they grew up,
and they became grown people
as well as actors.
So it became a little bit,
'Us, us, us,' as well."
Paul:
simple act of conscience.
We are sorry
that it affects other people,
and yet maybe
that's the real force of it.
I mean, it is business as usual,
and we go about our lives,
and there is no pain
in our lives.
And I don't know
what war is all about
if it isn't to create pain.
Clooney: "There aren't many
smart people who have power,
and you have to use your power
to advance truth.
What's money and power worth
if you don't do that?"
Newscaster: In other news,
actors Paul Newman,
Sidney Poitier,
and Barbra Streisand
have joined forces
to take on Hollywood,
starting a company
called First Artists,
who aspire to give the talent
more creative control
in their moviemaking
in exchange for lower salaries.
♪♪
Announcer:
First Artists present
All right!
"Uptown Saturday Night"
"WUSA"
love it or leave it.
There's a film that you did
called "WUSA"
that's just coming out,
and no one has told me
what the title stands for,
and all day I've been thinking
of things
that WUSA stands for, like
It's the call letters
for a radio
a right-wing radio stations.
Oh, so it has a political theme,
more or less.
Oh, yeah.
Stephanie: Please include
my favorite quote of my dad.
The best advice
he ever gave me was,
"If you're gonna crash,
crash decisively."
WUSA ♪
Rheinhardt: Now will leave you
with one message,
the big message
the future
of America is up to you.
♪♪
The children of the night
what beautiful music
they make, huh?
Yeah, I think I'm zeroed in
to the big pulse.
I can hear all those
dirty feet tapping.
They're all
delighted upstairs.
They must have big things
in store for you.
Yeah, they're very sweet.
I think they've got big things
in store for everybody.
I'll see you, swinger.
Man: What makes some actors
political and some not?
Paul: Oh, I don't know.
You count up
your number of children,
and I think the political
commitment somehow with me
grew every time
I had another child.
These people are hurting,
Reinhardt.
They're hurting, and they don't
really know what's hurting them.
We're trying to help them
find out.
Oh, well put, Bing.
They need us.
We need them.
So we hit the issues
crime.
The decline
of patriotism.
Welfare checks.
Welfare checks.
[Chuckles]
Rockwell: "'WUSA' was a project
Paul brought to me.
He bought the rights
to the Robert Stone book,
and Paul, much more so
than 'Cool Hand Luke'
he had a real solid fix on how
he wanted to be that guy."
You know,
sometimes I feel like
I'd just like
to run to water and drown.
Don't.
Don't drown.
Don't let them
force you to extremes.
You've got to be like me.
You've got to be
a master of disguise.
You chase me to water,
I'll grow gills
and disappear
into a flurry of fins.
"Paul tries to explain
to the character of Joanne
in that film at one point
what happened to him.
He tries to explain to her
that he learned to play
the clarinet through the nuns,
and he was an exceedingly
good musician.
And if you have talent and
you have the creative energy,
you have to use it,
because if you don't, it rots
and turns against you
and ruins you."
and poisons you,
and you sort of die of it.
[Sighs]
"And the way he describes it is
that he woke up one morning"
I woke up
"and he fell off his life."
and looked down
and fell on my life.
Now you think it's easier
just being a drunk?
Helps me sleep.
"I just I thought that was
a beautiful, brilliant way
of putting it."
You got a lot of spite in you,
Reinhardt.
"Yeah, well, I think the
character came more personally
from who Paul was, because
he understood the struggle
that a man has
with particular demons inside."
You're not gonna tell me
how it is, are you, friend?
♪♪
Woman: Do you feel
that the wind has gone out
of the anti-war groups?
Oh, yes.
Almost as though
it had been a fad?
That's a very accurate word.
Do you get disheartened?
No, I just get tired.
[Coughing]
It's very difficult
to sustain your rage.
I mean, if you've been doing it
for seven years like I have,
and with apparently no effect,
that's the worst part.
God, it's getting heavy,
isn't it?
[Laughter]
But the young people
really found something,
or they merely found
something to do.
It was not a long-term
political commitment.
♪♪
Man: You know, do you ever worry
about the segment of your fans
that you may alienate,
who may love you in the movies,
but they don't agree
with you politically?
Oh, I don't know.
I guess that can't really be
a consideration. Yeah.
Well, one of my favorite
memories of Pop was
when he was named number 19
on Nixon's enemies list,
and he was so filled with glee.
It was just exciting to watch
how it filled him,
and he considered it an honor.
It's interesting.
I suppose
if you offend nobody,
in the final analysis,
you have no character.
Clooney: "Audiences hated it.
You know, with the heights
that I'd reached
with 'Cool Hand Luke,'
that was the depths
I'd reached with 'WUSA.'
I was a pariah. Nobody wanted
to touch me in this town.
How could I take the best, most
formidable actor in the world
and come out with something
that nobody wanted to see?"
All of my favorite actors had
given catastrophic performances.
Like, absolutely insensate shit.
Just, like,
not an iota of it works.
What do you know about the value
of any life,
you crippled freak?
And it's because the ambition
to stretch themselves
and their capacity,
to me, is heroic.
I fucking love that.
It is and, I mean, he got
mocked for this performance.
When someone says something
that's a drag,
I got to try to say something
that's a worse drag!
Sherman: You know, for people
who have properly seen "WUSA,"
who are still alive, and you go,
"Holy shit, what is this?"
And I feel like he's putting his
alcoholism in that movie,
they're putting their
relationship in that movie,
and it's a continuation
of the vow,
which is, "I'm putting
my life in front of you."
Right.
"I'm opening up
even the dark parts of myself.
♪♪
Paul:
That's me trying to be funny.
Not good.
Linney:
"From the first time I met Paul,
I always knew he was a drunk.
We always had Christmas Eve
dinner,
and Paul would just get drunk
and pass out,
leaving me feeling like the last
of the great Christian martyrs
at 1:00 in the morning,
filling all the stockings
and putting the things
under the Christmas tree."
"What a wonderful person I am,
and that shit over there
is getting drunk
while I'm being nice
and loving and adorable."
Clooney: "My drinking must have
driven Joanne crazy.
We drove each other crazy
in different ways.
There's a wonderful kind
of balance
about things like that
asymmetrical but equal,
like the arms race.
She had all her missiles
and land-based equipment,
while most of mine
were on submarines."
♪♪
♪♪
Stern: Joanne, if you were
doing a biography of Paul
and you were searching
for his Rosebud,
what would you be
searching for?
Woodward: For what it appears
he's searching for
a kind of peace,
serenity
what his father
was searching for.
I ♪
Hey, that boozing
is really
gonna get the best of you,
good buddy.
Woodward: Paul has a vast
identification with his father.
For years, he was convinced
that he was gonna die at 55,
because that's when
his father died.
Someday, we'll go to Tibet,
and we'll sit on a mountain,
and we'll work it out.
Me too?
Yeah, you too.
I sometimes think that the only
peace he really finds
is the peace he used to find
in being dead drunk.
Now he finds it in racing
cars peace and grace.
Grace the comfort of knowing
he's done something well.
Closer, Lord ♪
We'll be ♪
[Applause]
[Gunshots fire]
♪♪
[Gunshots fire]
[Crowd screaming]
♪♪
[Speaking indistinctly]
♪♪
[Screaming continues]
Let us consider
the American way.
The American way is innocent.
In each and every situation,
we must display an innocence
that is so vast and awesome
that the entire world is reduced
by it.
When our boys drop a napalm bomb
on a cluster
of gibbering slants,
it's a bomb with a heart,
and inside the heart
of that bomb,
mysteriously but truly present,
there's a fat, little, old lady
on her way to the world's fair.
[Screaming continues]
Our shoulders are broad
and sweaty.
But our breath is sweet.
Americans
remember, no matter
what anyone says, we're okay.
Clooney:
"Now, that was the comment
about where we had come to
in the world
and that the whole thing
was such a mess
that nobody has any answers
anymore."
Now, I want you
to say that with me.
We're okay!
Come on now.
Say it with me.
We're okay!
Paul: I get despondent,
I suppose,
and I despair as much
as the next person,
at the size of things
and the acceleration of things
and the irreversibility
of certain things.
But
I don't know.
My God, they're interesting
times, though, aren't they?
[Horn blaring, crowd shouting]
[Whistle blowing]
[Alarm rings]
Woodward: It was a notably
unsuccessful film.
I loved the part.
Aah!
I understood that part.
I don't quite know why.
Linney: "I could never
make him understand that I had
the most awful terror
of what might
have been happening.
I said, 'I don't care what
it is, but I need to know.'
The worst is not knowing
when something is wrong,
because you do know.
I know.
My instincts are incredible,
which is obviously why
he finally confessed it all."
Woodward: Nobody understands
anybody else's relationships.
I mean, you know how you can see
people who are married
to people, and you think,
"Why are they
married to each other?"
[Laughter]
And nobody knows
because only the two people
who are involved know what binds
that relationship together.
Cavett: Your wife said a lot
of interesting things
when she was here.
She's not here, is she?
[Laughter]
No.
No?
[Laughter]
That's amazing, I think.
If you were Paul Newman's wife,
ladies,
would you let him
go out alone like this?
[Audience shouting
indistinctly]
Man: I'm not sure if it was
Johnny or a guest host
asked Paul Newman if he ever
thought about cheating
without taking a beat,
he said,
"Why should I go out
for hamburgers
when I have steak at home?"
[Applause]
Woman: Did you hear
what Joanne said?
I heard it.
"I'm a vegetarian."
[Laughter]
Woodward: That could have
ended our relationship.
Woman: Seriously?
Yeah.
I mean,
what a chauvinist statement.
I am not a piece of meat,
for God's sake.
I ugh!
I mean, every time
that quote pops up,
I want to kill.
Why are you so mean?
Self-defense.
Self-defense.
Nell: You know, the whole, "Why
go out for steak when I can
or why go out for burgers
when I have steak at home?"
I mean, that whole line
Drunk as it gets,
aren't you?
That's right.
I you know, between you
and I and the microphone,
those were hard times, you know?
'Cause I can walk out
any goddamn time!
I can walk out on anything!
I know how it's done!
Lissy: I've always felt,
with my mom, it's kind of like
you make your bed,
and you lie in it.
You don't think I would?
You know,
you have to lie in it.
You son of a bitch.
Well, you know,
you take a risk
by having a relationship
with someone
who was willing to do that.
If they were willing to do it
to someone else,
then it is likely
that they would be willing
to do it to you,
and I think that any woman
that embarks
on that kind of relationship
always has that
in the back of her mind.
Nell: I found a book
that was written by somebody
he'd had an affair with,
and it was in the drawer
in the bathroom.
And I remember, you know,
there's a terrible moment there,
where, you know, you realize
that your parents
or your dad is fallible.
♪♪
Woodward:
And the suicide scene in it was
one of the most rewarding scenes
I've ever done.
It really was some kind
of catharsis for me.
[Clattering]
[Music plays, applause]
♪♪
Talking with the Newmans.
Oh, I almost said
"the Woodwards."
[Laughter]
Not bloody likely.
Listen, it'll help me
an awful lot if you'd do that
quite a bit.
You must trust him.
You've put
your career in his hands now.
You've let him direct you,
and you've let him direct
one of your actual children,
and say,
you are so good for your age.
[Laughter]
No, I'm saying
[Laughs]
There's no way
to not sound vapid,
you know, on a talk show,
when you send somebody's film
and you have them on
as a guest.
But let's take a look
at part of "Marigolds."
It's really quite
an affecting movie to see.
Here we go.
Yeah, that's some things
you never forget, Ruth.
Just little moments
you never forget.
In your whole life, you never
forget certain moments.
Announcer:
Four years ago, he directed her
in the award-winning film
"Rachel, Rachel."
Now Paul Newman has directed
Joanne Woodward again
in the motion picture
of the 1971 Pulitzer
Prize-winning play
"The Effect of Gamma Rays
on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds."
Man:
[Speaking French]
Man: 1972, you made
"The Effect of Gamma Rays
on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds."
You didn't actually
like the part, did you?
Woodward:
To say I didn't like it
is the understatement
of the year.
I hated it.
I hated it.
That goddamn rabbit is gonna
drive me straight up the wall.
This house is just filled
with rabbit crap.
Everybody has a certain amount
of ugliness in them,
but it's very difficult
to take all of that ugliness out
and just display it
and say, "Here is the ugly me."
As a matter of fact,
this entire junk heap
gets a thorough cleaning
tomorrow.
I hated the person.
I understood her,
but I hated what she was.
Also, my own daughter
was playing my daughter,
and in the picture, of course,
I was very unkind to her.
That was very difficult
for me to do.
Are you all right?
Lissy: It was really,
really evident that my mom
was bringing home the character,
and Beatrice Hunsdorfer
is a horrible character
to bring home.
I'll say something simple.
If you win, I'll say
"I'm very proud."
[Sniffles]
And I'll say,
"My heart is full."
That's all right, isn't it?
I don't have to go
into a big thing, do I?
No.
[Sniffles]
I won't even win.
Then I don't think
you'd have to say anything.
[Sniffles]
"My heart is full."
Classy.
Paul: Each of us have a certain
amount of monster in us.
[Horn blares]
But we're not called upon
to deliver that
8 hours a day and look at it
when you go home
and stick your face
in the mirror.
So it was just
it was an actual,
almost organic change
that happened
with her.
It was visible.
It was a physical change.
Her whole face changed.
♪♪
Nell:
I mean, I'd read the script.
I know what was
knew what was gonna happen.
I was 13 years old.
And Dad came over,
and he said,
"Your mother is going to act
very strangely,"
and, you know, to just remember
that she's just acting.
And it was
And her performance
was so astonishing
She's feeling pretty good.
Let's not embarrass her.
when she, you know
staggers down that aisle,
that it did
You can see from the expression
on my face,
you know, it was shocking.
My heart is full.
[Sobs quietly]
My heart is full.
[Giggles]
My heart is full!
Lissy:
I think she was channeling,
using as a source for her regret
and her sadness and her rage
and whatever she was doing
with Beatrice Hunsdorfer
and that she was drawing
on a complex relationship
with my father,
who was then directing her.
And I think a lot of that rage,
you know, and that complexity
was generated
from the relationship.
You know, that's part
of the complexity that,
to me, it's fascinating.
♪♪
She said it was just
one of those things.
Things happen.
♪♪
Well, what if people
get married before then?
That's a good question.
♪♪
♪♪
People stay married 'cause they
want to, Charley,
not because the doors
are locked.
♪♪
♪♪
♪♪
Clooney: "Joanne and I
have had our hurdles.
Sometimes Joanne was just
as adolescent as I was."
♪♪
♪♪
"It's relativity in all things.
No absolutes.
There's no absolute in truth.
There's no absolute in falsity.
There's no absolute in
what constitutes a middle way.
Relativity in all things."
I think
we could make it now.
♪♪
♪♪
Otherwise
Otherwise, we just went through
the whole painful mess
for nothing.
♪♪
"Orphans grow up late, I think."
♪♪
"At least these two did."
♪♪
Now, if you think we can
make it, we can make it.
♪♪
[Birds chirping]
[Intro to "Peaceful Morning"
playing]
♪♪
♪♪
♪♪
I thought I heard the angels,
Lord ♪
When I was
on the chapel floor ♪
But I'll never be sure ♪
Those old,
familiar harmonies ♪
They carried us
through New Orleans ♪
In ice water ♪
Smacking kisses ♪
Sour lemon mouthfuls ♪
Of black hours ♪
Seersucker ♪
Powdered sugar ♪
Moon glow ♪
I know when you're with me ♪
That your spirit's
gonna lift me ♪
So I never change directions ♪
And I never ask no questions ♪
Oh, I wish I could hear it ♪
'Cause I still
feel the spirit ♪
From the rafters
to the ceiling ♪