Ben Gazzara: You Know, I'm Just Fucking With You?

Take a Bow, Benny

“Bukoswki’s was a pussy!” He growled to the laughter of the audience. They had opened up the Q&A to the audience. I got the chance to ask one question of Ben Gazzara. I asked him about the film; Tales of Ordinary Madness. The movie which he played the infamous L.A. skid row poet Charles Bukowski. “I spent the day with him,” Gazzara said. “He came in carrying fine French wines, while I was drinking Night Train,” with a roll of his distinctive eyes. This special night was called an Evening with Ben Gazzara, it took place last year at the Cinefamily Theater, located on Fairfax Ave. in Los Angeles. And it was a rare occasion indeed... and I had my camera.

Photo by Ray Ramos

With Ben Gazzara’s passing yesterday, it is truly the end of a special era. Probably the last of the great Broadway actors of the 50’s… when New York Theater was breaking new ground with productions like, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and A Hateful of Rain (both starring Garraza.) Gazzara to his credit, never lost the lead in his pencil like Brando, who for his last twenty years had grown to distain acting as profession and did it only to pay his overhead… unlike Brando, you never saw Ben Gazzara dial it in; this guy loved acting. Gazzara never quit it.

“Getting old’s a bitch,” Gazzara said. Gazzara, who was 80 at the time (not 81, as he corrected the nights moderator.) “I was born in August… I’m 80!" Having had suffered a stroke several years back, the only remains it seemed that night last March, was the  loss of that great timber in his usually gravely voice. Otherwise the guy was sharp and as funny as hell… as he warmly entertained the SRO Theater for about an hour with tales of his 60 years as an actor, and proving that he was still Benny from the block. 

 

Gazzara spoke of growing up on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, and as a youth spending time at the local Boys Club. It was after a pal invited him to watch him in a play that Gazzara said he became jealous when he saw his friend getting applause. He soon asked his friend, how he can do that? Eventually Gazzara’s talent got him an audition at The Actor’s Studio (and he was asked to join.) Gazzara stressed that the “Studio” wasn’t a theatre group but a workshop, for actors to experiment and hone their talents. Gazzara really was there during that magic time with names like; Lee Strasberg, Eli Kazan and Tennessee Williams. Gazzara originated the part of Brick in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof on the stage, spoke of how he thought he had the part in the big MGM movie with Elizabeth Taylor. Upon his first trip to Hollywood, he said that the head of MCA, Lew Wasserman, met him at the stairs of the plane.

Wasserman whisked him off to lunch at the famed movie star hangout, Romanoff’s, where he met Humphrey Bogart, John Huston and Gregory Peck. He said he had a nice meeting with director George Cukor (who was originally slated to direct the movie adaptation) who pressed him about the homosexual aspect of the Tennessee Williams piece... which the studio was trying to suppress from the piece. He felt the meeting went so well, he went whistling out of MGM’s Thalberg Building. Gazzara got a call not long after, telling him that the studio gave the part to a contract player named, Paul Newman… and we know what happened to him?

Gazzara went to make his film debut in a picture called The Strange One. The story took place on in a Southern Military Academy, with Gazzara playing a character with name Jocko De Paris a sadistic character, that Gazzara corrected the night’s moderator by letting him know that he was the films lead character even though he wasn’t its hero. Gazzara revealed that The Strange One (as well another piece A Hat Full of Rain) originated as a play, and were created with several of his friends as experimental stage pieces. 

Ben Gazzara: The Young Lion, 1950's

 Gazzara recalled his first big picture was Otto Preminger’s Anatomy of a Murder, a courtroom drama, which had him cast opposite screen legend Jimmy Stewart. Gazzara spoke of how he watched the old movie pro prepared for his scenes and said that Stewart like Gary Cooper (who Gazzara said, for him was the greatest film actor ever) seemed to do so little, but on screen they showed so much. That amazed the young novice screen actor.

In the 1960’s television series Run for Your Life, Gazzara played a young lawyer, who’s told he’s dying with two years or less to live. Gazzara’s character Paul Bryan’s mission in the show was to cram as much living as possible, into whatever time he had left. I remember this was the favorite show of my uncle Forrest, whose own life was ironically cut short at the age of twenty, while serving in Vietnam in 1967. Often when I would see Ben Gazzara, I would think of my uncle Forrest. So that night last year with Gazzara, it made me feel like I was paying my respects to both of them in a way. 

Uncle Forrest

 After his series ended its three year run, Gazzara returned to being a busy journeyman actor. He told a great story that night about filming a World War II film, The Bridge at Remagen in Czechoslovakia. During the production the Soviets decided to invade the country and the company had to relocate the whole production to West Germany. But not before Gazzara and fellow actor Robert Vaughn decided to personally smuggle a Czech waitress they had become friendly out of the country in their car... luckily they were successful.

That night at Cinefamily, the featured film was, Husbands. Gazzara’s first collaboration with director &  pioneer iindependent filmmaker, John Cassavetes (whom he also co-stars with along with Peter Falk.)  The film was about a trio of pals who take a wild impromptu trip to London after their close friend suddenly dies... think a method actors version of The Hangover. The project turned out to be a great experience and turning point for Gazzara as an actor. Gazzara, who hardly knew Cassavetes and Falk at the time, but jumped on to the project after seeing a screening Cassavetes film cinema verite film, Faces. In Ben Gazzara, Cassavetes found the perfect leading man, who processed a certain earthiness, which worked so well in his work… and to Gazzara, Cassavetes was not a just filmmaker, but a poet. When Cassavetes died in 1989, Gazzara lost his great collaborator and friend, and it was said that he went into a depression for many years over the loss. When Gazzara spoke of Cassavetes that night he became teary-eyed. 

Husbands 1970

I took this portrait of Gazzara, as he took a moment after speaking about his pal, John Cassavetes.

These Two: The Poet & The Lion

 For me personally, when I really first started to dig Ben Gazzara, I was a 14 years old kid. Somehow, I ended up seeing this crazy movie with a strange title; The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (and another film by John Cassavetes) at the local theater (The UA Cinema in Marina Del Rey) it must have been rated R? But somehow, I saw it? But I’ll tell you, it left an impression on me to this day.

The grainy neon noir piece set on the Sunset Strip, had Gazzara as a nightclub owner Cosmo Vitelli who owes the mob twenty-three large. His only way to clear the books is to take a hit for them in Chinatown.

Filmed at the famed Gazzarri’s night club in Hollywood, I would find it also ironic, that it would be the first nightclub I would ever step into a few years later at the age of sixteen.

Again in jest during a clip of the film that night, Gazzara chimed in, “In this scene, I was going to kill a Chinese bookie!” I didn’t know what it was at the time? But that film and especially Gazzara’s performance as a desperate man on a run of bad luck, but who never loses his vision or his touch of class; that always stuck with me... such a performance! From that point on, if Ben Gazzara was in the cast, I was interested… when it comes to presence, he was a fucking lion!

Even to have loved and lost Audrey... is to have lived a life!

 He was truly great in whatever role he played. He was the charming, rogue private eye in Peter Bogdanovich’s romantic comedy The All Laughed, where Gazzara wooed non-other than Audrey Hepburn herself (the two also made the picture Bloodline together… which they had an ill-fated, love affair off-screen.) To this Gazzara just confessed "I loved Audrey..."Gazzara said he’s probably remembered most for the villainous Brad Wesley, the part he played in the Patrick Swayze picture Road House. Gazzara laughed and said it was his most played picture on television. But many remember Gazzara as pornographer Jackie Treehorn in the Coen’s cult classic, Big Lebowski or as Vincent Gallo’s crooning pop in the quirky indie film Buffalo 66. He also lent his presence to David Mamet's little masterpiece, The Spanish Prisoner.

"You know, I'm just fucking with you?"

Gazzara was an Emmy winner, but amazingly was never nominated an Oscar… times in Hollywood have changed, I’m sure many of his performances like Chinese Bookie or Saint Jack (another Bogdanovich picture set & shot in Singapore at the end of The Vietnam War, with Gazzara as Jack Flowers, a Yankee pimp with a heart of gold)  were to be released now, they would be considered Oscar worthy… Gazzara was just to ahead of the game. With Cassavetes long gone, and Peter Falk passing last year and now Benny… like I said; the end of an era. During that evening last year, my favorite moments came watching the feisty actor from the Lower East Side, having some good natured fun, by busting the balls of his 40 something bearded moderator. At one point, towards the end of the night, Benny gave him a little slap on the face, and said with a smile, “You know, I’m just fucking with you?”