I was really impressed with Ernest Borgnine, at age 92, who laughed and talked like a man decades younger. He could easily have kept talking for another hour.
Robert guided the interview, but Mr. Borgnine was just bursting with stories so prodding was not necessary. One interesting thing that came out was that his mom was a countess who apparently wanted to be on the stage, so after WWII when Borgnine was trying to find a direction in his life his mother suggested acting. Without that prodding he said "for two cents I would have reenlisted in the Navy, stayed another ten years and at least had a pension". I say his mother was a countess, but Borgnine obviously came from middle class roots from his description of his childhood.
He was a guy with no Hollywood roots in his family and knew no contacts in the industry. So when there was a casting call he would just show up for it. He got his first film role in "China Corsair" in 1951 when he was 34.
He talked about being in "Bad Day at Black Rock" with Spencer Tracy, and how Spencer complimented his acting style. While on location, he left early one day to do a reading for "Marty", and Tracy kidded him about him being the only one they let leave the set early. The great irony was that Borgnine beat Tracy the following year for the Best Actor Oscar for that same role in Marty, Tracy being nominated for "Bad Day at Black Rock".
The most interesting story about Marty was that it was never meant to be finished. It was to be made as a tax loss to offset the successful movies that Burt Lancaster's production company was making. At the last minute, the law was changed so that you must finish a film and release it in order to take the tax loss, so Marty was completed and released, and it surprisingly turned out to be a hit.
Borgnine only talked about his most famous marriage to Ethel Merman because Robert brought it up. His marriage was basically finished after the honeymoon because Ethel Merman's ego could not take the fact that wherever they went people recognized Borgnine from the popular "McHale's Navy" and would only sometimes recognize her. Years later when Merman wrote her autobiography the section on Borgnine was a blank page. Talk about undying bitterness!
You can tell Borgnine really didn't have a bad word to say about anybody, but did enjoy praising the actors he'd worked with. He particularly mentioned the acting skills of Gary Cooper and Bette Davis.
His final words on his career were that making people laugh was what it was all about.
Highly recommended if it ever shows up on TCM or youtube. Currently it is not on DVD, and with the death of Robert Osborne, I don't know if encore presentations of Private Screenings will be as common as they have been in the past, or if they will even happen at all.
Robert guided the interview, but Mr. Borgnine was just bursting with stories so prodding was not necessary. One interesting thing that came out was that his mom was a countess who apparently wanted to be on the stage, so after WWII when Borgnine was trying to find a direction in his life his mother suggested acting. Without that prodding he said "for two cents I would have reenlisted in the Navy, stayed another ten years and at least had a pension". I say his mother was a countess, but Borgnine obviously came from middle class roots from his description of his childhood.
He was a guy with no Hollywood roots in his family and knew no contacts in the industry. So when there was a casting call he would just show up for it. He got his first film role in "China Corsair" in 1951 when he was 34.
He talked about being in "Bad Day at Black Rock" with Spencer Tracy, and how Spencer complimented his acting style. While on location, he left early one day to do a reading for "Marty", and Tracy kidded him about him being the only one they let leave the set early. The great irony was that Borgnine beat Tracy the following year for the Best Actor Oscar for that same role in Marty, Tracy being nominated for "Bad Day at Black Rock".
The most interesting story about Marty was that it was never meant to be finished. It was to be made as a tax loss to offset the successful movies that Burt Lancaster's production company was making. At the last minute, the law was changed so that you must finish a film and release it in order to take the tax loss, so Marty was completed and released, and it surprisingly turned out to be a hit.
Borgnine only talked about his most famous marriage to Ethel Merman because Robert brought it up. His marriage was basically finished after the honeymoon because Ethel Merman's ego could not take the fact that wherever they went people recognized Borgnine from the popular "McHale's Navy" and would only sometimes recognize her. Years later when Merman wrote her autobiography the section on Borgnine was a blank page. Talk about undying bitterness!
You can tell Borgnine really didn't have a bad word to say about anybody, but did enjoy praising the actors he'd worked with. He particularly mentioned the acting skills of Gary Cooper and Bette Davis.
His final words on his career were that making people laugh was what it was all about.
Highly recommended if it ever shows up on TCM or youtube. Currently it is not on DVD, and with the death of Robert Osborne, I don't know if encore presentations of Private Screenings will be as common as they have been in the past, or if they will even happen at all.
