Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/23723
All you do is walk from stage leſt to stage right and just don’t say a word. You’re a union leader.” So, I walked across the stage when my time came with a big cigar and a derby hat. And there happened to be a critic in the audience. She said the only one I believed was the man who walked across the stage. [shared laughter] KH: Tat’s what we call “stage presence!” EB: From then on, you know, it was “open sesame.” And they started working me on the stage. And by the time I was finished, I was doing 14 shows a year down there. And it was a wonderful experience and it really helped me when I went to work on Broadway with Helen Hayes and Joe E. Brown and all the rest of them. But it’s something I recommend for every actor in the world: go through summer stock and learn the hard way, the way I did, to really become an actor. You’ve got to pay attention. I learned more from watching people than I did out of books. KH: You certainly did pay your dues. EB: I had to go down one day to read for Paddy Chayefsky and Delbert Mann, and Spencer Tracy saw me going off and he said, “Hey, hey, where are you going?” I said, “Well, Sir, I have to go down and read.” And he said, “Read? You don’t read any more, you’re a star!” I said, “Out of your mouth to God’s ears.” And he wanted to know what I was going to read. I told him a thing called Marty. And he said, “Ah, don’t worry about it. Piece of cake. You’ll do fine.”…“Yes, Sir!” Te next morning I came in, I had a great big grin on my face, and he said, “Got it, huh?” And I said, “Yes, Sir!” And the next year I beat him out for an Academy Award. [laughs] KH: Talk a bit about your mother and her encouragement of your acting. EB: As a child, we’d go to see these Bunny O’Hare, 1971 motion pictures and I’d come out of the theater and act it out for two or three days, especially Westerns, cowboys and all that. And she’d watch me. She had been born into the purple. My mother was a countess, and of course they frowned very much on anyone of royalty going on the stage. So she couldn’t do what she really wanted to do and I think she took it out on me, because one day, when I came back from World War II, and I didn’t want to go to work in a factory, I said, “I think I’ll go back into the service.” And she said, “Have you ever thought of becoming an actor? You always like to make a damn fool of yourself in front of people. Why don’t you give it a try?” And I looked up, and I saw this golden light, and I said, “Mom! Tat’s what I’m going to be!” I had no idea what an actor was, what he did, how he did it and everything else. But I wanted to be an actor and the rest is history. KH: Well, we’re all the better for it. Bless your mother for encouraging you. EB: I bless her too. Believe me! KH: I want to jump to McHale’s Navy… As you’ve said, by that point in time you were really an established movie star, everyone knew you, but then there’s this world of television that goes even further in terms of being known. Tell me how that happened. EB: Ego! It all started with ego, believe it or not. My agent called me and he said, “Ernie, we have a thing here called McHale’s Navy. I know you love the water and we have a P.T. boat and everything else…” He explained it to me, and it sounded interesting, but I told him I was a motion picture actor now and, “I can’t do it.” He said, “Listen, if you change your mind, let me know, will ya?” Te next morning, as the good Lord would have it, came a knock at the door. Some kid selling chocolate bars. And he said to Twice in a Lifetime, 1974 Airwolf, 1984-86 me, “Mister, you look awfully familiar. What’s your name?” And I said my name’s James Arness. And he said, “No, he does Gunsmoke.” I said, “No, my name is really Richard Boone.” He said, “No, he does Have Gun— Will Travel.” I said, “Son of a gun, this kid knows them all!” So I thought, I’ll tell him my name and I know he’ll get it. “Ernest Borgnine.” Zilch. Nothing. I looked at him and he said, “I know I’ve seen you somewhere.” I said, “Tanks son, here’s your money.” I put down the chocolate bars and called up my agent and I said, “Tat part still open?” [laughs] People came to me and said, “You’ve won an Academy Award. You’re a motion picture actor. What are you doing on television?” And I said, wait a minute, it’s all entertainment isn’t it? Whether you’re working on television or whether you’re working on motion pictures. Tey said, yeah, but you’re lowering yourself. How could I be lowering myself? Suddenly I found out how much lower I could get: Everyone in the world knew me. I went to Japan on my honeymoon. “Oh, McHale! McHale!” Everybody knew me. KH: It had real impact, and you were great in that…And I thought it was great and broadening because you could laugh and smile and be charming, not the scary killer, which you could always go back to doing. EB: Te Navy wouldn’t have anything to do with us with all that! Tey said, “No, no, no, this is not the Navy! No, no!” And one day I got a call to go to the Pentagon. So I went to the Pentagon and I was supposed to have lunch with the Secretary of the Navy no less. And I walk in, beautiful setting, you know, in this private quarters for the Pentagon. Boy, I tell ya these guys know how to live it up! And I sat down and we were eating and SpongeBob SquarePants, 1999-present RED, 2010 SAG.org Fall/Winter 2010 - SCREEN ACTOR 53 Nickelodeon Summit