Grateful American: A Journey from Self to Service(54)
I say without reservation that my wife is my hero. She lost her father, brother, and mother, all at an early age. She’s had multiple surgeries on her spine, hips, and feet due to arthritis, and she’s continued to forge ahead in spite of all that. She struggled with alcoholism terribly, yet has stayed sober for twenty-plus years now and has remained loving and positive through it all. She is an inspiration. Yes, an earthquake hit our family, shook our foundation, and tested our strength. But the shaking we experienced helped us find a solid rock for our lives, one that will never crumble or fall.
CHAPTER 10
Turning Point
As we rolled on toward a new century, my life continued like that of most Americans, full and busy with things significant and insignificant. And like others, I didn’t realize we were all heading toward a sea of change.
I continued to have great moments in my career and much good fortune working with wonderful directors and actors. For instance, while filming George Wallace in 1997, I was struck by Angelina Jolie’s tremendous natural talent, which was obvious to everyone on set. She put her whole heart and soul into her part. In one scene, George takes a bullet and is rushed to the hospital in an ambulance. Angelina played his second, much younger wife, Cornelia, who accompanies George to the hospital. Two camera shots show the action inside the ambulance. The first shot is from George’s perspective, looking up into Cornelia’s face. She says, “You’re going to be all right, hang in there,” while tears run down her face. The second shot is from Cornelia’s perspective, looking down at George. For that shot, there’s no dialogue, just a close-up of my face. When we originally shot the scene, we didn’t have time to capture both images, so a few weeks later they called me back to shoot that one simple picture of my face.
Angelina wasn’t scheduled to work that day, but she insisted on coming in and redoing all her off-camera work, working up real tears again, delivering her impassioned lines to George again. I could have gazed at the trees, and the expression on my face would have been fine. It was just me on a gurney with an oxygen mask on my face, looking up. But Angelina insisted. She wanted to be there for all our scenes, giving it her all, no matter what. I wasn’t surprised over the next few years when her career took off like a rocket. Later I became friends with her father, Jon Voight, and George Wallace would mark the beginning of a gigantic career for Angelina.
Despite the alcoholism-induced chaos in my family during that season, I believe I did some of my best work ever as an actor in George Wallace. John Frankenheimer gave me the support and confidence I needed, and we made a great movie. I’ll always be proud of that film, and today I miss John terribly. He died July 6, 2002, but before he passed I worked on two more movies with him. One was Reindeer Games, which didn’t do as well, and the other was an HBO movie called Path to War, about the Lyndon Johnson administration during the Vietnam War. John wanted me to play Robert McNamara, the secretary of defense, a larger role that would have required a lot of research and preparation. But I just finished playing the lead role of Randle McMurphy in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest on Broadway, an extremely demanding role, and I felt exhausted and couldn’t conceive of tackling another major part just then. John conceded, and instead asked me to be in one scene only where I’d play George Wallace again. I already had the wigs and knew the character inside and out, so I came in for one day, and ultimately was proud to be part of what would become John’s last film.
John had needed a major operation for tumors on his spine. He was a gruff sort of guy and matter-of-fact about his declining health. His operation took seven hours. I called him the next day, and to my surprise, he sounded optimistic and strong. He discussed a new film company he wanted to begin with me, and I was excited and looking forward to that. But his health turned, and the last time I talked with him he sounded very weak. A few days later, Moira and I were at a mall in Malibu when the call came. My dear friend had died. I thought the world of him. Right there in the mall, I broke down and wept.
Over the next few years, the success I had in George Wallace would keep me working regularly, and I was featured in seven movies between 1997 and 1999. The following year, just after the turn of the new millennium, I began rehearsals at Steppenwolf on one of the roles I’d longed to play for years, Randle P. McMurphy in Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. When I was in high school, Barbara Patterson had taken us to see it onstage and I’d fallen in love with the story. In 1975, the film version starring Jack Nicholson premiered at the Chicago Film Festival, and somehow I scored a ticket. Jack showed up, along with director Milos Forman and other cast members. Jack, an acting hero to me, stuck his head over the railing and looked down at the crowd in the theater, and everybody cheered and shouted his name. I wasn’t alone in loving the story. Terry Kinney had played the role of Billy Bibbit at Illinois State University, and Terry had wanted to direct me in the play for a long time. Finally, in 2000, we were going to do it.
Portraying McMurphy onstage required an adrenaline-fueled, full-throttle approach. He’s a larger-than-life character, a Korean War veteran locked in a mental institution, and I gave the role everything I had. The sheer physical demands of the role proved difficult. Each night after I finished the play, I returned to my apartment and steamed my voice with a pan of boiling water and a towel over my head before I went to sleep. Next morning I headed to the gym, slouched in the steam room until my voice became limber enough, then went to do the play again. At one point I lost my voice entirely.