[ PEOPLE ]
BURL BURLINGAME / BBURLINGAME@STARBULLETIN.COM
Actor Ernest Borgnine is so Italian that all his memories seem to have food attached.
Living the real
‘McHale’s Navy’
WHEN the Imperial Japanese Navy attacked the U.S. Fleet at Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, Ernest Borgnine had already retired from the Navy. In fact, he was in the midst of negotiating a nickel-an-hour raise at his first civvy job, casing inspector at a munitions plant in New Haven.
"I joined up in 1935 -- a Depression sailor, eager to do anything to get a job," recalls Borgnine. "I saw the sign: Join the navy and see the world. Sounded like heaven to me, and to get paid for it too! I beat out something like 1,200 guys for the position. Actually the guy in front of me got rejected for piles. Thank goodness for his hemorroids."
Borgnine served his six-year hitch and got out. And then he got called back in when war broke out. And then he got called back into uniform as the star of "McHale's Navy." And now he's been called back in again. Borgnine, Navy veteran and naval actor, is delivering the keynote address at 7 a.m. Sunday at the National Park Service's Dec. 7 commemoration at the USS Arizona Memorial Visitors Center. It's free and open to the public.
He's been to Pearl Harbor before. Actually, he's been IN Pearl Harbor. As a "tin can" sailor attached to the four-stacker destroyer USS Lamberton (DD-119), Borgnine was occasionally caught on shore at the Pearl City landing when the last liberty boat pulled away. "Aw, we'd just strip down to our skivvies, ties our clothes on top of our heads and swim out to the ship," he recalls. "At least we did until we were told there were sharks in the harbor."
He spent the rest of the war as a gunner's mate on an impressed yacht converted to anti-sub duties. "We didn't dare fire the three-inch gun for fear it would collapse the wooden deck."
Thoroughly Italian, Borgnine joined the navy to be a mess cook ("Funny, the only thing I never made for the crew was spaghetti") and to this day his memories are spiced with food. He was, for example, eating "a nice beef stew" when he got a phone call offering him the breakthrough role of Fatso Judson in "From Here to Eternity," a part Borgnine consumed so thoroughly that he was cast as a heavy for years.
He has no Hawaii memories from the filming, as all of his parts were filmed on a Hollywood soundstage. "What did I care?" he laughs. "I was getting $700 a week, and Frankie Sinatra was getting $500."
Another dinner-interrupting phone call led to an Academy Award. "You see, I really wanted to play Judd in the movie 'Oklahoma,' and I was crushed when Roddy Steiger got the part. But Steiger was supposed to replay his TV role in 'Marty,' and couldn't do it because of 'Oklahoma,' so I got a call to be in this movie. Sure, I said, never dreaming it was the lead. But producer Bob Aldrich said he had confidence in me. I was struck. Believe in me, I said, and I'll give you 120 percent.
"What I didn't know was that the picture was bering made as a deliberate tax loss. They were only going to film half of it, then collapse the production. But the lawyers said to be a total loss it had to be completed and shown at least once. Next thing we know, it has eight Academy Award nominations. Let me tell you, things change when you've got an Oscar on the shelf."
And that's why, in the early '60s, when his agent called offering the lead role in a sitcom called "McHale's Navy," Borgnine, feeling superior as a film actor, turned it down. Then a kid selling charity chocolate rang the doorbell.
"I recognize you," stammered the kid. "You're an actor."
"I'm James Arness," said Borgnine, eyeing the chocolate. (He still remembers the brand).
"No, he's on 'Gunsmoke' on TV," said the kid.
"Then I'm Richard Boone."
"No, he's on 'Have Gun, Will Travel' on TV," said the kid.
"OK. I'm Ernest Borgnine."
"Never heard of you," said the kid. Borgnine bought chocolate anyway and promptly called his agent, taking the part of Lt.Cmdr. Quinton McHale.
"We had such a sharp crew and cast on 'McHale' that we were generally done with the day's filming by noon," said Borgnine. "But we didn't dare tell the studio, otherwise they'd have paid us for a shorter week!
"Oh my god, the recognition that part brought me around the world," said Borgnine. "Just this morning the maid came into the hotel and gasped, 'Gilligan's Island!' People just want to shake your hand, and I never say no. It's wonderful to be in a business that brings so much enjoyment to people."
And with that, Ernest Borgnine, family and friends went -- where else? -- to lunch.
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