The Sunday Memory Drawer - Remembering Ernest Borgnine

If celebrities keep dying at this rate, I won't have any problem filling up the Sunday Memory Drawer every week.

Truth be told, I didn't have the same affinity for the late Ernest Borgnine as I did for Andy Griffith.  I was one of the oddballs in my grade school who didn't love the TV series, "McHale's Navy."  But, nevertheless, the guy struck me pretty much as the average working actor who was proud and eternally grateful to be able to do his craft.   I caught him several months ago on one of those TCM interviews with Robert Osborne and Borgnine was amazingly real, organic, and essentially the next door neighbor who might have just borrowed your step ladder.

Okay, I'm sure he had his bizarre moments.  Let's face it, the guy inexplicably married Ethel Merman and divorced her about a month later.  I could make a salient argument on which end of that union was the crazier action.  Still, Borgnine struck me as being incredibly normal.

Several years ago, my writing partner/roommate and I went through a period where we would procrastinate being creative by watching the Home Shopping Network.  If a celebrity was hawking something, we were even more attentive.  There is nothing funnier than watching a C-list actor selling their soul in the name of a fantastic new juicer.  Or some gaudy baubles on a chain.  Anyway, on this particular day, Tova Borgnine, Ernest's last wife, was peddling a bunch of skin care products designed to melt away the wrinkles of some slob living in Oklahoma.  Tova was taking calls from viewers/would-be customers when, suddenly, a familiar voice dialed in.

"Tova, it's Ernie.  You didn't leave me any mayonnaise."

On national television, a husband and wife were overheard discussing their grocery list.  And it all sounded very real.

But, indeed, I think Ernest Borgnine was very real.  How else could you explain how perfectly he realized the role of Marty, the lonely Bronx butcher, in the 1955 Oscar-winning film of the same name?  About five years ago, I did a blog series where I listed my Top 25 Favorite Films of all time.  "Marty" came in at #22.  It's a movie that I can watch over and over and over, primarily because it hits home for a myriad of reasons.

As I wrote previously....

In the neighborhood of my childhood, I was always captivated by the guy who owned the delicatessen a block away. His name was Charlie and he always looked so sad. I know he had a wife and daughter who lived upstairs from the store, but he never appeared to enjoy slicing ham. I'd go in there usually once a day. I would be armed with a grocery list from one of my parents, requesting I bring home the staples of a daily existence. A quarter pound of salami, a quart of milk, a six pack of Schaefer, and a pack of Kents. At such an early age, I was already an enabler.

Charlie was always nice to me, but I never knew anything about him, except that he was a big fan of Red Skelton. He couldn't get enough of Freddie the Freeloader. I was crazy enough to think that I'd have a future summer job delivering groceries for Charlie. When I got older, I remember asking him. He just smiled faintly. "No thank you." And he went back to his quiet, almost dour existence.I think of Charlie every time I see the movie "Marty." This phenomenal 1955 winner of the Best Picture Oscar offers a portrayal of somebody almost as sad as Charlie.

Marty is the local butcher in a Bronx neighborhood somewhere near Fordham Road. He is a nice and personable overweight man, who is perpetually and probably eternally single. As played by Ernest Borgnine (who could give you stys if you look too long at him), Marty is not the greatest looker in the world. And, except for a couple of losers from the local gin mill on Webster Avenue, everybody around him is married. He lives with his Italian mother, who constantly wonders why he hasn't found that nice girl. Marty starts to become philosophical about it all.

"Ma, sooner or later, there comes a point in a man's life when he's gotta face some facts. And one fact I gotta face is that, whatever it is that women like, I ain't got it. I chased after enough girls in my life, I went to enough dances. I got hurt enough, I don't wanna get hurt no more. I just called up a girl this afternoon, and I got a real brush-off, boy! I figured I was past the point of being hurt, but that hurt. Some stupid woman who I didn't even want to call up. She gave me the brush. No, Ma, I don't wanna go to Stardust Ballroom because all that ever happened to me there was girls made me feel like I was a-a-a bug. I got feelings, you know. I-I had enough pain. No thanks, Ma!"

So, Marty adopts the sadness as a part of his life. Just as I watched Charlie the deli owner do when I was a kid.

This is a real movie and it feels even more genuine every time I see it. Let's face it, most men can identify to walking up to someone and asking them out or for a dance---and be summarily dismissed. And most all people can connect with the sensation of human rejection. Despite the fact that it is set in the Bronx of the 1950s, there is a universality that transcends the years. And it sparks anew feelings of a simpler time. Indeed, "Marty" was filmed entirely on the streets of the Bronx depicted in the movie, which makes it exude even more genuineness.

My roommate once mentioned this movie as being thoroughly depressing. Maybe, but always real. And, like life, there is the roller coaster for Marty, because hope is always right around the corner.

When I see "Marty" now, I wonder if Charlie, at one point, asked his wife out for a date at the RKO Fordham. And was there at least a smile on his face that very night?

Reading this passage again, I have been jolted back to that speech Marty makes to his mother.  And a thought came back from the recesses of my mind.

I had a similar moment with my own mother.

In high school, I myself was Marty-like.  A little chubby, a little self-conscious, and a whole lot shy.  Other than my church girlfriend, I was pretty dormant in high school as far as dating was concerned.  Or is that "doormat?"  Whatever the case, my school social life was null and void and I was pretty much relegated to playing penny hockey in the cafeteria during lunch periods.

And, one strange night, it didn't help that my own mother was curious as to my non-comings and non-goings.

"How come you don't date anybody in school?"

Are you freakin' kidding me?????  How dare you poke around in my business????  Do I snoop around yours????

And, the short answer is....

No.

I was asked for simple information and felt completely violated.  My ineptitude was now a topic for discussion in my home.  With a parent, no less.

I could have left it there, but I didn't.  Something propelled me to answer her firmly.  And, all of a sudden, the verbal floodgates opened.

What resulted was not the same prose as Marty shared with his mother.  But, the sentiment was pretty much spot-on.

I went on and on and on.

I was fat.

I thought I was ugly.

I couldn't stand myself.

There, now, Mom, are you glad you asked?

She never did again.

But, the words had been uttered.  And it was all very real for me.  And Charlie.  And Marty.   And, because he seemed to understand that same vulnerability as an actor, probably Ernest Borgnine.

Dinner last night:  Sausage and peppers at Carlo's in Yonkers.