NONFICTION
Borgnine shows he’s more than a ‘working stiff’
A common problem with autobiographies written by entertainers and celebrities is that they can mistake mudslinging for entertainment and they fail to carry the celebrity’s voice.
Not so with “Ernie,” the entertaining autobiography of Ernest Borgnine. The engaging book reads like a letter to his fans as Borgnine shares anecdotes and memories from his nearly 60-year career. The last words in this book: “Thanks for stopping by.”
Up until recently Borgnine had refused requests to document his life. “I’m just a working stiff — who’d want to read about me?” he writes.
That changed last year when he become the oldest living actor to be nominated for a Golden Globe for his role in the Hallmark Channel original movie, “A Grandpa for Christmas,” and decided it was time to share his memories.
In “Ernie,” he weaves stories in a way that you can see the big guy sitting in a chair next to you chatting away with that infectious grin on his face. His conversational style is easy to read and is clearly written in his voice. Give a listen as he sums up his career:
“I’ve died on screen almost thirty times. I’ve been shot, stabbed, kicked, punched through barroom doors by Spencer Tracy and Gary Cooper; pushed in front of moving subway trains, devoured by rats and a giant mutated fish; blown up in spaceships, melted down into a Technicolor puddle, jumped into a snake pit, and I perish from thirst in the Sahara Desert. I bounced around a capsized ocean liner, beat Frank Sinatra to death, impaled Lee Marvin with a pitchfork, and had my way with Raquel Welch.”
That’s only part of it, but you get the picture.
Borgnine was born Ermes Effron Borgnino in 1917 in Hamden, Conn. His grandfather was an immigrant from Northern Italy who worked in a brickyard until the day he died. His father, Camillo, not wanting the same fate, moved to New York City and worked as a waiter at the Waldorf-Astoria. The high-cost of living in the big city, even then, forced him to move back to Connecticut where he met a young Italian immigrant named Anna at a dance. They married a few weeks later.
Early problems in the marriage led Borgnine’s “sainted mother” to take her son back to the old country where he fell in love with the people and farming. When they returned to the states, he watched as his father worked hard and found a way to support his family even during the Depression.
After graduating high school, Borgnine signed up for the Navy and served for 10 years. Afterward, trying to decide what to do with his life, his mother gave him the unexpected suggestion of becoming an actor.
“You always like to make a damn fool of yourself making people laugh. Why don’t you give it a try?”
Borgnine did. His first acting experience was a nonspeaking role. He simply had to walk across the stage. It was a lifechanging moment. “I never felt as alive as I did when I walked from wings and those bright lights hit me,” he recalls.
From then he worked on stage, screen and television (most famously in “McHale’s Navy”). The stories are endless, but always told in a gentlemanly fashion. He worked with George Reeves on “Eternity,” but refused to speculate over whether the “Superman” actor died by suicide or murder. “Dead is dead,” Borgnine writes. Gina Lollobrigida was difficult to work with, and he leaves it at that.
He shows class discussing his short-term marriage to entertainer Ethel Merman (whose chapter about Borgnine in her memoir was a blank page). “Ethel was a very, very great talent and a wonderful person . . . when she wasn’t married. What happened to us is a lesson in the downside of fame, which is one reason never to pursue it as a goal in itself.
Borgnine was cast against type as “Marty,” the butcher who finds love, and won an Oscar. He says it’s a lesson anyone who casts an actor on appearance should remember. “Hollywood’s got an awful lot of good actors who are just waiting for an opportunity to work in front of the camera.”
Borgnine was awed by Gary Cooper who once said he wished he could act like him. When Ernie reminded him of his two Oscars, Coop said, “I just got those for saying ‘yup.’ What you do is from life, from experience. It’s real.”
The one role that has followed Borgnine around to this day was that of Fatso Judson, the brutal sergeant who kills Angelo (played by Frank Sinatra) in the 1953 Oscar-winning “From Here to Eternity.” He shares a few stories, with a chuckle, of the people who thought he really killed Sinatra.
Once, he was pulled over by a police car in Hollywood (“I caught the son of a b----- that killed Frank Sinatra,” the cop radioed in) or the time during a film shoot he was surrounded by people who were mad that he killed Ol’ Blue Eyes. (In Italian, Borgnine told them, “It was a picture . . . just a movie.”)
“Never underestimate the power of the movies — these guys really believe I killed Sinatra,” Borgnine writes.
To this day, Borgnine carries on the tradition of his father and those farmers in Italy, who instilled a strong work ethic in him. At 91, the man who voices Mermaid Man in the popular “SpongeBob Square-Pants” cartoons, balks at thoughts of retirement.
“I’ve been knocking around this planet for nearly a century, working for much of that time and still raring to go,” he writes. “Turns out I didn’t win the Golden Gobe for ‘A Grandpa for Christmas,’ but that’s okay. I’ve gone from a working stiff who didn’t want to set the world on fire, who just wanted to keep his nuts warm, to where I am. And that’s been more than I could ever hoped for.”
Ernie: The Autobiography
By Ernest Borgnine
$24.95, Citadel Press, 288 pages
