Christal Cooper
Cooper’s Scripted Interview
With Dwayne Epstein
The Biographer of Lee Marvin: Point Blank
I
remember Lee Marvin for his roles in two movies Cat Ballou and The
Dirty Dozen. There were two
things that struck me the most about him:
his god-like voice and his white angel hair. I’d always known he’d
served in the military, which, in my mind, set him apart from being just an
actor to a hero who acted.
It
only seemed fitting that I’d want to read Dwayne Epstein’s biography, Lee
Marvin: Point Blank– to learn about this mythical man and no longer
think of him as a mythical figure but a real human being.
There
are many elements to Lee Marvin:
Point Blank: his ancestry
(he is related to First President George Washington); his childhood (he was a
troubled child thought to have Dyslexia and ADD); his parentage (his father
Monte was a salesman who served in the military, and his mother Courtenay was a
writer); his history with women; his life as an actor; his life as a father; and
his life as a military man which I found to be the most impressive.
I come
from a long line of military members. My
great-great grandfather Robert Whiting fought in the Civil War on the side of
the north; Grandfather Henry Kieke fought in World War Two and the Korean War; Grandfather
Harry Thomas fought in World War Two; my uncle Gene served in the army; and my
father Chuck retired in 1980 after 20 years in the Air Force. Today I am married to an Air Force officer,
Wayne, who is scheduled to retire in June of 2016 after 25 years of service,
and his father, my father-in-law, Lyle Cooper served in the Air Force.
After
reading Lee Marvin: Point Blank – I have a new appreciation for Lee
Marvin that I didn’t have before. He
served his country, witnessed things during his service that no human being
should have to witness, and as a result developed Post Traumatic Stress
Disorder and sought alcohol as an escape.
But more importantly Marvin sought acting as an escape – and it is the
acting that he is the most legendary for.
Dwayne Epstein, Lee Marvin's biographer and the author of Lee Marvin: Point Blank also has a military history: his father Morris Epstein and his Uncle Hank Epstein served in the military during World War Two.
Below is a scripted interview conducted between Dwayne Epstein, author of Lee Marvin: Point Blank and myself.
Below is a scripted interview conducted between Dwayne Epstein, author of Lee Marvin: Point Blank and myself.
1.
What month in 1960 were you born?
I was
born in August. I also have two older sisters and when I was born, my dad was
working as a truck driver in New York City. The dispatcher radioed him that my
mom went into labor so he rushed to the hospital. He got there and asked the
nurse if it was a boy or girl. She asked him to guess and he angrily (and
understandably) barked, "I'm not playing any goddamn guessing games!"
The doctor came out, calmed my dad and asked, "What have you got at
home?" My dad said, "Two girls." Then, the doctor used these
words, which were the first ever used to described me to anybody: "This
one's different." I'd like to think I've been proving that doctor right
ever since.
2.
First memory of Lee Marvin?
When I
was a kid, they used to show The Dirty
Dozen on television in two parts and it quickly became my favorite film.
In
fact, when I watch it today on DVD, I sometimes have to remind myself that I
don't have to wait until the next day to watch the second half as I remember
exactly when part one would end and part two begins. That was probably my
earliest memory of him.
I've
since come to appreciate other aspects of that film, such as John Cassavetes'
performance but the impact Marvin had on me when first viewing it, still
remains.
3.
What was your major at Mercer Community College in New Jersey?
I was a
Liberal Arts major and was also Phi Theta Kappa while I was there. Even though
it was a community college there were some wonderful teachers there I remember
with great fondness. I had planned to go on to Rutgers but as John Lennon said,
life is what happens while your busy making other plans, such as having to pay
bills and the like.
4.
When did you recognize you were a writer?
I did
kind of okay in school but I really seemed to excel when an assignment or a
test required an essay. Not being the brightest guy when it came to recognizing
my own ability, I didn't realize how many times my writing ability saved me
from bad grades until I was MUCH older. As the old saying goes, sometimes it's
not so much a light bulb that goes off as a whack in the back of the head with
a 2x4 that does that trick.
I've
been a movie fan my entire life so consequently, it also dawned on me, albeit,
equally slowly, that I could combine my love of movies with my ability to
write. I don't necessarily enjoy the writing process itself, though. For me,
it's akin to what Dorothy Parker said when she was asked if she enjoys writing.
She said, "I enjoy having written." I feel the same way. The process
is laborious for me but when I look back at some of what I've written, I enjoy
it, that is when I don't wince at some of my more clunkier efforts.
5.
Can you give me a brief chronology of your writer career?
When I
was in college, I wrote for the school paper and also entered and won several
Phi Theta Kappa writing contests on campus. That proved to be the whack in the
head with the 2x4. I decided to give it a try from there as a professional. I
had written some freelance articles for a publisher of five local papers in New
Jersey and the editor eventually hired me on staff. I enjoyed working there and
learned a lot. I eventually chose to move back to California for personal
reasons but there was one aspect of working at Cranbury Publications that has
stayed with me to this day. One of the sales people there and I became very
close and as I like to say, I was Jimmy Olson to her Lois Lane. Barbara and I
have been together ever since.
When
I came back to California, I found work on several other local papers and then
began working for a gentleman named Mike Miller who ran a company called Miller
Education Materials. He sold books to schools throughout the country and as his
managing editor, we put together the catalog for three companies in all. I
learned a lot there as well, including earning my first book publishing credit
when Mr. Miller decided to branch out a little more. Unfortunately, after 9/11
the company suffered financially and I was laid off. Being a lifelong movie fan
I was also freelancing for Filmfax and Outre magazines at the same time. That
was where my initial research on Lee Marvin first saw the light of day.
6.
What was the step-by-step process of writing LEE MARVIN: POINT BLANK from the moment the idea was
first conceived (conversation with Marshal Terrill) in your brain until final
book form?
It did
indeed begin with a conversation I had with fellow biographer Marshall Terrill.
He had written a very thorough biography on Steve McQueen and being a fan of
McQueen, I asked to meet with him. He obliged so we got together and we talked
a lot about a lot of things. At that time in my life, my writing career was
kind of lying fallow as I made ends meet by other means, mostly restaurant
work. The conversation we had led to my re-considering going back to writing
and having Lee Marvin be the reason for my reconsideration.
I
was reticent at first for a myriad of reasons to take on the project. Being
part of the tail end of the Baby Boomer generation, I had no concept of what it
must have been like for Marvin growing up a member of The Greatest Generation
and all that it entails, such as The Depression, World War II, even the onset
of The Cold War.
As I
dipped my toe into the initial research, I was amazed to discover that even
though he was of course a part of that generation and all that he had
experienced, he really was quite different from many men of that time period. I
have family members of that generation and some of those cliches are indeed
true as they were for Marvin. However, it was both refreshing and revelational
to discover Marvin was a bit of Feminist in his view of women, for example. His
having a working mother probably helped formed that point of view in no small
measure. The more I researched him the more pleasantly surprised I became.
Granted, not entirely, but for the most part, it was indeed eye-opening.
Also,
once I began researching his life, it became quite clear to me that he suffered
intensely from undiagnosed Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder following the war.
I'm not a doctor or any in way
knowledgeable on the subject but the stories people were telling me made
it quite obvious. The symptoms were glaring. There are more revelations I came
across as the research continued — which kept me fascinated for the duration of
the project — for which I interviewed more than a hundred people. The results
of those interviews and the research are all within the covers of Lee Marvin Point Blank.
8.
What was the most interesting thing you learned about Lee Marvin?
That's
difficult to narrow down since there was so much about him I found fascinating.
Early on, I discovered that he was not the image he liked to perpetrate on and
off screen, even on the most superficial level. For example, he was a big fan
of the Blues and Jazz music, which led to some wonderful anecdotes once I
discovered that side of his personality.
I
was very intrigued to find out how dedicated he was to his craft despite his
rather flippant attitude to the film industry in general. From the very
beginning of his career, it became extremely important to him to ensure his
depiction of the violent characters he portrayed were as authentic and believable
as he could possibly make them. Keep in mind, he felt this way at a time when
most violence on film was less than realistic. This point of view he staunchly
maintained became one of the overriding themes in the book and was almost the
subtitle: "How Lee Marvin Created the Modern American Cinema of
Violence." Naturally, my publisher thought it a little long, however Lee Marvin Point Blank said it much more
succinctly as I explain in the introduction.
He
was also surprisingly liberal in his personal politics, which probably comes as
a big surprise to many of his fans. I’ve
read blogs and comments about Lee Marvin online. He’s often been called
“America’s favorite badass,” or “he’s not a wussy,” and “he would kick Obama’s
ass!” Things like that. People who say stuff along those lines fail to realize
that Lee Marvin was not John Wayne. Most of his life Lee Marvin was a liberal
Democrat. He worked for John F. Kennedy’s campaign in 1960. By the way, John Wayne
and Lee Marvin were friends. They worked together, but Lee Marvin would
definitely not be put in the category of a Tea Partier. I guess you can be a
liberal and still be a badass.
Those
are just a couple of things I discovered in my research about the man that
interested me. Readers of the book will most likely discover a whole lot more.
9.
Your favorite Lee Marvin movie and why?
That's
also a difficult one to answer because to me, it's like asking a parent to name
their favorite child, but I'll try. One factor making it difficult is that
there were several different stages to Marvin's career. The first stage was
playing smaller roles in some great and mediocre films. The he went a lengthy
period playing major roles or second leads until his middle-aged ascent into
stardom. I have favorites in all three stages of his career.
Off
the top of my head, of his early roles, I loved him in a strange little film
called Shack Out on 101 (1955). It's
a Cold War thriller that practically defies description but I highly recommend
it for its entertainment value alone, which cannot be overestimated. He also
was wonderful in a cult western with Randolph Scott called Seven Men From Now (1956). The dialogue scene in the covered wagon
and the film's finale is some of the best work Marvin's ever done.
There's
also The Wild One (1954), The Big Heat (1953), Bad Day at Black Rock (1955) and Raintree County (1957), superior films
in either execution or budget in which Marvin is a true stand out in every
scene he's in.
For
the mid-point in his career he was amazing in The Comancheros (1961), The
Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962) Donavan's
Reef (1963) and The Killers (1964).
The films themselves may vary in quality but not Marvin's performances. He
steals scenes from everyone around him, including the likes of Ronald Reagan
and John Wayne.
Once
he established himself as a major star in the mid-sixties, he made a string of
action films that are almost
unprecedented in both their production value and his memorable
performances in them. The Professionals (1966)
is a personal favorite in that group as well as the aforementioned Dirty Dozen. Several of these films
still stand the test of time no matter how old they are but even more amazing
is how believable Marvin remained as a middle-aged action star. The silver
hair, aged features and deep resonant voice worked for him, not against him
even in the overblown musical Paint Your
Wagon (1969), which is a favorite guilty pleasure.
Other
favorites include the forgotten elegiac western Monte Walsh (1970), the
violent Depression-era hobo opus Emperor
of the North (1973), the limited released film version of Eugene O'Neill's The Iceman Cometh (1973), filmmaker Sam
Fuller's autobiographical WWII film The
Big Red One (1980)....As you can probably guess, I'm quite a Lee Marvin
fan.
10.
What is your secret to getting that important interview for this
book, especially if the person’s number and address is not listed?
No
secret, really. Just good old fashioned perseverance. Keep in mind, I began
this project back in 1994, long before the advent of the digital world we all
take for granted and makes such research infinitely easier. I had to rely a lot
on my wits and lots of good fortune.
A
good example was my getting to interview Lee's older brother, Robert, who had
never been interviewed before. Robert had been a teacher in New York City and
since I have a cousin who is also a teacher and active in the New York
teacher's union, I had her look him up for me. I was not entirely sure she had
the right Robert Marvin but once I dialed the number and heard his voice, I
knew instantly that it was him. It took some time to convince him that my aim
was legitimate, but once I did, he eventually gave me open and exclusive
access.
Although
they've both since passed on, he and his wife still resided in the Marvin
family home in Woodstock, New York when I interviewed them. My first night
there, I slept in Lee's old room. Just as my head hit the pillow, a storm that
had been threatening earlier finally made its presence known. It was one of
those horrendously humid East Coast
summer storms, with thunder and lightening stubbornly keeping me from ever
falling asleep. Restless, I got up and began exploring the house. It didn't
take long for me to discover a long lost cache of important papers and photos
to pore over. The next morning, I showed them to a very surprised Robert and
told him, "Maybe Lee was trying to tell me to get the hell out of his
house." Robert smiled slyly and said, "Maybe Lee was trying to get
you to get up and go find this stuff."
Many
of the people I was lucky enough to interview have since passed on, such as his
palimony lawyer David Kagon, his career-long agent Meyer Mishkin, even his son Christopher.
All of them and more were willing to go on the record with me exclusively,
resulting in a totally different portrait of the man than had ever been seen
before.
11.
Were there pieces of information that you did not include in the
book you are willing to share?
For a
multitude of reasons -- whether it be length, legal issues, timing or something wholly unforeseen -- there's
always something or other that doesn't make the final cut. Luckily, there's the
internet, which has allowed me to periodically add to the story of Lee Marvin
via my ongoing blog.
For
instance, I recently came in contact with actor Bruce Davison via Facebook whom
I never thought of interviewing since he and Marvin never worked together.
Turns out he happened to meet Lee in Munich once and the content of that casual
meet-up would have definitely been in the book had I known of it at the time.
Consequently, it did make for a powerful blog entry, though. http://pointblankbook.com/actor-bruce-davison-on-meeting-lee-marvin/
12.
I felt like Marvin’s life as an actor, military man, lover/husband
was complete but his life as a father had a gap. Was that deliberate?
Partly
yes but it was largely a matter of circumstance. I contacted all of Marvin's children and in
each case I had to respect their wishes as to whether they would be willing to
be interviewed or not. Christopher ultimately did agree and was extremely
forthcoming with his memories of his father. His sisters were understandably
reticent as they had been extremely disenchanted by previous media requests.
Also,
there were several magazine articles in the 60s in which he spoke about his
role as a father but like many such magazine articles, they did not seem to
ring true. I chose to either get it right or not include it at all.
Consequently, there may feel like gap, but I was able to write what I could
about the man as a father. If he may have come lacking as a father in the book
then maybe that's why.
When
I first started working on the book that thought occurred to me many times,
that is until I saw the brilliant documentary Crumb (1994) by filmmaker
Terry Zwigoff. The complex story of underground comic book artist R. Crumb was
fascinating on many levels, not the least of which was exploring his
relationships with and feelings toward women. I was amazed to discover at the
end of the film that he has several sisters who refused to be interviewed for
the movie. I took great solace in knowing the filmmaker told a fully rounded
tale without the input of such primary sources. In other words, it can be done.
13.
Where are his four children now (I know one has passed)?
Actually
two have passed. Lee's youngest, his daughter Claudia, died of liver disease in
2012, which was just prior to the book's publication. At her brother
Christopher's request, I dedicated the book to her. As you know, Christopher
also passed in 2013 just short of his 60th birthday. Their siblings, Courtenay
and Cynthia are very much with us and living happily in California. What
they've being doing with their lives is listed in one of the several
bibliographies painstakingly listed in the back of the book.
Matter
of fact, I just found out that Cynthia's son became a father this summer making
Lee's first wife, Betty -- a terrific lady, by the way -- a great grandmother!
If my publisher ever does a reprint, that is definitely going to be in it!
14.
What was the most compelling excerpt you wrote in the book? And
why?
Once
again, hard to narrow down but I'll try. It often was not so much a matter of
my writing as it was the subject matter I was dealing with.
Of
the more than one hundred people I was fortunate enough to interview, I can say
without exaggeration that each one of them told me some compelling factoid,
anecdote or insightful piece of information that was useful to my work.
Granted, some more than others, such as his first wife, his son, his brother,
his agent, his lawyer, what-have-you, but they all contributed in their own way
to my research, immeasurably.
On
a personal level, as a life long film fan, I have read many, many biographies as well as books on film and
have absorbed much from what works best and least for the reader. For me,
nothing is boring in the genre then long passages involving how much money was
made or spent on a given project. When I
was given the chance to write Lee Marvin
Point Blank, I focused on what I thought was interesting as a reader in
similar books.
With
that in mind, I think the most compelling parts of the book, for me, anyway,
was seeing the way in which personal events in Marvin's life, influenced his
work in a very creative way. My friend Bill Krohn, author of the book Hitchcock at Work, has an interesting
term for it. He refers to it as how they get the rabbit out of the hat.
Once I
discovered that Lee Marvin was the progenitor of film violence, I dug deep to
see where that came. This then is what set me on the path of finding the rabbit
which meant his experiences in the war, his dysfunctional family, even his
impressive ancestry. From my point of view that was the most compelling aspect.
15.
Can you give the details of your conversation with Marshall
Terrill that led you to write the book?
Well,
it was a quite long time ago but I'll try. I had contacted Marshall because I
noted a few discrepancies in his McQueen book and wanted to discuss them with
him. I was merely hoping for a mention in the reprint if they were corrected.
What resulted instead from the conversation was a life-changing career move I
never would have anticipated.
I
guess I may have been trying to impress him because I recall that fairly early
in the conversation he told me that with my knowledge of film I should write a film biography of a favorite
actor myself. My sarcastic response was, "I'd like to but you already
wrote it!" It did not take long for the conversation to then turn to the
possibility of who I could write about. Being the movie fan that I am there
were of course a plethora of choices but what narrowed the field was market
considerations. Marshall had been a marketing major in college and following
that had also worked in the business world. His input on that level was
valuable as we ticked off a list of major stars who really had not had a
definitive bio written about them. It was that marketing challenge that brought
us to Lee Marvin. There had been one or two previous books on the subject but
nothing that could possibly be called definitive.
I
told him I would think about it but from that moment on, he never gave up
trying to talk me into it. Despite any differences we may have had through the
years, as well as my own insecurities, he has remained one of the book's
biggest champions and for that I am eternally grateful.
16.
When did you begin and end the project? (a period of 20 years?)
Not
long after my conversation with Marshall, I began the initial research on the
project and that was back in 1994. Believe me, had I known it would take nearly
20 years to get published, I doubt very highly if I would have pursued it.
Luckily, it was a subject I did not ever tire of researching. The more I found
out, the more enthused I became. It's funny in that even Lee's first wife,
Betty said to me at one point, "Aren't you getting sick of Lee? I would be
and I was married to the man!"
The
reason it took so long quite simply is the fact that every major publisher I
approached told me the same, thing. With all due respect to Marshall's business
acumen, they all said there was no market and no one is interested in a book on
Lee Marvin.
In the
interim, I was able to do some freelance writing of several biographies for a
company called Lucent, a subsidiary of Gale & Cengage Learning. I wrote six
young adult biographies as part of their series entitled People in the News
while continuing to do work on the Marvin book. Those YA books were a godsend
for me as they inadvertently honed my writing schools and taught me much in
terms of biographical writing. There were requirements for those titles that
included maintaining ongoing themes, several bibliographies and more that
proved extremely useful to me. The subjects consisted of Will Ferrell, Adam
Sandler, Hilary Swank, Nancy Pelosi, Denzel Washington and Hillary Clinton.
They pay wasn't great but the hands-on experience was incalculable.
They
were several close calls along the way in which an occasional large publishing
house would show interest in the Marvin book, but when the interested editor
took it to their editorial board, it was always frustratingly voted down.
All that changed permanently when I switched
agents for the third time. The previous agents were okay but not nearly as
persistent as Mike Hamilburg, my current agent, confidante and friend. I should
point out that even though I continued researching and cataloging information
on Marvin the project was put on the back burner for a few years when I had to
hep my ailing parents. My father passed away from Alzheimer's in 2005 and my
mother passed from heart disease three years later. When the smoke settled, I
got back in contact with Mike Hamilburg, revamped my entire work up to that
time to create a stronger proposal and in less than a year he had an interested
publisher. I cannot say enough about either Hamilburg's belief in the project
nor publisher Tim Schaffner's mission within his company Schaffner Press to put
out a quality product while the rest of the publishing world thumbed their
noses.
It
may have taken nearly 20 years but to my mind, it was worth it. When I'd get
the inevitable rejection letters Marshall told me to keep them as reminders for
when I do get published. He was right about that. In July of 2014 Lee
Marvin Point Blank became the number 4 bestselling non-fiction E-book
on the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Publisher's Weekly bestseller
lists. I know they're read by the publishers who passed on it so there is some
retribution in that. More importantly, it became an amazing life lesson for me
by example: No matter the odds, if you believe in what you're doing, never give
up on your dream!
17.
What was Lee Marvin’s religion/ spiritual affiliation if any?
The
book came out in January 2013 and I've done a lot of press for it but that is
the very first time anybody has asked me that question! Kudos, to you! I can
tell you that his roots go back to the earliest Puritans who first came to
America in the 1600s. As for Lee himself, I've seen documents that show he was
confirmed as an Episcopalian when he was ten years old. Keep in mind, though,
throughout his life he had many run-ins with various forms of Christianity
based on whatever private school he may have attended for different periods of
time. Quaker, Catholic, he was thrown out of a lot of schools. As for what Lee
Marvin the man believed, I'm really not certain. I do know several friends told
me he did have a gentle contemplative, spiritual side that very few people were
privileged to see.
18.
Did Lee Marvin deliberately only leave his four children $20,000
or was it due to a “technicality”?
No, it
was indeed deliberate. As you've
observed, I mention how much his children received in the book but purposely
avoided the messy details as to why. Lee Marvin's long-time business manager,
Ed Silver, explained to me the reason but it was said off the record and I
believe in honoring people's wishes.
I can say that when I asked Christopher
about it, his point of view was rather surprising. In spite of how much his
father's estate was worth, Christopher firmly believed that $20,000 was a
considerable sum to be fully appreciated which indeed he did. Being a musician,
Christopher stated that his only regret was that it was not enough to fulfill
his dream of opening a music school for disadvantaged children. He was quite a
guy and I miss him a lot.
On
the same subject, Lee's brother Robert told me that he was left a tidy sum for
what the will called Robert's "Continued education and well-being,"
which impressed Robert no small amount.
19.
You interviewed individuals who knew Lee in the war — but only
included Lee’s letters. Why did you not include information from the interviews
as well?
I did
include a little from individuals since there were a few anecdotes retold from
others he spoke with about his war experiences that were used to link some of
the letters. However, I knew how critical that chapter was. It was the very
foundation to a lot of Lee Marvin’s life, and I didn’t want to screw it up.
I’ve never been in or even seen battle, and badly written battles or wartime
remembrances are untrue and they can really turn the reader off to the rest of
the book.
To
put it another way, I’m not Ernest Hemingway or Ernie Pyle. I have no
experience in writing that kind of thing. It was quite a dilemma for me how to
approach it as the clock was ticking. Then, I realized while finalizing the
research, that if I put the letters that I had been previously given from Lee’s
family in chronological order, I determined that he could write this chapter
himself and he should. That was the hardest part of doing that, deciphering
what he wrote. As you pointed out, he was dyslexic, and he also had terrible
handwriting. Some of those letters were composed in combat conditions so that
was a factor, as well. It was a lot like being an archaeologist, deciphering
what he wrote. Putting them together, I realized this is Lee Marvin’s voice.
Let him tell the story himself. It was the best way I could think of to let the
chapter ring as true as possible and based on the feedback it's received, I
think it succeeded.
20.
I felt Lee Marvin was rebellious (ADHD, Dyslexia, (my son has
this) but perhaps had Oppositional Defiance Disorder) and then Lee Marvin
seemed to change when he entered the military. What led to this drastic change?
There
were of course several reasons for the change but the most obvious and
overwhelming had to be the war itself. It was immediate as he had problems with
discipline when he was in the service as well but it did lessen dramatically.
Keep in mind that he was also a little older during the war and the maturing
process was sort of sped up due to what he experienced. When you read his
letters from that time compared to his correspondence during his school years,
the transformation becomes rather obvious.
Something
else to consider is that it was a very different mind set in those days among
most people because of the war. My favorite example of that is from an uncle of
mine. When he was a young man, he had a reputation for fighting especially,
with his older brother. I recall asking him once what made him stop fighting. His
response was simply, "WWII. It made everything else seem minor by
comparison." Certainly made sense to me since he went on to become the
tail-gunner on the Shoo-Shoo Baby, one of the famous Flying Fortress B-17s
during the war.
22. Anything you would like to add?
Do you
mean other than asking your followers to read the book? Sure. See as many Lee
Marvin movies as possible since all of them are available in one format or
another for public consumption. I can pretty much guarantee your readers will
not be disappointed.
With
lessons learned from each of the Marines’ previous skirmishes, they bombarded
each island with artillery at dawn, having sent in trained Marine scout/snipers
the night before for reconnaissance. The
scout/snipers, of which Lee Marvin was one, administered silent death to any
Japanese that were encountered. As much
as he wanted to, these events could not be written about in family
letters. Instead, he wrote the
following:
2/14/44: Dear Mother;
Well here is the second letter, which will have to be fairly
short. I guess the papers said that the
Marshall Islands were taken. Our company was the first Marines that landed on
them, in fact the first Marines to land on Jap held territory before Pearl
Harbor. The job was done in good order
and in good spirit. I am in fine health
so don’t worry. It is hard to think that
it is winter back home, as it is pretty hot here, but to think of you and home
is a blessing.
Lee
could not detail his experiences to his mother, such as staying on the island
throughout the night until the bombardment began. He could not speak of the mosquitoes,
leeches, dysentery, and the permeating wetness to be avoided or run the risk of
jungle rot. Nor could he speak of the
death encountered. ‘On Kwajalein there
were six guys wearing white in a trench,” he told LIFE Magazine in the
1960s. “I get up there waiting for them
to move so I could pull the trigger. But
none of them made a move. One of our
guys comes along and says, ‘What’s the matter?’
I said, ‘I don’t know. They look
like merchant marine to me.’ He looked
at me and cursed and empties his gun into the trench. Then he threw in a hand grenade.”
Witnessing
such behavior made it easier for Marvin to perpetrate it himself. A neighbor in California remembers the actor
opening up to him about his war experiences:
“He was assigned to knock out a whole foxhole full of Japanese machine
gunners. He went in there and I guess he
laid out about 5-7 of them . . .Years pass and that’s something you just don’t
kiss off easily . . . you could tell it was really hurting him.” At the time all he could do was write the
following:
3/13/44
Dear Pop;
Lots has happened in the past few months but nothing that I can
not speak of now, as the regulations are pretty strict on such things. I can tell you one thing and that is I have
had my fill of war
Thanks again for the .45, as it is the best foxhole buddy a Marine
can have. I hope that you won’t mind the
notch in the handle but you know how things like that are. I only fired it once but that was all that
was necessary. It is in damn good
condition and will remain that way. I am
in good shape and feeling fine so don’t let that worry you.
4/14/44: Dear Pop;
I might not be writing
so don’t let it worry you. Our company
got quite a good name for itself after those 17 islands and a night raid in
rubber boats.
They asked me to join
another scout and sniper outfit but I don’t think I will, as it is not until
you sign on that you do realize its danger.
I was lucky once and I don’t want to tax it.
He
had good reason not to want to tax his luck.
On the island of Eniwetok, he and five others rushed a machine gun nest
that had kept the company pinned down.
Crawling on their bellies on either side of the nest the six of them
were able to get close enough to lob in grenades, killing half the men
inside. When Marvin rushed in to kill
the rest, his foot caught and sent him and his rifle sprawling. He rolled over
to see his foot had caught on a sand-covered trapdoor that the other Japanese
machine gunners were sneaking into. He made eye contact with one of them. “He popped out of that hole like a little
animal,” said Marvin. “For a second I
just lay there on my ass surprised as hell while he blinked at me. Then he
lunged. He tried to stick his bayonet in my eye. So I took it away from him. It wasn’t hard to do because he was just a
little bastard, maybe 5 feet 3 or so. I
shoved that goddamned thing into his chest all the way to the gun barrel…”
While
Europe was feeling the effects of D-Day on June 6, 1944, the invasion of Saipan
in the Pacific the following week proved equally harrowing. Lee was there and later wrote his brother:
The first night on the island I had a damn
close call. We were in a hell of a
barrage and they were knocking the hell out of us. The hole I was in was about 4 feet deep and
23 across. There were four of us in
it. You know you can hear (the mortars)
coming so I would stick my head up and call the shots, that is if they were to
come visiting 25 yards I’d better duck.
If not we’d just let them go and hope for the best. Well I watched one of our batteries fire and
heard them go off in the hill except it sounded like 3 times as many and sure
enough they were Nip guns firing at us.
I was looking for them and here comes one. I think it had all our names
on it. Man, it sounded like it was in
the hole with us. It hit about three
feet from my head and blew off my pack, gas mask and canteen, killed one of the
boys and wounded the next. But what I
can’t figure out is why it didn’t blow my head off; that it didn’t even scratch
me yet it hit all the rest. Damn, I saw
red for the next ten minutes and it sounded like Big Ben in my head.
It was also while on Saipan that Lee had taken
a letter off a soldier he had killed and out of curiosity brought it in to be
translated. It read, in part:
How is everyone and how is my home
town? Please ease your worries since I
am well as always. I’m doing my duties faithfully. I am determined to do nothing but my best for
my country. I have no regret now. No matter where you are, the moon looks the
same. Sorry that I’m always writing the
same complaints.
This
letter had a powerful effect on him as it transformed the idea of the Japanese
soldier from that of a faceless enemy to a living and breathing fellow human
being. To Marvin, it could have been written
by a fellow American, or even one of the letters he had written home himself.
Photograph Description And Copyright Information
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Dwayne Epstein
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Point Bank web logo
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Lee Marvin as Tim Strawn and Kid Shelleen in Cat
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Lee Marvin as Major John Reisman from The
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Jacket cover of Lee Marvin: Point Blank
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Lee
Marvin, serving with the 4th Marine Division in the Pacific Theater. He was
wounded in action during the World War II Battle of Saipan, in the assault on
Mount Tapochau, during which most of his unit ("I" Company, 24th
Marines, 4th Marine Division) were killed. Marvin's awards are the Purple
Heart, Presidential Unit Citation, Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal, and World
War II Victory Medal.
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Great Great Grandfather Robert Whiting
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Henry Kieke
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Lee Marvin singing autographs for Military
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Dwayne Epstein and Morris Epstein
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Dwayne Epstein in May of 1970
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John Cassavetes and Lee Marvin in The
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John Lennon rehearsing "Give Peace A Chance" in 1969.
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Dwayne Epstein while he was attending Mercer
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The young Dorothy Parker
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Barbara when Dwayne Epstein first met her
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Lee
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Dwayne
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Robert
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David
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Lee
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Dwayne
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Christopher
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Lee
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Lee Marvin (left) and fellow Marine Wade
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Dwayne
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