By Andreas Kessaris for Curtains Up
In 1977 my mother, my brother and I spent the entire summer in Greece. One quiet, warm night in a city called Tripolis she took us to a local cinematorium that showed a different old American movie every night. Upon entering the theatre we discovered why the show didn’t begin until after sundown: The box office was merely a facade. It was an open air auditorium with a dirt floor and cheap wooden folding chairs. The silver screen was the large, portable collapsible kind I had seen before at school assemblies. We were three of only ten or so patrons on hand for that evening’s offering. The film: Cat Ballou. The star: Lee Marvin, in an Academy Award-winning performance.
Hard-bitten, grizzled actor Lee Marvin is the subject of a new biography by journalist Dwayne Epstein entitled Lee Marvin: Point Blank. Epstein gets right to the heart of the matter as he unveils the interesting life of the acclaimed, iconic actor. The title of the book is taken from a film noir classic in which Marvin starred, and the book reads like the man and the actor: Direct. No nonsense. The cover itself has a photo of Marvin, arms folded and giving the camera a “what are you looking at?” glare. There is a difference between being an action hero (like Chuck Norris, Sylvester Stallone or Arnold Schwarzenegger) and being a movie tough-guy. Marvin did not know martial arts or have huge biceps, but he didn’t need them. His icy stare was more menacing than any firearm; a few words from his deep-voice could intimidate any body-building karate expert. He had credibility and presence that came from growing up on the mean streets of New York City and serving as a Marine scout/sniper in the pacific theatre during World War II (where he was awarded the Purple Heart after being shot in the back).
Epstein begins with a brief anecdote about Marvin’s ill-fated audition at New York’s famous Actors Studio that encapsulates everything about his character. Epstein then goes back in Marvin’s family history (Marvin is a descendant of Civil War General Robert E. Lee and famed artic explored Ross Martin is a great uncle), and wastes no time with needless, tedious details as he chronologically pieces together the life of Lee Marvin with direct quotes from family, friends, and associates, as well as personal letters and old interviews from Marvin himself. The result is an effective biography that allows us to fill in the blanks and arrive at our own conclusions. And although Epstein has no real style or technique, (the book reads like a long newspaper article), he at least does not over-do the writing, distracting us or making it a work of hero-worship, and lets Marvin himself be the star of his biography. The result is a simple portrait of a complex man. Someone who could be gentle and sensitive, but also mean and dangerous; about what one would expect from the person Homer Simpson once described as “always drunk and violent.”
The main complaint I have about Lee Marvin: Point Blank is that Epstein unfortunately falls into a common pitfall for biographers who rely heavily on personal interviews: Repetitiveness i.e. several similar descriptions of situations or events from different people when one is all that is required. For example at numerous points in the book people talk about how they admired Marvin for his professionalism because even though he was perpetually out all night drinking, he’d still show up to work on time the next day and not only know his lines, but give a solid performance.
On the positive side Lee Marvin: Point Blank is never boring, and carefully analyzes his behaviour, speculating that Marvin may have suffered from Attention Deficit Disorder and dyslexia, (which may explain why he was bright but a poor student), and like many other combat veterans of the Second World War, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, (which may have led to his drinking and destructive behaviour later in life), although he was never officially diagnosed with either.
The best compliment that a person can bestow a biography and its author is to say that by the end of the book you feel as though you really know and understand the subject, and along those lines Epstein delivers the goods, and although it would be of limited interest to anyone who is not a fan of Lee Marvin, Point Blank remains a fitting tribute to the life, talents and cinematic legacy of the man who was Liberty Vallance.
