A couple of weeks on the beach, however, put us in a more like-minded, sympathetic frame of mind and we decided to move there. In AA they call that a geographic cure-instead of facing your problems, you simply change locations. As Margie looked for homes, I started work on a movie.

I did not expect to jump back into work, but the ABC movie did not expect to jump back into work, but the ABC movie The Morning After The Morning After turned out to be one of the best and most powerful pieces of acting in my career, as well as one of the most personal. Based on Jack Weiner's novel, the script told the story of an oil company public-relations man's battle with alcoholism, something he first refuses to admit, believing he is merely a "social drinker," but then struggles with after seeking help. turned out to be one of the best and most powerful pieces of acting in my career, as well as one of the most personal. Based on Jack Weiner's novel, the script told the story of an oil company public-relations man's battle with alcoholism, something he first refuses to admit, believing he is merely a "social drinker," but then struggles with after seeking help.

It was unflinchingly raw and honest, and for that reason, I think, it was powerful, disturbing, and provocative.

I knew that I had to do it.

At the time, only a few people guessed I had a problem with booze. So it was ironic when producer David Wolper sent me the script. When I asked why me, I was told that besides having a deal with the network, I fit the type they wanted for the lead: an average, middle-aged, middle-cla.s.s family man.

Before production began, I told director Richard Heffron about my battle with alcoholism. His eyes nearly bugged out of his head. But I could not have asked for better treatment or direction. We worked beautifully together. He would lay out a scene, then say, "d.i.c.k, you know more about this than I do, so just do it the way you see it, the way you feel it." My costars Lynn Carlin and Linda Lavin were also supportive.

We shot that winter in and around L.A., including at the veterans hospital in Brentwood. There, working amid former servicemen who were dealing with addictions of various types, I was moved by the importance of the story we were trying to tell and decided to go public with my own story, giving Marilyn Beck the exclusive. Her eyes bugged out, too.

Fans were accepting when the news. .h.i.t. I received thousands of letters. People understood that those who clowned around and made them laugh often had a dark, private side.

The movie aired on February 13, 1974, and both ratings and reaction were strong. AP TV critic Jay Sharb.u.t.t's review sounded like a summary of my personal tale. "It's not just a tale about the downfall of a corporate lush," he wrote. "Rather, it's a chilling, sip-by-sip study, stirred with a heavy swizzle stick for dramatic emphasis, of how easily any 'social drinker' can slide into alcoholism without realizing he or she can't handle any kind of drinking."

The "strong and welcome antidote to the usual run of TV movies about happy people with happy problems" earned me an Emmy nomination. Although I lost to Hal Holbrook for his work in another extremely powerful TV movie, The Pueblo Affair The Pueblo Affair, I savored the impact of my work. Only the National a.s.sociation of Alcoholism took exception. They had wanted the ending changed so the guy made it. I argued that the movie would not have had the same impact if it ended happily ever after.

As I knew all too well, the disease did not work that way. Unbeknownst to anyone, on two occasions during production-this was after I had come forward in the press about my alcoholism-I went back to the hotel where I was staying and drank. Both slips were after shooting scenes that, at the end of the day, left me feeling depressed and empty.

After each one, I got sick and swore, Never again, though that promise was easier said than kept.

Margie and I bought a beachfront home on Coronado Island with a spectacular view of the ocean. I also purchased a thirty-three-foot Ranger sloop, which occupied so much of my time that I referred to it as my mistress. From the moment I hoisted my first sail the boat became my escape. I loved being on the water, feeling the sun, the wind, and the salt, and most of all the freedom. It released everything in me that I couldn't otherwise express.

I sailed every day, sometimes up the coast, sometimes straight out into the ocean. I studied navigation, the weather, and ocean currents. I was always on the lookout for something, something I couldn't find.

For a while, I talked of journeying to Fiji-not to live. The commute was too far. "But I'd like to try the lifestyle," I said jokingly.

The entire family was trying out lifestyles. One day when Margie and I were on Coronado, our eldest son called. After graduating from law school, Chris had moved to Salem, Oregon, gotten married, and most recently made us grandparents with the birth of his daughter, Jessica. Now he wanted to plant roots. He had his heart set on a one-hundred-year-old home and asked if I'd loan him the money for a down payment.

"Sure," I said. "No problem."

That same afternoon we got a call from our other son, Barry, a great-looking young man who had married a beautiful girl he met when both of them were ushering at a theater. He had also found a house and wanted to borrow money to put down.

Again I said sure, no problem. But then I turned to Margie and said, "We aren't answering the phone the rest of the day."

A short time later Stacy moved to San Francisco with her trumpet-player boyfriend, who used to sit in our living room watching Kung Fu Kung Fu and muttering, "Heavy duty." Margie and I constantly rolled our eyes. What did that mean? We did our best to savor the relatively simple concerns of our baby, Carrie Beth, whose big worries, at fourteen, were homework and the prom. I marveled at the equanimity of our fourth-born. By the time she arrived, our att.i.tude as parents was more cavalier than with the first or second, and I think it made Carrie Beth a calmer person. She was an angel of a girl, an old soul with a preternatural ability to read people that made me think she should become a psychologist. and muttering, "Heavy duty." Margie and I constantly rolled our eyes. What did that mean? We did our best to savor the relatively simple concerns of our baby, Carrie Beth, whose big worries, at fourteen, were homework and the prom. I marveled at the equanimity of our fourth-born. By the time she arrived, our att.i.tude as parents was more cavalier than with the first or second, and I think it made Carrie Beth a calmer person. She was an angel of a girl, an old soul with a preternatural ability to read people that made me think she should become a psychologist.

I could have used one. As my children were finding themselves, I was going through the same thing, a sort of adult-onset confusion that had me asking many of the same questions: What was I going to do with my life? What was going to make me happy? Why wasn't I happy?

Like it or not, life is a never-ending confrontation with bouts of uncertainty and chapters of self-discovery. As I was about to learn, it is a series of fine messes that we enter, some wittingly, and others not.

22.

ANOTHER FINE MESS.

When my daughter Stacy was fourteen, she discovered that she had a beautiful singing voice. We discovered it at the same time.

It was early morning, and my wife and I heard a crystal-clear melodic contralto note sweep through the house, going from room to room and brightening everything along its path. After looking at each other, Margie and I followed the sound into Stacy's bathroom and found her staring at herself in disbelief as she sang that wonderful note.

Singing lessons followed, and in April 1975 I spirited Stacy away from her lazy boyfriend in San Francisco and put her in my latest ABC special, The Confessions of d.i.c.k Van d.y.k.e The Confessions of d.i.c.k Van d.y.k.e. She sang "South Rampart Street" with guest star Michele Lee and me, and then the two of us traded lyrics on "Mockingbird." After that, her voice was no longer a secret and she got involved with musical theater in Scottsdale. But not everything was out in the open.

I followed that special with a pilot for ABC called MacLeish and the Rented Kid MacLeish and the Rented Kid, a story inspired, I a.s.sumed, by the movie A Thousand Clowns A Thousand Clowns, as the updated plot felt similar. I played a political cartoonist content with living on my own until I agreed to care for the eleven-year-old son of a war correspondent friend who was sent overseas. I liked the way it came out, but the network had problems with it though they wanted to go forward.

After the frustrations of my last series, though, I was gun-shy about getting into anything that was not perfect and I nixed the series, walking away from my overall deal with the network. While going through that process, I found myself talking about the ups and downs of the business to my agent's secretary, Mich.e.l.le Triola. I liked her. She was easy to talk to, she understood me, she was interested, and she knew the business.

All the things Margie didn't like, Mich.e.l.le did, and gradually it got to where I was inventing excuses to call Sol so that I could speak with Mich.e.l.le. I looked forward to our conversations. Mich.e.l.le was an opinionated, feisty, smart woman. She wore her dark hair up and large gla.s.ses that gave her cute, girlish face a hip sophistication. She was part of the business and liked talking about every aspect of it, especially the people. She seemed to know or have met everyone.

For good reason, too. Mich.e.l.le had been around. She had studied theater at UCLA before working as a singer and dancer. She was married briefly to actor Skip Ward, best known for his part in The Night of the Iguana The Night of the Iguana. Her father took her to Rome to get that marriage annulled. While in Rome, Mich.e.l.le stumbled upon a jazz festival, introduced herself to the headliner, the great pianist Oscar Peterson, and ended up singing a set with him and his trio, something she talked about for the rest of her life. I would have talked about it, too, had I sung with him.

It was so typical of Mich.e.l.le. She collected stories the same way she collected friends. She had tons of both. And once touched by her sense of humor and enormous heart, few let go, including her ex, Skip Ward. Later, at the end of his life, he was down on his luck and we supported him. But when I took an interest in Mich.e.l.le, she was a demi-celebrity on the front pages and in the gossip columns for the drama she was going through in the courts.

At the time, Mich.e.l.le was suing actor Lee Marvin, with whom she had a six-year relationship between 1964 and 1970. They had met on the movie Ship of Fools Ship of Fools and begun living together shortly after. She gave up her singing and acting career to be with him, and in turn he promised to support her for the rest of her life. It was as if they were married. and begun living together shortly after. She gave up her singing and acting career to be with him, and in turn he promised to support her for the rest of her life. It was as if they were married.

But then he dumped her, leaving Mich.e.l.le with nothing, and she sued for the same rights a wife would have under California law. Hers was a groundbreaking case that received attention nationwide from all sorts of special-interest groups and individuals. Her attorney, Marvin Mitchelson, who coined the term palimony palimony, vowed to take her case to the Supreme Court if necessary, which seemed likely that summer after it was rejected first by California's Superior Court and then by the Second District Court of Appeals.

I provided a friendly ear. When I was in town, I would call the office and end up chatting with her. On occasion, we talked at night or arranged to meet for dinner. Then, when I needed support, I found myself turning to her.

It was that summer, around the time the courts were deciding against Mich.e.l.le, when Jerry called one day and said our father had turned gravely ill and I needed to get on a plane. This was a day I knew was going to come but wanted desperately to avoid.

My parents had been living with Jerry in Las Vegas for about ten years, ever since my father, at sixty, lost his job at a packing and moving company to a younger man. He was unable to find another one. For the past few months, he had been battling emphysema, the result most likely of forty-plus years of smoking cigarettes. When I arrived at the hospital in Las Vegas, I found both my father and mother sitting in the lobby, crying.

"What's the matter?" I asked, alarmed.

My father could not answer.

"We just saw the doctor," my mother replied between deep breaths. "He said, 'Look, you're an old man. You've got emphysema. You're going to die.'"

"He's going to die?"

She nodded.

I looked over at my father. He was shaking from nerves. Tears were streaming down the sides of his face. Bad news is one thing, but to break it to a person that bluntly and that insensitively was unconscionable.

I flew into a rage and ran around the hospital screaming for the doctor who had examined my father. I was going to beat the s.h.i.t out of him. I had never been this upset in my entire life. I covered as much of that hospital as I could and never found the doctor. He was either hiding or he had left.

We decided to move my father to a hospital in Phoenix where they specialized in treating emphysema. He was cognizant of everything that was happening, and although he was dying, he was still himself, a charmer and a jokester. As he was carried on a stretcher onboard the chartered plane taking us to Phoenix, he turned to the pilot and flight attendant and in a suave British accent said, "h.e.l.lo, I'm David Niven."

On the night he died, I was with my mother in a motel near the hospital. Apparently my father's heart began to race and he asked the nurse if she could get it down. She said, "We're working on it, Mr. Van d.y.k.e." He pa.s.sed away a few hours later. We took his body back to Danville for burial. We started out flying on a commercial airline, but on a layover in Dallas I thought, What the heck am I doing? I was distraught and so was my family. So I chartered a plane to take us the rest of the way.

We deplaned at the tiny airport in Danville and stood on the tarmac, tired and unsure what to do next. Jerry put his arm around my shoulder.

"Let's take a cab to the hotel," he said. "It's my treat since you got the jet."

We cracked up and knew my father would have laughed the loudest if he had heard.

There was more shuffling to be done. Soon after, my father-in-law died and we moved my mother and my mother-in-law into a lovely apartment near our place on Coronado. As housemates, they were the female version of the odd couple. They were either laughing hysterically or fighting. We were constantly mediating one issue or another. Between such real-life details, my nascent feelings for Mich.e.l.le, and my marriage, I felt I needed to spend a while on the beach figuring out my life.

But suddenly I found myself listening to Bob Einstein and his writing-producing partner, Allan Blye, both veteran writer-producers of the Smothers Brothers Smothers Brothers and and Sonny and Cher Sonny and Cher variety shows, pitch me an idea for a variety show. Despite asking myself why the h.e.l.l I wanted to do a TV series when I could spend all day doing nothing, I heard myself, for reasons I did not want to a.n.a.lyze, say, "Let's try it." variety shows, pitch me an idea for a variety show. Despite asking myself why the h.e.l.l I wanted to do a TV series when I could spend all day doing nothing, I heard myself, for reasons I did not want to a.n.a.lyze, say, "Let's try it."

The one-hour special, called Van d.y.k.e & Company Van d.y.k.e & Company, aired in October 1975 and featured guest stars Carl Reiner, Gabe Kaplan, Ike and Tina Turner, plus a surprise appearance from Mary Tyler Moore. My young executive producers and their crew of hip writers, including Steve Martin, guided me more in the direction of Sat.u.r.day Night Live Sat.u.r.day Night Live than than Your Show of Shows Your Show of Shows, and it paid off. Kay Gardella of the New York Daily News Daily News praised the special as "skillfully crafted" and "fresh and offbeat." Even an admitted non-fan of mine, the praised the special as "skillfully crafted" and "fresh and offbeat." Even an admitted non-fan of mine, the New York Times New York Times' John O'Connor, called it "pleasantly agreeable."

Buoyed by the positive reaction, NBC execs decided to put Van d.y.k.e & Company Van d.y.k.e & Company on the fall schedule as a weekly series. The network seemed confident we could find an audience in the heart of the family hour; I was hopeful, but not as sure since we were opposite three popular shows- on the fall schedule as a weekly series. The network seemed confident we could find an audience in the heart of the family hour; I was hopeful, but not as sure since we were opposite three popular shows-The Waltons; Welcome Back, Kotter; and and Barney Miller Barney Miller. My manager called that a "suicide" time slot. Then at the last minute we were moved. I wanted to believe this was good news.

"No, it's worse than suicide," Byron said.

"Worse?" I asked. "What could be worse than suicide?"

"Thursdays at ten P.M P.M.," he said. "n.o.body is watching a show like yours at that hour."

But I was too old to care about ratings. After rea.s.suring Bob and Allan and the rest of the staff that I was not afraid to try anything, we premiered the new season with guests Flip Wilson, Chevy Chase, Dinah Sh.o.r.e, and Andy Kaufman, one of our staff writers, who played the loser in a Fonzie look-alike skit that was typical Andy. We kept up the zaniness with Carol Burnett, John Denver, Sid Caesar, Tina Turner, and our own staff, including Andy, Pat Proft, Marilyn Sokol, and Bob, who debuted his "Super Dave" character in a bit where he gets sick on a Disneyland roller coaster.

We amused ourselves more than anyone. In the middle of a production number, for instance, Andy wandered onstage, looking like he had just beamed down to the planet from an alien culture. The confused audience laughed nervously as I tried to figure out why he had interrupted my song. Andy just shrugged. I pretended to be upset by the interruption and walked offstage, leaving Andy to stare blankly at the audience. Of course, it was planned-or at least to the degree you could plan anything with Andy.

My young, smart staff of silly, subversive, upstart writers continued to break all the rules of prime-time variety shows. One skit turned TV itself inside out by examining how an imaginary sitcom t.i.tled Honey, I'm Home Honey, I'm Home would be written for three different time slots, and I acted out each variation. At eight would be written for three different time slots, and I acted out each variation. At eight P.M P.M., I walked through the front door and my wife said dinner was nearly ready. At nine P.M P.M., I came home and found her kissing another man. At ten P.M P.M., I came home to another man who was fixing us dinner.

My favorite piece was a sketch we did each week about a family of morons, the Bright Family, and the dumber we made them, the funnier it was. I rarely got through those without busting up. Unfortunately, the jokes were lost on other people and ratings failed to materialize. A move in November to an earlier time slot did not improve the numbers, and the following month NBC canceled the show.

Was I surprised?

No, you can see the writing on the wall when your show is shuffled around in the schedule.

But vindication was just around the corner. Van d.y.k.e & Company Van d.y.k.e & Company received three Emmy nominations and then Bob, Allan, and I left the September 1977 gala holding statues we had won for Outstanding Comedy-Variety or Music Series. I couldn't believe we had beaten received three Emmy nominations and then Bob, Allan, and I left the September 1977 gala holding statues we had won for Outstanding Comedy-Variety or Music Series. I couldn't believe we had beaten The Carol Burnett Show The Carol Burnett Show. Allan couldn't believe we had beaten Sat.u.r.day Night Live Sat.u.r.day Night Live and and The Muppets The Muppets. Bob shook his head as if the two of us were missing the point and then quipped, "I can't believe we won and we're out of a job."

I feared I might have been out of more than just a job, though, as my risk taking was not confined to the show. I am talking about Mich.e.l.le. Over the four months we worked on the show, I was drawn into a relationship with her. I was five days in L.A., two on Coronado. Our phone conversations turned into lunches and those evolved into low-key dinners in dark restaurants where we could avoid attention. If anyone had asked, I was ready to explain that Mich.e.l.le was my agent's secretary and we had met up to sign papers. feared I might have been out of more than just a job, though, as my risk taking was not confined to the show. I am talking about Mich.e.l.le. Over the four months we worked on the show, I was drawn into a relationship with her. I was five days in L.A., two on Coronado. Our phone conversations turned into lunches and those evolved into low-key dinners in dark restaurants where we could avoid attention. If anyone had asked, I was ready to explain that Mich.e.l.le was my agent's secretary and we had met up to sign papers.

But no one asked. Fortunately, no one saw us in the corner of Dan Tana's or any of our other nighttime haunts. Mich.e.l.le and I would talk throughout the day. She loved show business and wanted to hear about what had happened on the set, the bits that worked and those that did not work, who the guests were, and all that stuff. She had ideas and opinions and understood my ambitions and frustrations.

It was the opposite of Margie, who liked Coronado but loved the isolation of the desert even more. Margie took up painting and weaving and she became quite good at them. I worked harder going back and forth between my two worlds than I did on the show. I lost seven pounds in the first two months. I told people it was the work. In truth, it was the stress of dividing my time between two extremely strong, attractive women.

Margie kept trying to pull me away, out of Hollywood. She wanted us to go somewhere. We had already gone to the desert, then to the beach, but that was not enough. Forget about show business, she said. As far as she was concerned, I had already done Broadway, television, and movies. What more was there to prove? What more was there to do?

But suddenly I was involved with a woman who loved what I did for a living and not only knew all the people in the business, but understood that performing was in my blood, somehow part of my DNA, and that all my talk of retirement was bunk. I wasn't going to stop. I couldn't.

In December, Mich.e.l.le talked me through the sting of Van d.y.k.e & Company Van d.y.k.e & Company's cancellation and I helped her celebrate when California's Supreme Court ruled in her favor, saying that an agreement to share a.s.sets between a nonmarried couple living together was binding. With the holidays upon us, I woke up to what was happening to me, or in reality what had had happened. I was involved with a woman other than my wife. It was unbelievable. I was writhing in guilt. I had to do something. happened. I was involved with a woman other than my wife. It was unbelievable. I was writhing in guilt. I had to do something.

23.

DIVORCE AMERICAN STYLE.

In the spring of 1976 I stood alongside fifty prominent figures from politics, entertainment, sports, and the clergy in front of the Washington, D.C., press corps and acknowledged that I was a recovering alcoholic. Astronaut Buzz Aldrin, former baseball pitcher Don Newcombe, Representative Wilbur Mills, and TV host Garry Moore were among those at the event also helping to eliminate the stigma and shame that often prevented people from owning up to the disease.

With all those individuals shedding their anonymity and sharing personal stories, it was a powerful, well-managed spectacle, and afterward I had dinner with one of the event organizers and his wife. We ate in their hotel suite, and to my astonishment, they had a pre-dinner c.o.c.ktail, opened a bottle of wine, got absolutely smashed, and then fought. I finally excused myself.

I considered going public about their hypocrisy but thought better of it, and put the unpleasant incident out of my mind. One night, months later, though, actually toward the end of the year, the memory returned with all the subtlety of a car wreck as I sat across from Mich.e.l.le at dinner, sipping my second martini of the night, and I thought, Oh my G.o.d, I am just like them-a hypocrite.

I don't know why I was surprised that I was drinking again. The booze spirited me away from the guilt and unpleasantness I felt for betraying the vows I had taken to be faithful to my wife. I had never cheated on her before. In fact, I had never come close to it. It was just like when I first realized I had a drinking problem. I would be in the shower, driving my car, or sitting in front of the TV and suddenly say to myself, "This can't be happening to me."

The few people I let in on the secret all said the same thing: I was fifty years old and was undergoing a stereotypical midlife crisis. Indeed, I had to consider that a strong possibility. How could I not when I woke up every morning and asked myself, "Am I going in the right direction?"

For fifty years, I never worried about which direction I was headed. I went any way the wind blew. Now, all of a sudden, I had no idea. However, I knew that Mich.e.l.le and I, despite being opposite personalities-she was a strong-willed force of nature while I was content to stand in the back and smile-got along as if we were meant to be together. As a result, I asked myself how something that felt so right could also feel so wrong.

After much soul-searching and many nerve-racking months, I wanted to get on with my life, and there was only one way to do it. I needed to be honest with Margie. We were on Coronado one day and I told her. I said that there was another woman whom I liked a lot. Margie was terribly shocked, as I had expected, and both of us were confused. We had known each other so long that we could not conceive of a divorce.

After many emotional but productive talks, Margie and I agreed to do what we had basically been doing for years; live our separate lives, or more accurately, live our lives separately. She returned to the desert and I went to my rental in Hollywood. I made sure Margie knew she would never want for anything materially or financially. My one regret was leaving her alone. For myself, I was confident that I was making the right decision.

My oldest son, Chris, now a deputy district attorney in Salem, had recently gone through his own divorce, and the other children were wiser and more understanding and accepting than I had expected. In April they helped me celebrate the opening of Same Time Next Year Same Time Next Year at the Huntington Hartford Theater in Pasadena. Stacy, twenty-two, noted that she had not seen me onstage since at the Huntington Hartford Theater in Pasadena. Stacy, twenty-two, noted that she had not seen me onstage since Bye Bye Birdie Bye Bye Birdie, prompting Carrie Beth, sixteen, to remind all of us that she was not even born then.

I was starring with my pal Carol Burnett. We set new box-office records, some of which were due to the antic.i.p.ation generated by the announcement that I was joining her long-running variety show. Carol and I had a special chemistry dating back to when we teamed up on the game show Pantomime Quiz Pantomime Quiz. Now, nearly thirty years later, we still spurred each other into new realms of silly. In Same Time Next Year Same Time Next Year, instead of taking a bow at the end, she jumped into bed as an old lady and I scrambled after her as an old man with a bottle of Geritol. Then the curtain came down. Even though the playwright, Bernard Slade, disapproved of the way we hammed it up, the audience screamed. On closing night, we took it a step further. After I got into bed, Tim Conway shuffled across the stage dressed as a butler and holding a tray with a bottle of champagne. People laughed for an hour.

Carol's and my partnership had been rekindled when she came on Van d.y.k.e & Company Van d.y.k.e & Company. We had pantomimed a fight at the end of a skit that ended up with the two of us rolling on the ground in slow motion as we traded punches and kicks. It was such fun that she suggested we do a show together. Instead of that happening, we did the play, and then Harvey Korman left The Carol Burnett Show The Carol Burnett Show after ten years and suddenly I found myself replacing a mult.i.talented actor who was also the world's greatest second banana. after ten years and suddenly I found myself replacing a mult.i.talented actor who was also the world's greatest second banana.

But Harvey proved irreplaceable. Despite the fanfare in the press as the new season began in September, I was uncomfortable in the skits and unable to find a rhythm among a cast that had been together for a decade. It must have been the same for actors who came on to The d.i.c.k Van d.y.k.e Show The d.i.c.k Van d.y.k.e Show. Even though we were welcoming, we had our own ways of communicating that resulted from having been together every day for years.

Carol and the others did everything they could to help me, but the writers were still producing sketches with Harvey in mind and I could not on my own figure out where I fit in. At the end of September, I told the AP's Jerry Buck that my timing was getting better. Tim also offered encouraging words. Privately, though, he came to my dressing room and commiserated.

Finally, at the end of November, I called off the experiment. My final show was December 3, 1977. I blamed it on the difficult commute between Arizona and L.A., saying I spent too many hours in the airport or on the road and too few with my family. Carol's executive-producer husband, Joe Hamilton, released a statement saying they hated to lose me. In the end, it was sad but a nice try and quite simply not my cup of tea.

In late spring 1978, Stanley Kramer, the Oscar-winning director responsible for such cla.s.sic films as Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, Inherit the Wind Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, Inherit the Wind, and Judgment at Nuremberg Judgment at Nuremberg, took me to lunch at the Brown Derby, a landmark Hollywood watering hole, and put a copy of the script for his next movie, which he was directing and producing, on the table. Based on the dramatic 1976 Broadway play, The Runner Stumbles The Runner Stumbles was a strong, complicated look at a priest in a small mining town who falls in love with a young nun. Stanley had already cast Kathleen Quinlan as the nun, and he wanted me as the priest. was a strong, complicated look at a priest in a small mining town who falls in love with a young nun. Stanley had already cast Kathleen Quinlan as the nun, and he wanted me as the priest.

I had read the script several times prior to lunch and related more than Stanley knew to the mysterious forces that weighed on the priest. But I wanted to pa.s.s.

"It's out of my reach," I said. "This is heavy drama and I fear that I'll embarra.s.s all of us."

Stanley ordered dessert and kept on me about the role. That summer, after he agreed to take full responsibility if the film bombed, I let him talk me into a deal and started work on the picture. Along with Kathleen, Maureen Stapleton, and Beau Bridges, we shot in Roslyn, Washington, a rural little town that oozed charm and was full of warm locals who took lots of photos, asked for autographs, and went slack-jawed this one memorable day when they overheard me greet Maureen, who was poised on the steps of her dressing-room trailer with a little bottle in her hand.

"Where the h.e.l.l are you off to?" she asked.

"Getting a cup of coffee," I said. "Do you want anything?"

"I want you to come in here and fool around with me," she said.

I turned white, as did those standing nearby.

"Consider it a mercy mission," she said.