S3 Ep1 Apocalypse When

Network Sting: MSW Media

Martin: Hello, and welcome to the third season of The Martin Sheen Podcast with yours truly, Martin Sheen, of course. And I’m delighted to be back hosting this podcast pilgrimage where the destination is still and always will be the journey itself. Along the way, I plan to share stories and personal memories of some of the many people, places and events that have helped to shape my lifelong happy and continuing struggle as an artist and a man to unite the will of the spirit with the work of the flesh. I also hope to explore poetry as a powerful form of expression and communication by proxy, as it were, and how poetry is such a vital and necessary component of our spirituality and our public discourse. And from time to time, I’ll invite friends, fellow actors, poets, scholars and family members to join our pilgrimage and discuss what inspires their artistic journey. And so, friends, let us continue.

Martin: Apocalypse, you’re in for it now. The very first scene I filmed in Apocalypse now took place in May 1976 on the beachfront of the tiny village of Balar at the remote tip of Northern Luzon in the Philippines, where I hopped out of a Huey helicopter with fellow actors Frederick Forrest and Sam bottoms with M16 rifles in hand and ran along the beach tracking after Robert Duval. The scene was in the middle portion of the most memorable in the film, sandwiched between an air cavalry assault to the musical accompaniment of Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries and a fiery napalm drop on a tiny Vietnamese village, all to accommodate an ideal surfing opportunity for Duvall’s character, Lt. Bill Kilgore, and his boys. One of those boys, by the way, was a wonderful young actor from Buffalo, New York, named Jimmy Keane, who had become a close friend of our entire family.

The scene on the beach was organized chaos. There were dozens of Hueys taking off, landing and kicking up sand as they deposited swarms of GIs who scattered about. There were loud incoming mortar rounds exploding all over the beach. There was thick, multicolored flare smoke drifting through the action. There was oppressive heat from the fires, the choppers and the sun. And there were nearly 1,000 Vietnamese men, women and children streaming up and down the sand, portraying captured Viet Cong, North Vietnamese regulars and displaced refugees. The noise was deafening, visibility was limited. And of course, on the very first take of that scene; while racing along the beach, I stumbled over my own combat boots and fell face first into the sand, embedding the sight of my M16 rifle into my left cheek. This is not starting off well, I thought.

My wife, Janet insisted that the company bring a plastic surgeon up from Manila to stitch up the wound on my mug. So, thanks to her and that surgeon’s skill, the scar in my cheek is hardly noticeable. But oddly enough, that scene seemed to set the tone and define the boundaries of my life for the next full year.

Soon after the brilliant Bobby Duvall’s Charlie Don’t Surf and I Love the Smell of Napalm in the Morning sequence was completed, the entire company made a quick exit from Balar to avoid a powerful typhoon named Didong that struck the Philippines, wreaking havoc. We raced back to Manila and waited out the storm as it pushed out into the South China Sea. Then we drove down to Iba, a small village on the west coast of Luzon, to resume filming. But our troubles had just begun. Suddenly and unexpectedly, Didong, now known internationally as Typhoon Olga, reversed course and slammed back into the Philippines with 115 mile an hour winds and three solid days of torrential rain. Tragically, the storm took more than two hundred Philippine lives, caused disastrous flooding and left many thousands homeless. Most of our film sets were destroyed as well, and director Francis Coppola had no other choice but to shut down the entire production for two months and send everyone home. The film was already six weeks behind schedule and millions of dollars over budget, and it was very clear my original commitment of 16 weeks was by necessity going to be extended. But for how much longer was anyone’s guess. At least now I had a much better idea of just how huge the scope of this film was and how ill-prepared I was from the start.

However, this forced two month hiatus back in the States would give me a great opportunity to learn the basic skills necessary to project at least the appearance on the screen of a confident Vietnam combat veteran. And so, like the old soldier General Douglas MacArthur, I left the Philippines declaring I shall return. Though of course my declaration was far less dramatic.

Back in the States, Janet and I put into place a plan that included returning with all four of our children, shipping bottled water and nonperishable foods like pasta, oatmeal and cream of Wheat that were not yet available in the Philippines, as well as training with all the weapons I would use in the film. Just the sight of them made me nervous. And of equal importance, learn to swim, which was crucial given that most of my scenes took place on the water aboard a Navy PBR, that’s short for River Patrol Boat, but the boat was not built to accommodate such a large crew with heavy cameras and lighting equipment, as well as the five actors and our military advisor, retired Navy chief and Vietnam veteran, 6 foot 8 inch Peter Cooper, who also stood in for Marlon Brando. Adding to the problem, the boat’s diesel engine broke down when least expected. So frankly, I never felt safe on that boat.

Consequently, the first person I contacted back in Malibu was Rob Lamond, the swimming instructor who taught all our kids to swim. On the first day, he took me out into the ocean off Paradise Cove with a large inner tube and began my lessons. Gradually over the following week, I got the hang of it. At least I learned to float with great confidence without the inner tube.

My next instructor was a Vietnam combat veteran sent to our house courtesy of the production company. He was a dark haired, broad shouldered former US army sergeant and airborne Ranger with a handsome Irish mug and a New York accent who greeted me at the door with a broad smile and said, hi, I’m Joe Lowry. It’s nice to meet you. Likewise, I said. Thanks for coming. With that, I led him through the house and out to the backyard, which I hoped would be suitable for our, training. It was a large, flat, open space with trees on both sides, but when he saw it, Mr. Lowry exclaimed, oh, my God, this looks like the place I got shot in Vietnam. Nonetheless, he concluded, it suited our purposes and we began in earnest a crash course of fundamental military training.

Thus, began as well, one of the great friendships of my adult life. Born in Boston and raised in Brooklyn, Joe Lowery was a meticulously precise, fiercely loyal and scrupulously honest aspiring actor and musician who’d been severely wounded during his tour in Vietnam in 1966. His 11-member unit were out on patrol when they walked into an ambush. Only two survived. Joe was shot up his right side from his calf to his face. It took several years of surgery and convalescence before he was able to walk again, although like so many other Vietnam veterans, he never fully recovered.

Over the next four weeks of private boot camp in the backyard, Joe taught me how to hurl a 6-inch Bowie knife into a tree trunk from a distance of 50ft and how to throw a hand grenade with equal accuracy. He taught me how to break down an M16 rifle and a 45 automatic pistol. How to aim and shoot them without real live bullets of course. That would come later on location. He taught me how to use as well an M79, a small grenade launcher I had to fire in the film. I learned how to oil clean, load and reload each weapon without a flaw. Of particular importance was the .45 for my character, since I would carry it throughout the film attached to my web belt. Joe taught me everything I needed to know about the .45. I knew even how it felt when it was unloaded and what it felt like with a full clip. And I always knew when the safety was on or off. I learned how to break it down and put all nine pieces back together in less than 90 seconds. In fact, I did precisely that on camera in a scene that unfortunately never made the final cut. Probably because it looked like I was just showing off, which, of course, I was.

Since I’ve never been in the service. I had no concept of the soldier’s reality. And despite Joe Lowry’s assurance to the contrary, I did not believe I would have survived in combat. I just could not imagine myself killing anyone for any reason, Though I could not deny that under certain circumstances I was capable of anything in self-defense. All that aside, Joe was concerned, for the sake of the film, that I was trained in all aspects of standard military procedure, including the fundamentals of an about face or a simple salute. So, the final chapter in our crash course went something like this. Look, Joe said one day, we’re both actors, so let’s improvise a scene. You’re a captain in the U.S. army. I will be your sergeant, an aide de camp, a sort of personal secretary, and we’ll work as a team. You have to call me by rank, Sergeant, and I have to call you Captain. And I’ll teach you how to behave as a captain in the ranks and what to do in the field, starting with the morning report. With that, he stepped back and said, good morning, Captain, and brought his right hand up to his forehead with a salute and held it. Good morning, I said. No, no, no, Joe said. You must say Good morning, Sergeant, as you return the salute. If you don’t return it, I have to stand here and hold my salute until you return it, or until you leave. That standard operating procedure, SOP. Then he stepped back again and repeated the drill. Good morning, Captain, he said with a crisp salute. Good morning, Sergeant, I said as I returned his salute. And we rehearsed a simple drill until it became like second nature.

I was so impressed with Joe Lowry, I urged the company to bring him to the Philippines as a military advisor, which they wisely did, and he proved invaluable to the film and to me personally and to our entire family. And for the record, though you cannot see his face, he is the man operating the flamethrower at Kurtz’s compound.

While I trained with Joe, Janet was in full command, organizing every aspect of our travel and preparing the children for what lay ahead in the Philippines, which would be the farthest we’d ever been on location and the longest period of time away from home with no firm date when the film would be completed. It was rumored we would wrap by Thanksgiving, which meant four months. But that was only a rumor, not a fact. The fact was, no one knew, not even Francis or the producers or even the studio. And that fact did not sit well with our oldest son, Emilio, then 14, who wanted to return home in time to start the new school year barely six weeks away. He was a very conscientious student and an athlete with a close-knit group of friends. And he had just been elected vice president of the entire ninth grade as well. And clearly he did not want to miss any of his new school years. Please, dad, Emilio pleaded, promise me we’ll be back in time to start school. He was so serious and it meant so much to him, and I didn’t want to disappoint him. So, I gave him my word. You’ll be home when school starts, I said, though I was not in a position to promise anything of the kind.

The shooting schedule for Apocalypse now was out of my control, and I knew once we got restarted in the Philippines, it was going to take however long it took to finish this film. But I had given my word to Emilio when I didn’t realize how impossible it would be to keep it or what a serious breach of trust it would cause between us. meanwhile, it was all systems go for our family’s return to the Philippines and part two in the continuing saga of Apocalypse Now.

We’re going to take a little break here, but I assure you there’s more to come. Stay tuned.

And we’re back. Thanks for staying with us.

There’s nothing better than getting a surprise visit to the recording studio by my favorite person in the whole world, the love of my life, Janet. And she recently joined me at the mic to share a few memories of our time together in the Philippines. While I was filming Apocalypse now. My sound engineer and producer were close at hand, and couldn’t help but join the conversation as well.

Martin: So, Janet Martin. We were talking the other day about our sojourn on the first location of Apocalypse Now, which was a tiny village in northern, Liaison in the Philippines. And the village was called Balar. I flew in there, on a private jet with the maestro himself, Francis-

Renee: Francis Ford Coppola?

Martin: Yes, his own personal plane. And it was a jet. And there was not enough room for Janet. That’s what the story is. And Janet came up Later. Was it the same day?

Janet: Same day.

Martin: Okay. And you flew in a small, single engine, fixed wing?

Janet: Yes.

Martin: Into this tiny village. So, what happened on your flight?

Janet: Oh, well, I flew in from LA that day. I landed in Manila. I was driven to Francis House and given a cup of tea, which I didn’t get a chance to finish. I’m still angry about that. And told that there was no room on the private jet for me to fly up to Balar with you and that I would be taken up on a military, plane, with a couple of girls who had also just flown in from Italy. Don’t know who they were. I don’t know why they were there. And another fellow, got on the plane with us, a guy named Felix, and I’m sorry, I don’t remember his last name.

Martin: He was an extra, an American living in the Philippines who was playing one of the soldiers.

Janet: One of the extra soldiers. Yeah.

Martin: Okay.

Janet: And so we took off, and, pretty soon it, became very clear that, the pilot did not know where we were going.

Martin: Oh, good Lord.

Janet: We were, flying over nothing but jungle. And then off to our right, there was a, coastline and an ocean. So we didn’t know where we were going. We couldn’t find the landing strip, which had just been built by the company. It was a small strip in the middle of the jungle. So Felix grabbed a map and started looking. And the pilot put the map in front of him as well. And the two of them were trying to find anything they could find to get us down out of the air. Finally, the girls were on the floor crying, holding each other, saying, we’re going to die in Italian.

Martin: Did you say anything to them, even

Martin Sheen: in Italian, that they were terrified? What did you say to them?

Janet: I didn’t say anything to them. I was too terrified to speak. And the pilot had the map in front of him, looking for something, anything, where he could land. And Felix finally said, look out the window. There’s a small patch of dirt there. I think that’s our landing strip. So he banked severely and he got us down onto this patch of dirt, which was the landing strip. So we all breathed a big sigh of relief.

Martin: So did the pilot say, this is Balar. Welcome to Balar. Enjoy your day?

Janet: I doubt he spoke English. I don’t think he spoke. I didn’t say a word to him. He didn’t say a word to me.

Renee: And not even sorry?

Janet: I don’t think so. I think we were all in such shock, we didn’t know what to say. So.

Martin: So really you have Felix, basically to thank for finding the airfield. Yeah.

Janet: You know, while you went up in a private jet.

Renee: I sense some really strong feelings about this.

Martin: There was no room in the private jet.

Janet: There was no room for me in your private jet.

Martin: It wasn’t my private jet.

Janet: I did have a very interesting life and death experience which, sustains me to this day.

Martin: What’s your favorite moment or memory of that time we spent in Balar? Because that was our first location on the film.

Janet: Probably the boy that yelled Napari-

Martin: Napari!

Janet: Every morning. Every morning at 5am in the street selling bread. Yeah, it was that morning shout and the planes and the helicopters flying in before dawn. Yeah, it was very surreal.

Martin: We were renting, a house, a room. The company had rented a whole house for us.

Janet: It was the mayor’s house.

Martin: It was the mayor’s house.

Janet: It was the mayor’s house. It had a big water tank out back. And when you turned on the faucet in the bathtub, the larvae and the mosquitoes all came out with the water. And you could only use a bucket. So you filled up the bucket and that’s how you took your bath. In cold water and mosquitoes.

Martin: Yeah. And as I recall, Bobby Duvall was, was, billeted in that house as well. Francis was on the bottom floor.

Janet: Yep.

Martin: And some of the other cast members were in that house. But the company had rented houses all over that town. And there was a very special guy in the village, a Father Elias.

Janet: Oh yeah.

Martin: Who was a missionary priest and he was serving in that little village. He appears in the film. If our listeners remember seeing the film, there was a mass being said when Bobby Duvall landed at that spot where he runs into these-

Janet: He’s wearing his vestments and his.

Martin: Yes. He’s saying mask. That is a real ordained priest. His name was Father Elias. And we became good friends with him while we were there. Yeah. While we were in Balar, you started a.

Janet: Oh, toothbrush. Yeah.

Martin: Because the children had no, toothbrushes or toothpaste. And you started-

Renee: The local children?

Janet: Yeah, the local children.

Martin: Yeah, yeah. In the Philippines, the government will only educate children to the sixth grade. After that you’re on your own. And in this community.

Renee: This was during the time when Marcos?

Martin: Yes. Well, we were under martial law.

Janet: You had to be off the street at 10 o’clock.

Martin: Yeah, yeah.

Janet: And one night we were trying to get back to the hotel in Manila by 10 o’clock. And we kept telling the driver, don’t go so fast because he was speeding. And the only word he really understood was fast. So he kept going faster and faster. And we thought we were going to die because he was probably doing 90 miles an hour. and finally we made it back to the hotel, thank God.

Martin: But, yeah, I think, you know, I never really thought it was a good idea to bring the kids all the time, every time, wherever we went, for as long as we were there, I’m not so sure. And I’ve always meant to ask you, Renee, how did you feel about that? Did you feel that you wish you would have passed on some of these, distant locations, or do you have fond memories as well?

Renee: I have some fabulous memories, yeah.

Martin: What’s your favorite, absolutely fabulous memories?

Renee: I remember being on the sets in the Philippines on Apocalypse. Each set we went to, it was a different playground unto itself. The compound, the Kurtz compound, was, always, seemed to be raining on that set. And it just like, just when the mud started to dry up, then there’d come another rain and it would just be this mushy, stinky.

Martin: Yeah, well, that was one of the, that was one of the issues we had filming is because sometimes we would set up, a whole scene and film it in sunlight. And then it would, as we started to prepare to do the coverage, it would start raining. And so we would stop. And then we would go back and shoot the master again in rain. And then the sun would come out. And so we ended up shooting I don’t know how many sequences that were shot all in sunlight and all in the rain or cloud cover.

Renee: And also the scene where they’re fighting over the little white dog.

Martin: Well, you remember, that became Sam Bottoms-

Renee: That became my dog. I adopted that dog.

Martin: Oh, I didn’t know that.

Renee: I named him Blue, and he was so sweet. And he got a case of mange so bad that mom wouldn’t let me bring him back to the United States.

Janet: No, honey, no. There’s more to that story.

Martin: Here we go.

Janet: There’s a lot more to that story.

Martin: Let’s hear it.

Renee: Are you hearing this, Bruce? Okay. No pun intended.

Martin: There was a sequence in the film. Anyone that, sees the film may remember where the puppy was, was part of a group of people on a boat.

Renee: The merchants.

Martin: Yeah. And we stopped the boat and suspected something going on and ended up shooting everybody on the boat. But the puppy survived.

Renee: She was going for a dog. And you thought, your character thinks she’s going for a gun.

Martin: Yeah.

Renee: And then they open fire. They open fire. Killing her. And she’s just, and that’s when Frederick Forrest said, it’s just a puppy.

Janet: And that was the puppy. That was the puppy that we tried to rescue.

Renee: Always regretted this, that I did not bring that puppy home with me.

Janet: I worked with our lawyer for days, for weeks, trying to get proper credentials to bring the dog home. Endlessly, endlessly to try to get that dog on a plane.

Martin: I don’t remember any of this, do you?

Janet: Yeah, I know because I was doing it when you were working.

Martin: Wow.

Janet: Yeah. And it just couldn’t happen. There was, you know, our lawyer. He worked really hard and I worked really hard. We tried to go through all kinds of agencies and we could not. So we had to.

Martin: He was with us for a while in the cabin.

Janet: Yeah, yeah, yeah. He was our dog.

Renee: He was a sweet little dog.

Janet Sheen: Yeah.

Renee: He didn’t get very big. no.

Janet Sheen: So, so just so you know, we, we did everything we could to get that dog back to LA. And it was.

Martin: What happened to the dog? Does anyone. You had to leave him behind?

Janet: We had to leave him.

Martin: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Janet: So that’s the, that’s the boost, right?

Martin: I didn’t know you did all that.

Renee: I just thought we left him behind because he had really bad mange.

Martin: Oy. See, I’m learning things that I wasn’t aware of.

Martin: Oh yeah, yeah.

Janet: Well, nobody has a happy story?

Renee: On a lighter note. We met a lot of interesting people there.

Janet: Hm.

Renee: That became like lifelong friends.

Janet: Reno for one, our driver. Who we still stay in touch with 50 years later.

Renee: And Laurence Fishburne.

Janet: Oh yeah.

Martin: Fishburne. Yeah.

Renee: You’re still friends with Lawrence to this day?

Martin: Oh yeah, very much so.

Martin: And in this community-

Renee: Well, the entire sub crew, the Italian crew, seemed to live unto themselves.

Martin: They did. Yes, they did.

Renee: Yeah.

Janet: They lived in town. They didn’t live up there. They lived in town. They put us in that hotel that, had a moat around it. When we landed there. They took us to this of a hotel and we had to listen to John Denver every morning at 7am singing to the top of his lungs. And I love John Denver, but you didn’t really want to hear him at 7am singing throughout the compound. So we were isolated. You had to get out of your car, get on a boat, be rowed or whatever, motored to your room. And it was horrible.

Renee: I remember that place. Our rooms were like these dark, dingy, dark wood cabins filled with bunk beds.

Janet: Bunk beds.

Renee: And you took one look at that place and said, oh, no, this is not gonna happen.

Janet: You said, we’re up there. We were there a few days, and I finally said to the production, where’s Marlon Brando staying? And they said, you know, Kalaria. And I said, take me there. And so we went there, and I said, this is where we’re staying. So we got two cabins there. They were called Nipah huts. They were very, you know, practical. Nothing fancy about them. Some beds, a dresser, and a shower, bathroom. That was it.

Renee: Well, it was lovely. It was cooler.

Janet: Yeah, it was beautiful.

Martin: There was.

Janet: Yes, I managed to get a hot plate, and I hid it in a trunk because you weren’t allowed to cook in those places. So I would hide the hot plate and the coffee pot or whatever, in a trunk, lock it when we left. So nobody knew we had cooking things.

Martin: But you also used to cook on an open.

Janet: We had a grill outside. I think they allowed that. So we could just warm up stuff on that.

Renee: Yeah, every time you had something going on that grill, Marlon would appear at the stairwell. You went down to the, you’d go down to Pak San Han and get meats and chicken and stuff and bring it back to you.

Janet: Lot of pizza.

Martin: Uh-huh. And you throw things on that grill,

Renee: And it would just kind of, brought people out of the woodwork.

Martin: But Marlon’s, cabin was at the top of the hill, and we were

Janet: At the bottom, 50ft away.

Martin: So, he would, the smell of the, freshly cooking meats would waft up the top, and Marlon would casually stroll down to take the evening air. Oh, what a surprise. Come by and say hello. Oh, you’re having dinner. We adored him.

Janet Sheen: Vittorio came by one night at dinner.

Renee: Vitorio?

Janet: The cinematographer.

Martin: Uh-huh.

Janet: He came by, and he said, now, don’t throw away your stale bread. Let me show you what to do. So we took all the stale bread, we cut it in little pieces, and we put it on the grill, and it was delicious. I didn’t know that. So thank you, Vittorio.

Martin: Bravo. Bravo.

Renee: That was a shoot just filled with characters.

Martin: Yeah, there were a lot of characters.

Renee: Not even on, the screen. Not even in front of the camera. Behind the camera. It was, like I said, every, every set was its own village providing everything all the time for everybody.

Martin: So are, these proceedings concluded? This was fun.

Janet: What was the question?

 

Martin: I invite you to delve further into the works of the poets I shared with you, and I hope you seek out writers and poets whose work speaks to your hearts and minds with the power to inspire your life. If you’ve enjoyed what you’ve heard here, please subscribe to my podcast, The Martin Sheen Podcast with your host, yours truly, Martin Sheen. Of course, wherever you find your podcasts, yeah, I still have to say that. You can find a complete list of the poets and titles of their poems that I’ve chosen at our website themartensheenpodcast.com

I want to thank the people who make this podcast possible. Our producer and research assistant, Renee Estevez, whose explanation of the Internet really gets me thinking, What’s for lunch? And our sound engineer and editor, Bruce Greenspan, the man behind these rich and seamless recordings with the much-deserved nickname The Sound Surgeon. And I especially want to thank you, our listeners, for joining me.

And so, friends, we part with the prayer from Tagore.

Where the heart is without fear and the head is held high;

Where knowledge is free;

Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls;

Where words come out from the depth of truth;

Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;

Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead

habit;

Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought and action—

into that heaven of freedom (my Father) let our country awake. Amen

Renee: The Martin Sheen Podcast all rights reserved. No part of this podcast may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form without prior written consent of the author and TE Productions.

The story “Apocalypse, You’re In for it Now” by Ramon Gerard Estevez, AKA Martin Sheen, is included here by copyright permission of the author.