S4 Ep 1 Worth Fighting For

Network Sting: MSW Media

Martin: Hello and welcome to the fourth 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: Recently, I recorded a story for this podcast entitled “Apocalypse, You’re In For It Now” which aired at the start of our third season. The story revealed the start of my filming in the Philippines in the spring of 1976 to an abrupt ending six weeks later due to the horrific destruction from a typhoon called Olga. The story concluded with our departure back to the States and the detailed preparations for our return later that summer. Here now the story continues with Part 2.

We returned to the Philippines in late July 1976 as a complete family unit, including Janet and I, Emilio, Ramon, Charlie and Renee aboard a Philippine airline DC10 after a brief layover in Hawaii and were greeted at the Manila International Airport by our driver, Reno Mahar, a recently retired Filipino army sergeant who loaded our bags into his car, along with the six of us, and headed south for a two hour drive to the town of Pak San Han on the Magna Pio River. The production company had set up headquarters there where a majority of the film would be shot. But this was not our destination, at least not yet. The company had arranged for us to stay at a remote place called Carlarita, which was several more miles up a mountain road from Pak San Han to the shore of a lake. From there, the only way to reach Carlarita, or depart for that matter, was by motorboat or swim to and fro, I suppose. The place was fairly modern and resembled a rural motel one might find in the States with a number of separate cottages. Ours had a living space but no kitchen, two small bedrooms, one with bunk beds for the children, and there was an open-air communal dining room as well. We decided to stay, but only temporarily as Janet wanted to find another place less remote where she could cook and where we could have more freedom and independence and not have to depend on an available motorboat or a not always available driver. Which led her to wonder where Marlon Brando, the star of the film, might be staying when he arrived. A few days later, she learned the production company had secured a cottage for Marlon at a very secluded private retreat on a beautiful volcanic lake called Kalaria, which was not far from where we were staying. However, she was told there was nothing available there for us. Like hell, she said. If you tell Jan, there’s no way she will find one. And thanks to her relentless persistence, a few days later we were provided with two lovely cabins on the lake’s edge at Calaria, and they were our home for the next five months. Not long afterwards, 40 cases of bottled water we had shipped from the States with all the dried food arrived at our door, it would prove invaluable, especially the water. As filming gradually geared up again, I was delighted to rejoin the cast of Sam Bottoms, Frederick Forrest, Albert Hall and 14-year-old Laurence Fishburne, who I learned nearly 40 years later had saved our son Emilio from drowning very soon after our return to the Philippines, the details of which can be sourced in our Father Son memoir along the Way, published by Simon and Schuster in 2012. Our gratitude to Laurence Fishburne is eternal. Thanks to my training during the break, I was far more confident aboard the PBR, and despite the huge demands and overwhelming stress the production placed on that boat, it held up reasonably well. Luckily, our beloved PBR instructor, retired Navy and Vietnam veteran Peter Cooper, rejoined the company to supervise the boat’s overall function and repairs. And I was delighted my instructor and Vietnam veteran Joe Lowry was added to the cast as well. He and the dear Jimmy Keene remained for the long haul on the film and in our lives. A critical sequence in the film involved the opening scene, in which my character, Captain Ben Willard, who was trained in undercover CIA black ops, had just returned to Vietnam after a brief and turbulent visit with his estranged family in the States. Now we find him growing desperate, holed up alone and drinking heavily in a cheap motel room in Saigon, waiting for another mission from I Corps. There was nothing in the script to predict Willard’s behavior during this vigil. In fact, there was no such scene in a hotel room anywhere in the text. But director Francis Ford Coppola wanted to explore the possibility that such a scene might set the tone for the opening of the film. So together we set out to create a sequence entirely through improvisation, and that might achieve his goal. Of course, we had no idea how it might turn out, but we were confident that whatever we managed to create on film could be refined or adjusted to our purpose with editing and voiceover narration in post production. The location chosen for the sequence was a local courthouse in the village of San Carlos, very near Pak San Han, where our set designer converted an upstairs room to resemble one and in a cheap Saigon hotel. And it was filmed on my 36th birthday, August 3, 1976, a date that will live in infamy on my psyche. Foolishly, I began to celebrate early that morning with some heavy drinking straight from the bottle. And as the day wore on, more and more bottles were added and dispatched with abandon, so that by nightfall to say things got out of hand is a woeful understatement. To wit, the set resembled a crime scene. And any effort to explain or rationalize my behavior on that day in front of the camera half a century ago is not possible. But this much is clear. I was staggering around in a drunken frenzy and completely naked when I accidentally miscalculated a swift karate punch that completely shattered a full-length mirror and tore open my right thumb. Blood was dripping everywhere, and as I began to bathe my face with it, Francis tried to stop the scene, but I begged him to let me continue and he did. Then, in that alcoholic delirium, I descended so deeply into my own brokenness, pain and self-loathing that I became Willard, the man I was playing, and I wept uncontrollably. It took several days to recover, but the deep emotional memory remained. And the incident was of great concern to my family, especially Emilio. I know he was on the set that day, but I didn’t know how much he saw and we never talked about it. We did talk a lot over the next few weeks about how much he was looking forward to being back home in LA in time to start school after Labor Day, which was fast approaching. And he was always quick to remind me of my promise that he would. But the more he reminded me, the more I stalled him because I was determined to keep the family together for the long haul, no matter what. And attention began to grow between us.

Meanwhile, filming continued as Harrison Ford joined the cast, fresh from his not yet released “Star Wars” along with JD Spradling, brilliant in “Godfather 2” as well as Jerry Sizemer and myself for a scene that spelled out the central plot of the film. Captain Willard is entrusted with a secret, highly classified and complex mission that will take him through the Mekong Delta aboard a PBR river patrol boat to the mouth of The Nung river, then head north on the Nung into Cambodia, where he is to track down a renegade U.S. army colonel, Walter Kurtz, and terminate his command. Then Sizemer delivers the scene’s infamous last line, “Terminate with extreme prejudice.” For the record, Jerry Sizemore was our first assistant director and one of the best I ever worked with. He wasn’t a bad actor, either. On September 1st, the focus of the entire film company, if not the entire Philippine nation, shifted to the much-anticipated arrival of the legendary Marlon Brando. I had long admired his artistic genius, as well as his heroic public commitments to social justice and human rights, But I could not imagine the possibility of ever working with him. Then it just suddenly happened, and the experience was life changing. To my great relief, his genuine humility and disarming sense of humor turned his mythic image inside out, revealing a kindness and compassion, and I could not have been more impressed or comfortable working with him. I might add, however, as the company rolled out the red carpet for him, a few things were overlooked. Shortly after he moved into his cabin at Lake Calaria, just 50 yards above ours, word came down that he was ill. Suspecting it might be from the local water, without hesitation, Janet sent him two cases of bottled water from our stash, and it made all the difference. No one thought of that, he said, which endeared her to him. And he made sure a lay of beautiful, sweet smelling fresh flowers were sent down to her every day. For me personally, there was an added gift that came with Marlon. From the start, I felt an enormous responsibility to carry this film. It was unreasonable, of course, but nevertheless, it was taking a toll emotionally and physically and greatly diminished my real responsibility to care for the needs of my family, who were growing more and more concerned with my constant anxiety and unpredictability. And Emilio and I were constantly at odds over his determination to return for school in the states and my determination to keep the status quo and his passport. Now I felt the responsibility to carry the film rested with Marlon, at least for the next four weeks. All of his scenes would be filmed in that time frame at Kutz’s compound on the Magna Pio river, where the brilliant production designer Dean Tavoularis and a crew of 600 Filipino laborers spent months constructing an enormous temple ruins meant to resemble the Angkor Wat in Cambodia. And it was truly remarkable. An area surrounding the compound was carved out of the jungle large enough to accommodate Kurtz’s army of mountain yards, portrayed by a community of 250 men, women, and children of the native Ifugao tribe. Brought down from the rice terrace of a northern province, they built their own village at the compound and lived there for several months. They were quite extraordinary and endeared by the entire company. Dennis Hopper joined the cast to play a photojournalist covering the Vietnam war who gets caught up in Kurtz’s madness, as did actor Scott Glenn, who played a U.S. army officer devoted to Kurtz and his renegade army. Acting with Marlon was among the most satisfying and memorable of my career. he was always inventive and playful and extremely generous to everyone on the set. And the time spent with him privately at Calaria, when he would wander down on any given evening to join our family for dinner and companionship, were equally memorable and joy filled. That is, all but one. One evening, the rift between Emilio and I boiled over into a fight when we were alone in my cabin. He started yelling and cursing me for lying and breaking my promise to let him go home. Then, out of his anger and frustration, he took a swing at me, and before I knew it, we ended up rolling around on the floor, wrestling and screaming at each other for several minutes, until suddenly we heard a calm, familiar voice at the screen door saying, what’s going on in there? Is everything all right? Oh, my God! It was Marlon. But it may as well have been God. We were so shocked and embarrassed to be seen by him in such a compromising situation, we both stood up and ended the struggle immediately. I think I said something to assure him that we were okay. I can’t remember what, but if Marlon hadn’t come down when he did, I don’t know where we might have ended up. And he didn’t even come into the room. He didn’t have to. His presence alone at the door brought us to our senses. And the next day, I did what I should have done from the beginning. I gave Emilio his passport with my blessing, and he left for home. A short while later, Marlon departed as well, and I missed them both beyond measure. But the fight with Emilio that night was a pivotal moment between us, and we never allowed our relationship to reach such a point of distrust and desperation again. The next two and a half months included filming some very pleasant and charming scenes, like Sam Bottoms as Lance Johnson water skiing from the rear of the speeding PBR to the tune of Satisfaction. And Bobby Duvall as colonel Kilgore, making his first appearance with the air calvary and discovering “Lance Johnson, the surfer?” And there was Frederick Forrest and I, confronted by a wild tiger in the jungle. His name was Gombe, and he was brought from LA by his trainer for his one gigantic close up. There were, of course, several far more challenging scenes, like the French Plantation and the many long and difficult nights filming the battle at Dolong Bridge. But despite all our efforts to keep up with such a demanding schedule, we continued to fall further and further behind, so that by Thanksgiving the decision was made to focus on completing the two remaining major sequences that involved the most military personnel, including the helicopters and their pilots, then break for Christmas holiday and return in January 1977 with a smaller crew for the final sequences. Those two major sequences included the complex Playboy Bunny concert for a large and rowdy crowd of GIs, for which Bill Graham joined the cast, and the massive helicopter departure at dawn with Duval’s Captain Kilgore leading the air cavalry, complete with a bugler sounding the charge. And both, happily, were completed a week before Christmas. With the most difficult and demanding sequences complete and two thirds of the film in the can, I could not have wished for a more wonderful Christmas as Janet and I, Ramon, Charlie and Renee joined Emilio at the original Hana Maui family resort in Hawaii for one of the happiest times of my life, laughing and playing and just being together in that wonderful place of such natural beauty and peace revived our spirits and drew us closer than we had ever been. And none of us wanted it to end. But of course, it would end soon enough, with the final phase of Apocalypse Now still to come and my part in it yet to be completed.

Martin: We’re going to take a little break here, but I assure you there’s more to come. Please stay tuned. And we’re back.

Martin: Consider this from Benjamin Franklin: There was never a good war or a bad peace.

Martin: Alfred Lord Tennyson delivered this next poem “The Charge Of The Light Brigade” on December 9, 1854, six weeks after the Battle of Balaklava had taken place in the Crimea

Half a league, half a league,

Half a league onward,

All in the valley of Death

Rode the six hundred.

‘Forward, the Light Brigade!

Charge for the guns!’ he said:

Into the valley of Death

Rode the six hundred.

‘Forward, the Light Brigade!’

Was there a man dismay’d ?

Not tho’ the soldier knew

Some one had blunder’d:

Their’s not to make reply,

Their’s not to reason why,

Their’s but to do and die:

Into the valley of Death

Rode the six hundred.

Cannon to right of them,

Cannon to left of them,

Cannon in front of them

Volley’d and thunder’d;

Storm’d at with shot and shell,

Boldly they rode and well,

Into the jaws of Death,

Into the mouth of Hell

Rode the six hundred.

Flash’d all their sabres bare,

Flash’d as they turn’d in air

Sabring the gunners there,

Charging an army, while

All the world wonder’d:

Plunged in the battery-smoke

Right thro’ t[1]he line they broke;

Cossack and Russian

Reel’d from the sabre-stroke

Shatter’d and sunder’d.

Then they rode back, but not

Not the six hundred.

Cannon to right of them,

Cannon to left of them,

Cannon behind them

Volley’d and thunder’d;

Storm’d at with shot and shell,

While horse and hero fell,

They that had fought so well

Came thro’ the jaws of Death,

Back from the mouth of Hell,

All that was left of them,

Left of six hundred.

When can their glory fade?

O the wild charge they made!

All the world wonder’d.

Honour the charge they made!

Honour the Light Brigade,

Noble six hundred!

 

Alfred, Lord Tennyson was Britain’s Poet laureate for nearly half a century and much beloved by Queen Victoria. He was also one of Britain’s most popular poets and revered to this day. He was born in England on August 6, 1809, and died there on October 6, 1892. Alfred Lord Tennyson was 83 years old.

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.

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

We are called to lift up this nation and all its people to that place 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 depths of truth and tireless striving stretches its arms, towards perfection, where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sands of dead habit, where the mind is led forward by thee into ever widening thought and action into that heaven of freedom. Dear Father, let our country awake. Amen.

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 Part II” by Ramon Gerard Estevez, AKA Martin Sheen, is included in this podcast by granted copyright permission.