Finally read Eli Wallach's The Good, the Bad, and Me: In My Anecdotage (2005), a charming and wryly observant memoir. We learn a lot about Eli's life and arc, but we also come to a better understanding of Method acting, the synergies and differences between stage, TV and movie work, and the colorful nature of many other actor personalities (including Marilyn Monroe, Clark Gable and Clint Eastwood).
Eli's was the only Jewish family in an otherwise Italian neighborhood in Brooklyn, so he understands the outsider's perspective well. And given his age (born 12/7/1915), he recalls deliveries of ice and other goodies by horse drawn carts.
Once we reach the 1960s, Eli hits the silver screen. Though he effectively plays Mexican outlaw Calvera in The Magnificent Seven (1960) and the outlaw Charlie Gant in How the West Was Won (1962), it's his turn as Tuco Benedicto Pacifico Juan Maria Ramirez, known as The Rat (or in Italian, known as The Pig) in Sergio Leone's The Good, the Bad and the Ugly / Il Buono, il Brutto, il Cattivo (1966/1967) that immortalizes him as an actor. Certainly it's for his performance as Tuco that I picked up this book in the first place.
In all, Eli Wallach's memoir is really good, well-worth reading. Aside from the above, we also learn much about his marriage to fellow actor Anne Jackson. Unlike most actors and despite sometimes being months apart during play productions and film shoots over the years, they've been married for quite a little while -- since 1948!
Today's Rune: Signals/Blessings.
3 comments:
I liked him very much in the Good, the bad and the Ugly.
I've never seen his work, but that is a long time to be married...and happily at that. Wow.
Eric, I abhor westerns, but my Dad loved him.
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