Amateur Hours

“When I grow up I want to be a movie star.” Actually, according to recent surveys, the list of what kids want to be when they grow up is topped overwhelmingly by professional athlete, followed by doctor, teacher, veterinarian, firefighter, scientist, astronaut, and police. Surprisingly, despite media saturation, children seemingly have little interest in music or acting.

What you might find equally surprising is how many treasured Hollywood stars themselves had little interest in their profession.

Robert Mitchum, one of the movies’ most masculine leading men, regarded by many critics as one of the finest actors of Hollywood’s Golden Age (Roger Ebert called him “the soul of film noir”), was always curious why his peers viewed acting as arduous and challenging work. To him, acting was very simple. An actor’s job was to “show up on time, know his lines, hit the marks, and go home.” He once silenced an adulating interviewer by saying, “Look, I have two kinds of acting. One on a horse and one off a horse.”

Robert Mitchum acts...on a horse...and off a horse.

John Wayne (pictured below) was always more comfortable on his beloved yacht “Wild Goose,” sailing out of Newport Harbor than he was on a horse.

Lee Marvin, who would dismiss films as “flicks,” once remarked, “You spend the first forty years of your life trying to get in the business, and the next forty years trying to get out. And then when you’re making the bread, who needs it?”

Although Lee Marvin enjoyed playing the role of the sardonic Major Reisman in the
1967 box-office hit "The Dirty Dozen," which made him the 2nd top box-office star in
America, he called the movie "crap," dismissing it as "just a dummy moneymaker."

Throughout his career, Peter Sellers dealt with insecurities and depression. Impenetrably enigmatic off-screen, he often proclaimed to have no personal identity of his own beyond his acting roles. On the set, his behavior was compulsive and erratic, leading to frequent abuse of his directors and costars, culminating in the 1970s, when alcohol and drug problems only accelerated the deterioration of his physical and mental health.

The filmmaking team of brothers Ray and John Boulting, who directed Peter Sellers in a handful of movies from the late 1950s into the early 1970s, described him as “a deeply troubled man, distrustful, self-absorbed, ultimately self-destructive. He was the complete contradiction.”

Director Blake Edwards and Peter Sellers share a laugh
on the set of "The Return of the Pink Panther" (1975).

During the production of “The Pink Panther Strikes Again” (1976), Peter Seller’s fourth screen appearance as the bumbling Inspector Clouseau, director Blake Edwards said, “If you went to an asylum and you described the first inmate you saw, that’s what Peter had become. He was certifiable.”

Both Buck Owens and The Beatles scored hits with their recordings of the 1963 Johnny Russell/Voni Morrison-penned “Act Naturally,” in which the singer declares, “They’re gonna put me in the movies, they’re gonna make me a big star out of me…and all I have to do is act naturally.” Apparently, this phenomenon has been experienced by a handful of nonprofessional first-timers who quickly determined that stardom was not for them.

Harold Russell remains one of only two nonprofessional actors to win an Academy Award. Haing S. Ngor, a Cambodian-American physician, garnered a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his performance as Dith Pran, a photojournalist and refugee who survived the Cambodian genocide in the late 1970s, in the 1984 film “The Killing Fields.” Russell alone holds the unique honor of receiving two Academy Awards for the same role.

Born in 1914, Harold Russell was so deeply affected by the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor that he enlisted in the U.S. Army the next day. On June 6, 1944, while serving as an instructor with the U.S. 13^th Airborne Division at Camp Mackall in North Carolina, Russell was handling an explosive for a training film when the defective fuse detonated, resulting in the loss of both hands.

After his recovery, while he attended Boston University as a fulltime student, Russell was featured in an Army documentary titled “Diary of a Sergeant” (pictured above), about rehabilitating war veterans. Once he had seen the documentary, Oscar-winning director William Wyler (“Mrs. Miniver”) cast Russell as Homer Parrish, a U.S. Navy petty officer wounded in combat, in “The Best Years of Our Lives” (1946), a gut-wrenching depiction of the emotional difficulties experienced by three seemingly disparate World War II veterans as they readjust to civilian life.

Sgt. Al Stephenson (Frederic March) looks on as Homer Parrish (Harold Russell)
plays a duet of "Chopsticks" with his Uncle Butch (portrayed by acclaimed composer-
pianist Hoagy Carmichael) in "The Best Years of Our Lives."

In a naturalistic, sometimes heartbreaking performance as a disabled sailor who just wants to be treated like everyone else, Russell more than holds his own amidst an impressive company of professionals, including Frederic March (who won the Best Actor Oscar), Myrna Loy, Dana Andrews, and Virginia Mayo.

In a particularly touching scene, Homer shoes his girlfriend, Wilma
(Cathy O'Donnell), his nightly dressing routine.

Alongside his Oscar as Best Supporting Actor, Harold Russell received an honorary Academy Award, citing him for “bringing hope and courage to his fellow veterans.” Overall, “The Best Years of Our Lives” reaped nine Academy Awards. Once filming wrapped, Wyler recommended Russell return to college, since there “weren’t many roles for actors without hands.” Russell went back to Boston University and graduated with a business degree in 1949.

Flanked by fellow Oscar winners producer Samuel Goldwyn and director
William Wyler, Harold Russell brandishes his two Academy Awards.

Harold Russell became an advocate for American Veterans, Inc. (AMVETS), a volunteer-staffed organization formed “to enhance and safeguard the entitlements for all American veterans who have served honorably…” In 1964, President Lyndon Johnson appointed Russell as chairman of the President’s Committee on Employment of the Handicapped, a volunteer post he held until the late 1980s.

Thirty-four years after appearing in “The Best Years of Our Lives,” Harold Russell returned to the screen with a supporting role in “Inside Moves,” a modest drama (“modest” in the sense that director Richard Donner is better known for helming the mayhem in the first two “Superman” films and the “Lethal Weapon” franchise, as well as producing a pair of “X-Men” movies) centered on a neighborhood bar frequented by a klatch of misfits and disabled patrons.

Bert Remsen, Bill Henderson, and Harold Russell share a scene in "Inside Moves."

Scripted by future Oscar-winning director Barry Levinson (“Rain Man”) and then-wife Valerie Curtin (best known for collaborating with Levinson on the Academy Award-nominated screenplay for “…And Justice for All”), “Inside Moves” starred John Savage and Diana Scarwid, whose performance in the film garnered a Best Supporting Actress nomination.

After guest appearances in the TV series “Trapper John, M.D.” and “China Beach,” Harold Russell made Oscar history again in 1992 when he became the first Academy Award winner to put his statuette (for Best Supporting Actor) on the auction block. The controversial action, spurred by medical expenses for his ailing wife, resulted in the purchase of the Oscar for $60,000-plus, which Russell defended by saying, “My wife’s health is more important than sentimental reasons. The movie will be here, even if Oscar isn’t.” (In fact, the Academy has forbidden Oscar recipients since 1950 from selling their awards, but, as a pre-1950 winner, Harold Russell was exempt from the provision.)

Russell’s last acting role was in the 1997 small-town melodrama “Dogtown,” featuring Mary Stuart Masterson, Jon Favreau, Karen Black, and Natalie Wood’s daughter, Natasha Gregson Wagner. Harold Russell died two weeks short of his 88^th birthday in 2002.

John Savage landed the starring role in the abovementioned “Inside Moves” after attention-getting parts in “Hair” and “The Onion Field” and a breakout performance in “The Deer Hunter” (1978), the seminal motion picture about the Vietnam experience, featuring Robert De Niro, Christopher Walken, and Savage as Russian-American steelworkers who enlist for combat service overseas. Walken won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor, while De Niro received a Best Actor nomination and costar Meryl Streep was nominated as Best Supporting Actress. This was the final screen role for John Cazale (best known as the weakling brother Fredo Corleone in the “Godfather” saga and as Al Pacino’s doomed partner, Sal, in “Dog Day Afternoon”).

Christopher Walken, Robert De Niro, Chuck Aspegren, John Savage,
and John Cazale pose on the set of "The Deer Hunter."

Smack dab in the midst of this formidable cast of thespian heavyweights, a blue-collar, nonprofessional actor named Chuck Aspegren proved himself a memorable scene-stealer as a bearish steelworker named Axel, noted for his oft-repeated mantra, “Fuckin’ A!”

Chuck Aspegren was working as a foreman in a Gary, Indiana steel factory that was checked out in pre-production by Robert De Niro and director Michael Cimino. Over beers at a corner bar, the filmmakers were so impressed by his larger-than-life personality that he became the second person cast in the movie after De Niro. Aspegren’s off-the-cuff performance is noteworthy for his relentless onscreen ribbing of John Cazale’s hapless character and a seriocomic dilemma that finds him trapped under the mechanical pinsetter in a bowling alley (pictured below).

Disappointingly, after “The Deer Hunter,” Chuck Aspegren never acted again. For all intents and purposes, he completely fell off the grid.

Chuck Aspegren, Meryl Streep, John Cazale, John Savage, George Dzundza,
Rutanya Alda, and Robert De Niro share a poignant final toast tin "The Deer Hunter."

Like the two first-timers already discussed, our third nonprofessional actor appeared in a drama played out against the backdrop of war. Thuy Thu Le was born in 1973, the youngest of ten children. In late April 1975, when North Vietnamese troops were advancing on Saigon, Thuy (pronounced “Twee”) fled the city with her father and two brothers; four siblings had already left the country, while her mother, a sister, and two brothers remained behind. She told People magazine, “We’d hear about what battle was going on where, who won, who lost, but at that time I really didn’t care. I was little.”

Thuy eventually lived with a sister in Wheaton, Illinois, where she finished high school. She joined her mother in Paris, where she fell in love with a Laotian-born medical student, whom she married. She was applying for colleges in Paris when she auditioned on a whim for “Casualties of War,” a 1989 film starring Michael J. Fox and Sean Penn, based on the so-called Incident on Hill 192. In November 1966, a U.S. Army squad, with premeditation, abducted, raped, and murdered a young Vietnamese girl named Phi Than Mao (fictionalized in the movie as Than Thi Oanh).

When she auditioned, Thuy assumed it would be “a summer job as an extra. If I had known it was for a major role, I wouldn’t have gone.” Director Brian De Palma recounted, “There was something about the electricity in Thuy’s eyes, her passion, that was stunning.”

According to Thuy, the movie (shot in remote regions of Thailand) helped her understand how the Vietnamese “were living and the fear they were feeling.” Although she said filming the rape was “really intense,” the most difficult scene for her to perform was the one in which she tries to overcome the language barrier begging Fox to help her escape. Fox told People, “Thuy didn’t have a script. A lot of the pleading and what she said, Thuy just made up. That just astounded me. It was heart-melting.”

Thuy Thu Le (pictured above, with Sean Penn) has dual roles in "Casualties of
War," appearing at the end of the film as a college student on a light rail line in
San Francisco who says to Michael J. Fox, "You had a bad dream, didn't you?"

“I’d never been in front of a camera before,” Thuy recalled, “and being in that role was even worse. Some days I’d go back to my hotel upset. I’d think, ‘Oh, God, what am I doing here?’” She later admitted, “The title, ‘Casualties of War’ makes you think that everyone is a victim, not just the girl who was raped and killed. The soldiers were also victims, even if they were beasts. It was hard for them, you feel sorry for them.”

Thuy promptly retired from acting. Married with three children, as of 2055, she was working as a schoolteacher in California. “To tell you the truth,” she said, “I didn’t expect any offers after ('Casualties of War.'). It was just this experience that I’m grateful for.”