But the scene where I realize that I have killed a mother bird required something more, an authentic portrayal of guilt, fear, and grief. I couldn’t have described the challenge in those words, but Dad did his best to prepare me the night before the shoot, explaining the depth of Opie’s feelings. Still, I went to sleep worrying and wondering: How was I going to find those feelings?
I was still searching for the answer to this question the next day, even after we had rehearsed the scene and the camera was positioned. Then Dad took me aside. “Do you remember how you felt when Gulliver died?” he said. “That’s the way Opie is feeling now. That feeling of being scared and sad and disappointed. Think about that.”
Richard Crenna, who directed that episode, must have noticed that I was in an intense emotional headspace, because he called out his usually robust “Action!” in a hushed, somber tone. They rolled camera. And as I picked up that prop bird and implored it to live, I thought of Gulliver. For the first time as an actor, I cried real tears and trembled real trembles. I’d come a long way from my subpar display of emotion in “The New Housekeeper,” when Sheldon Leonard intimated that he might have to spank a performance out of me.
When Dick Crenna yelled “Cut!,” I was still in my Method-y sad zone, but the mood around me was one of euphoria. Everyone had just watched me ascend to a new level. From every angle, big adult hands extended toward me to shake mine, or tousle my hair, or pat me on the back in congratulation.
Foremost among my congratulators was Andy. I told him what I had been thinking about as I was doing the scene—and broke into tears all over again. He gave me an empathetic hug and then gently reminded me that it was time to rehearse the next scene. We were on a schedule, after all.
I was on a roll that year. Vincente Minnelli cast me in his film The Courtship of Eddie’s Father, adapted from a novel about a boy who tries to play matchmaker for his widower dad. I played Eddie, Glenn Ford played the father, and Shirley Jones reunited with me to play the divorcée nurse next door, who ultimately turns out to be the ideal fit for Glenn’s character. Though the movie was later adapted into a lighthearted sitcom, our version was more melodramatic. I consider my performance in this picture to be the best of my childhood career.
Eddie has a scene in which he discovers a dead goldfish floating in his tank and shrieks in fear. Shirley’s character correctly intuits that Eddie has conflated the fish with his mother and comforts him as he breaks down. Once again, I summoned memories of Gulliver in order to place myself in my character’s frame of mind, convulsing with grief, discovering emotional depths I was hitherto unaware of. MGM, the studio that produced the movie, was so impressed by my work that they considered mounting a Best Supporting Actor campaign for me. That didn’t happen, but my confidence skyrocketed further.
Minnelli fostered an atmosphere of comfort on the set by seeing to it that I had a babysitter and playmate: his seventeen-year-old daughter, Liza. We passed the time between my scenes with a deck of cards, Liza teaching me all manner of sleight-of-hand tricks that I can still do today. Hanging out with the Minnellis was cool, but cooler still was recognizing my great leap forward. In “Opie the Birdman” and The Courtship of Eddie’s Father, I had extended a part of myself into my performances. I had gone deep. I was no longer a child actor. I was an actor, period.
8
Toughening Up
CLINT
Ron and I considered it a point of pride that we could deliver the emotional truth in our performances and bring genuine tears. Dad taught us that other people might need to fake it, but not the Howards. Glycerin? We didn’t need no stinking glycerin! It became an us-against-them challenge. When I saw adult actors sit still while the makeup artist painted streaks of glycerin on their faces, I thought, These people? They don’t know what they’re doing! In my youthful bravado and arrogance, I considered their approach lazy.
In 1972, I landed a lead role in a TV movie called The Red Pony, adapted from a John Steinbeck novella. The film contains what I consider my best childhood work, not least because, using Dad’s by then time-tested mini-Methodology, I summoned a whole lot of tears and anger.