RALPH WAITE INTERVIEW

I saw Cool Hand Luke for the first time about a month ago. It's on a long list of classic movies that I'm ashamed to have not seen before. I was so impressed that I began contacting the cast and crew to put together a retrospective. What a thrill to get a call back from Ralph Waite, the veteran actor who actually has one of my favorite parts in the film as the new guy who struggles to figure out the rules in the prison work camp. Waite turns 80 this year (and shares my June 22nd birthday) and has had a long career that's lasted more than 40 years and still keeps him busy. In between his film work which has included such classics as Five Easy Pieces, Roots, HBO's Carnivale, and of course the patriarch of The Waltons clan, he ran for congress in 1990 and 1998.

My agent says you're doing something on your blog about Cool Hand Luke, is that right?

It sure is, thanks for calling me back.

OK...well let's go.

How you doing today?

I'm doing all right, how are you doing? What do you got, a blog site or something? What do you got, Robert?

Well retroCRUSH is more of an entertainment magazine in general. We've been around for about 7 years now.

Pretty good. So you're doing an article on Cool Hand Luke, or something?

Well I wanted to talk to you about that, and some career highlights in general if that's cool with you.So in 1967, you're in Cool Hand Luke, what's the experience like to work with so many great actors in such a legendary movie like that?

Stuart Rosenberg brought me out, I was a theater actor out of New York at the time. I hadn't done any films, maybe a couple back in New York...some small parts. We went up to Stockton and we went up to what looked like a prison camp. Well, we actually lived in a motel, but we spent most of our time in this camp. It was great fun meeting all these guys. Some of them I knew from The Actor's Studio in New York...Joe Don Baker and a couple of others...Lou Antonio and Cliff James. But I had never met Newman.

It was 3 months. It was a long long experience. A lot of times out in the sun on the road, digging. It was hard work sometimes. But it was a good experience. I was paid very little at the time. I was just starting out. But it was more money that I made in the theater, so I was good for the job.

Yeah, there was so much work. You could tell you couldn't fake those scenes where you're alongside the road, just hacking at weeds.

That's right we were out there on the roads for hours at a time.

So you're out on this set for what, like three months making this movie. There's a scene where you guys are tarring a road. I read that you had to do that for real. That experience must have been pretty brutal, huh?

Well, I mean I had been a laborer in college. In summers, I had put black tops on roads and stuff. But it was hot as hell and there wasn't much place to get a break or get in the shade. We were exhausted by the time we got back to the motel. We were pretty much done in.

Cool Hand Luke is a really interesting movie from the perspective that...well there has always been these ensemble films where you get a lot of real famous people and put them together but it's interesting how many brand new actors were thrown together in that film, and so many of them became so huge. Like yourself, Joe Don Baker, Harry Dean Stanton, and Dennis Hopper. You could go on and on...Wayne Rogers.

Yeah, Dennis Hopper, who was called Babalugats, he didn't have any words in that film, he just mumbled the whole time, he didn't speak. He went from there to having a very good career. A lot of guys there had not been around much. I think Dennis had gotten in trouble for being a bad boy as a kid in Hollywood and hadn't worked that much. This was the beginning of the resurrection of his career. I think that's what happened, I'm not sure.

Was there a sense while making this movie how big it would end up becoming, or was this sort of like "this is just another movie we're making"?  When did it sink in that Cool Hand Luke was bigger than everyone expected it would be.

I had no idea. I had the same experience with Five Easy Pieces. I had no idea that this was going to be that kind of film. I was just glad to be out of New York a little while and pick up a little money. It was a job. It was easy acting compared to the theater, so I really enjoyed myself.

That scene in the film where you break down before getting put into the hole is just fantastic. I thought it really showed how frail a man can get while his spirit is broken. Was that a difficult scene to prepare for and get right? Where you able to draw upon anything to make that work so well?

It actually was an interesting moment because I asked the director before he shot it, what he wanted, and I thought as we got into the scene and prepared for it, and I asked him what he was looking for, and in front of a bunch of actors, it was kind of embarrassing, he said, "Come on, I bring this actor out from New York, show me what ya got, I'm not gonna tell ya!" So I went and prepared, and when he got ready to shoot the scene he whispered to me, "I need tears here, Ralph." And I was preparing differently, more of a mood of fear and anxiety. I didn't think crying would come out. But he needed tears and I said, "Sure, why didn't you tell me before, I could have prepared."

So I needed to prepare so I went around behind the little house they were going to put me in and tried to use my Actor's Studio training and get into it and I couldn't come up with tears, because there were 80 people waiting on the other side to shoot the scene. I was so self-conscious I couldn't concentrate, so I came around and I said, "I don't have tears, I'll just give you what I got." And he said he had an idea and brought this guy in a white coat up and I had never seen him before, and he brought up a little vial with some ammonia in it. He said if you put it in your eyes you would start to tear up, and I said, "No no no! I'm an actor, I'm not gonna do THAT!" But I couldn't get anything done, so I said, "Gimme the ammonia!"

And when they started the camera I started bawling. And Stuart is behind the camera screaming, "LESS tears LESS tears LESS TEARS!" That was a difficult scene to get through. For a novice in film, I really was a novice on how film was done.

Well it sure stands the test of time, that's for sure.

(laughs) Yeah...

After being in "The Waltons", you shocked a lot of fans by playing such a dark character as Slater in Roots. What was the experience of making yet another all time epic piece like that for you?

Well I don't know about other actors but a lot of guys trained in New York don't think in terms of big films or doing the Hollywood thing, we're not really trained for that. I was always surprised when it turned out to be something big. I took "The Waltons" because I was stuck out here in the west coast and wanted to get back to New York and the theater. My agent assured me that if I just made the pilot, I'd pick up a few bucks, and if it got made it certainly wasn't going to run long because it was "too soft". I wasn't going to do television. And look what happened! That was my career for the next 10 years. So I've never made any attempt in understanding how Hollywood works.

Five Easy Pieces seemed like a nice quiet little group up there in Victoria Island doing pretty good work. Jack Nicholson wasn't that big back then. All these things are kind of surprising to me the way they work out.

Did you have a good time working on "Carnivale" for HBO?

I did and it was a very good job. I'm getting old and I'm not getting that many jobs. I must say it was a very easy job. I went in about once a week or so. And I had a stroke so I just laid there and people would poke and play with me and I would just use my eyes. Then I would get up and go home after a few hours. So it was a very strange job, but I enjoyed it a lot. It was a good group of people.

Now I see you've worked again with Ed Asner in an upcoming TV film called Generation Gap. What's that about?

Well I was delighted to see Ed and some other guys I hadn't seen in years. That was part of the fun. The script wasn't that great but I really enjoyed seeing Ed again and working with him. And out of that came another role playing in NCIS which is coming up in a month or so, playing Mark Harmon's father, because somebody on the Ed Asner movie recommended me to those guys.

I think the movie I've enjoyed the most was the one that I wrote, produced, and acted in called On The Nickel. I don't know if you've ever seen it but...

That was around 1980 that came out?

Yes. That was the most creative experience I've ever had.

So running for Congress as a liberal 2 times in a very conservative part of California.

(Ralph laughs heartily)

Mary Bono, who ran against Ralph Waite in a 1998 campaign, poses with Emperor Palpatine

I gotta admire you for doing that. Is there just some places where a Democrat simply win because of the Republican population there?

I think so! I was new to politics and I just got very upset with the way that the Congressman who was representing for a dozen years down here in the area of social issues, in the area of the AIDS epidemic. He was very insensitive as to what was going on. It was one of the key places that people with AIDS came for assistance, help, and guidance. He had made some disparaging remarks about it, and I got so mad that I decided to take him on. I found out only later that this is probably the most conservative Republican area in the country, and I was fighting an uphill battle. But I had a great time doing it, and I almost BEAT him!

The second time I was asked to do it when Sonny Bono died and there was no way I was going to win that, looking back. The vote for Mary Bono was overwhelming.

Yeah, it's tough to run against a widow. I appreciate you running. I know some people look at a celebrity running for office and they don't realize that this person has a lot of success already and it's no easy job. It's quite a humbling experience, and I respect you for going through that.

It was. It was quite an experience. I learned a lot.

I sure got a laugh reading about, I believe it was the 1990 run that you had, and every time an episode of "The Waltons" or some old movie of yours popped on, I think it was during the Primary, your competitor would demand equal time on television.

That was an issue for a while, yes! He didn't get the equal time but it was an issue.

Well that's certainly coming up more an more as actors run for office.

The most interesting job I've had in the last year or two is this Ace Ventura Jr. movie, I don't know it's coming out on DVD or in theaters, but it was a lot of fun to do down in Florida. I play a weird wacky father to Ace Ventura when he was a teenager.

So what was that experience like?

It was great fun. A real far out character. I just decided to throw myself into it, and I don't know how silly I look, with that big coiffed hair that Jim Carrey had. I had a great time playing a very very silly character.

It's got to be fun to just play in a wacky comedy and just have fun with.

It is, it was great fun. Well, I hope this was helpful, I gotta get moving now.

Thank you so much, Ralph for taking the time to talk to us. I really appreciate it so much, and best of luck to you in everything you do.

Thank you, Robert, you're welcome!

-Robert Berry
rberry@retrocrush.com