December 4, 2024 • 20 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, our next story is about the man who played Captain McCluskey in “The Godfather,’’ the crooked cop who breaks Michael Corleone’s jaw—later receiving a bullet through the throat and forehead as comeuppance. Here to tell another Hollywood Goes to War story is Roger McGrath.McGrath is the author of Gunfighters, Highwaymen, and Vigilantes: Violence on the Frontier. A U.S. Marine and former history professor at UCLA, Dr. McGrath has appeared on numerous History Channel documentaries and is a regular contributor here at Our American Stories.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
And we continue with our American stories. Our next story
is about the man who played Captain McCluskey in The Godfather.
Here to tell another Hollywood goes to War's story is
Roger McGrath. McGrath is the author of Gunfighters, Hoighwoman, and Vigilantes.
You hear him and see him on the History Channel.
He's a regular contributor to Now American Stories. Here's McGrath.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Sirdling Hayden appeared in fifty nine movies, often as leading man,
and made another eighteen appearances and various television productions. At
six foot five with a large frame and I had
a blonde hair, he was nicknamed the Viking. His movie
career began in nineteen forty one and didn't end until
(00:57):
nineteen eighty two. Despite all this fine work earlier in
his career, he's probably best remembered for his role as
General Jack Ripper in Doctor Strangelove, a satire ridiculing the
Cold War conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
Do you recall what clemenso one said about war? No,
I didn't think I know that. I he said war
was too important to be left to the generals. When
he said that fifty years ago he might have been right,
but today war is too important to be left to politicians.
(01:43):
I can no longer sit back and allow communist infiltration,
communist indoctrination, communists subversion, and the international Communist conspiracy happen
and purify all of our precious bodily fluids.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
Little remembered about Sterling Hayden is World War II service
as a Marine officer attached to the Office of Strategic Services,
the Oss. Sterling Hayden is born in nineteen sixteen to
George and Francis Walter in Upper Montclair, New Jersey. Young
(02:28):
Sterling lives a typical boy's life in that era, although
he's more mischievous than most boys and occasionally finds himself
in trouble. When he's nine years old, he fires a
slingshot at a neighbor. Greatly upset by Sterling's behavior, his
father whips him, but while doing so, collapses from a stroke.
(02:49):
Three months later, his father dies, Sterling blames himself and
mourns the loss of his father for months. Sterling's mother
finds employment a good housekeeping magazine and is able to
support herself and her son. She later marries James Hayden
and her new husband adopts Sterling, who now becomes Sterling
(03:11):
Walter Hayden. When the Great Depression hits, the Hayden family
falls on hard times and moves often. The teenage Sterling
is often absent from the various schools he attends, and
after the tenth grade he drops out permanently. While searching
for a job on the Boston Wharves, he learns that
(03:33):
the schooner Puritan is hiring crew for a voyage to California.
Sterling signs on as a ship's boy at ten dollars
a month. He's excited to have landed the job and
is off to sea at sixteen years old. The young
lad takes to life at sea with ease, and during
the next four years sails on schooners and trawlers, moving
(03:56):
up through the ranks from ship's boy to first mate.
As first mate, he ships aboard the schooner Yankee, which
takes him on around the World voyage. In nineteen thirty eight,
at the age of twenty two, Sterling Hayden is given
his first command of a ship, the Brig Florence C. Robinson,
(04:18):
inport at Gloucester, Massachusetts. The ship was sold to a
Copora trader in Tahiti, and it is Hayden's job to
sail it there. It's a bit of a lark and
he assembles a crew of experienced sailors, but others who
are less sailor and more adventurer. Of the eleven on board,
Hayden is the youngest at twenty two, and Lawrence O'Toole,
(04:41):
an artist and writer, the oldest. At thirty three. Days
out of Gloucester, young Captain Hayden finds himself in a
hurricane with winds of one hundred miles power and waves
of forty feet. It's a supreme test for all aboard,
especially Hayden. He guides the wooden ship through the fierce storm,
(05:03):
but Flossi is nicknamed for Florence c Robinson, is damaged
and Hayden puts in at Jamaica for repairs. From Jamaica,
they sail to Panama and pass through the canal, picking
up a parrot who can talk a blue streak along
the way. They next put in at the Glopagus Islands,
where they are surprised to find a small colony of Americans,
(05:26):
Norwegians and Germans among the larger population Ecuadorans from the
Galopogus Islands. It's thousands of miles and several weeks of
open sea to Tahiti. Hayden navigates by shooting the stars
with his sextant. The horizon seems endless and the night
sky is stunning. When word reaches Boston that Florence C.
(05:49):
Robinson arrived safely in Tahiti after a seventy seven hundred
mile voyage, the Boston Herald said, these are not boys
young men. They are young men made of the stuff
that makes America great. They are doers of constructive deeds.
Their assignment was to deliver the brig to Tahiti. They
(06:10):
delivered the brig to Tahiti. Once back in the United States,
Hayden addresses the Adventurers Club in New York City and
then heads up to Massachusetts, where he participates in an
annual sailing contest, the International Fisherman's Race. In the spring
of nineteen forty, a photo was snapped of the handsome
(06:34):
six foot five and two hundred and twenty pound Hayden
with his blonde hair tousled by the wind. The photo
goes on the cover of a magazine an agent with
Paramount Pictures sees it and immediately arranges for Hayden to
come out to Hollywood for a screen test. Hayden later says,
I was completely lost, ignorant, nervous. But the next thing
(06:57):
I knew, Paramount made me a seven year a contract
beginning at two hundred and fifty dollars a week, which
was astronomical. I got my lovely old mother and bought
a car and we drove to California. I was so
lost that I didn't even think to analyze it. I said,
this is nuts, but dam it's pleasant. I had only
(07:19):
one plan in mind, to get five thousand dollars. I
knew where there was a schooner, and then I'd haul ass.
Bearmount promotes Sterling as the beautiful blonde Viking god. He's
in his first movie, titled Simply Virginia in nineteen forty one.
The movie stars Madeleine Carroll and Fred McMurray, but Hayden
(07:43):
virtually shares the male lead with mc murray. In a
second movie in nineteen forty one, Bahama Passage, Hayden is
the male lead. The female lead again is Madeleine Carroll.
Let father can do anything.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
I only hope I can be half the man is.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
Hayden becomes one of Hollywood's most talked about and successful
young stars, and several movies are waiting for him. In
nineteen forty two, however, in a sneak attack, the Japanese
bombed Pearl Harbor and American is suddenly in war. Hayden
quits Hollywood and his wife as the beautiful blonde Viking
(08:21):
god enlist in the Marine Corps. He declares, I don't
want to go on imitating men, and that's all there
is to it.
Speaker 3 (08:32):
Ebsen is back. Good man, do nothing is the chief
danger of our time.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
Haiden's performance in boot camp at Paris Island is outstanding,
and together with the years of experience on the high seas,
which include earning his Master's certificate meaning he could captain
a ship and sailing around the world, the Corps now
sends Hayden to officers School. By April nineteen forty three,
he's a second lieutenant. Because of Hayden's background, General William
(09:07):
Donovan of the OSS now wants Hayden attached to his
clandestine organization.
Speaker 1 (09:14):
And you've been listening to Roger McGrath tell the story
of Sterling Hayden. When we come back more of Sterling
Hayden's story, our Hollywood Goes to War series here on
our American story, and we continue with our American stories
(09:42):
and with our Hollywood Goes to War series with Roger
McGrath's telling the story of Sterling Hayden. Let's pick up
where we last left off.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
The Marine Corps lends Lieutenant Hayden to General Donovan, and
Hayden is trained at OSS quarters in Washington, d c.
From there, he's sent to the OSS Office in Cairo, Egypt.
Three months later. Hayden is operating out of a small
coastal town, a monopoly near the southeastern tip of the
(10:15):
Italian Peninsula. He organizes a fleet of fourteen sailboats and
during dark nights in late December nineteen forty three in
early January nineteen forty four, ferries weapons and supplies through
the German patrolled Adriatic Sea to marshall Joseph Tito's communist
guerrilla forces in Yugoslavia. Hayden has awarded the Silver Star
(10:38):
for displaying great courage and making hazardous sea voyages in
enemy infested waters and reconnaissance trips through those enemy held areas.
From mid February to April first, nineteen forty four, Hayden
makes ten more clandestine trips, firing guns supplies from southern
(11:01):
Italy to Yugoslavia. He describes a typical trip to the
island of Thesee, just off the Yugoslavian coast. By plunging
through the Allied minefield the late of an afternoon, A
schooner always had a chance of reaching this at dawn,
barely in time to be backed into a precipitous cove
(11:23):
where she could be hastily camouflaged with pine boughs festooned
in her rigging unloaded the following night, the camouflage repeated,
and then driven toward Italy as soon as the weather served.
If dodging Allied mines and German patrol vessels was not enough,
Hayden's next assignment is even riskier. With a Marine gunnery
(11:46):
sergeant and a Navy radio operator Hayden on loan to
the OSS, Hayden parachutes into Yugoslavia and makes contact with
partisan forces. We hooked up with about thirty of the
toughest bastards on earth, said Hayden. None of them had
(12:07):
had a bath in years all had been in the
thick of the fighting and marching all up and down
Bosnia and Croatia. They would only take a cigarette at
a time, which they passed around in circles. During his
next several months behind German lines, Hayden makes contact with
two dozen downed American and British airmen at various locations
(12:32):
and leads them to the Adriatic coast, where sailboats take
them to safety in southern Italy, now occupied by the Allies.
Late in nineteen forty four, Hayden is working with General
Courtney Hodges and the first Armies pushed into Germany. Hayden's
OSS team seeks out anti Nazi Germans for work with
(12:54):
the OSS. In February nineteen forty five, Hayden is promoted
to captain following V Day in Europe. He's test with
assessing bombing damage of ports along the coast of the
North Sea. Captain Sterling Hayden is released from active duty
(13:14):
in December nineteen forty five. His decorations include a silver
star in two bronze arrowheads. Hayden is back in the
movies in nineteen forty seven, appearing in Blaze of Noon
and Variety Girl. He appears in another fifty five films
during the next thirty years, including the lead in the
(13:35):
highly acclaimed The Asphalt Jungle in nineteen fifty I.
Speaker 3 (13:40):
Got a chance to work in a picture called as
Fault Jungle, which you may have heard of with John Houston.
So I went up to Mandeville Cranyon and rented a house.
Malan and Roe lived there. Later she was an Asphalt Jungle.
That was her first film, I believe her first primary film,
Huh of the day she came on the set. Yeah,
(14:02):
stop business, everything stopped.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
And the lead in the equally highly acclaimed The Killing
in nineteen fifty six.
Speaker 3 (14:12):
All right, there's a parking lot less than three hundred
feet from the northwest corner of the track. From a
car parked in the southeast corner of that lot, you
get a perfect view of the horses as they come
around the fire corner and start into the stretch. A
man sitting in a car parked in that spot, using
a high powered rifle with a telescopic site should be
able to bring down any given horse with a single shot.
Red lightning will undoubtedly be leading in the stretch, because
that's the way he runs, So he goes down, a
(14:33):
couple of other horses pile up on top of him.
There'll be plenty of confusion. I can get and tell
you that.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
Despite these roles and dozens of others as a cowboy,
a seafarer, a military officer, a detective, or an outlaw,
his most famous role is that of General Jack d
Ripper in The Great Sattire Doctor Strangelove in nineteen sixty four.
Speaker 3 (14:56):
I've seen very little of myself on film, usually because
I feel uncomfortable in what I see, even when it's good,
even what passes for being good. When I worked with
the Kubrick in Strange Love, and Lord knows, it was
a magnificent picture and we all know that, and apparently
I pulled my weight in it. But I went through
the worst day of my life the first day on
that picture because I began to blow in my lines
(15:20):
and I went forty eight takes and now we're doing
as you know what to call pickups and I can't
even do one damn line. Eh, And I'm pouring sweat
and they're mopping me off. Now, beautiful thing happens. Speaking
of Stanley Kubrick, I finally got up. I couldn't take
it anymore, and I walked up to him and I said, Stanley,
I apologize to you. And he said this to me,
(15:40):
one of the loveliest things any man has ever said
to me in my life. He said, Sterling, I know
you can't help what's going on, and you know I
can't help you, he said, but the terror in your eyes,
on your face may just be the quality. And now
he said to love, he said, the quality that we
want in this jackass, General jack Ripper. He said, if
(16:00):
it has not come back in another couple of months,
then we'll do it all over again. Now that was lovely,
wasn't it. I'll never forget that. Have you ever heard
of a thing called floridation? Floridation of water?
Speaker 2 (16:16):
Ah? Yes, I have had of that.
Speaker 3 (16:18):
Jack is Yeah, well you know what it is. Yeah,
all right, now you realize that floridation is the most
monstrously conceived and dangerous communist plot we have ever had
to face, Serling.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
Haiden's first wife is Madeline Carroll, who is the female
lead in Aiden's first two movies. There are four years
of separation during World War Two ends the marriage. He
marries Betty Ann Denon in nineteen forty seven, and they
have four children before divorcing in nineteen fifty eight. He
gains custody to the children, but it's supposed to get
(17:00):
keep them in California. Instead, he loads the kids aboard
a sailboat, the Wanderer, and sets out for Tahiti. A photographer,
Dodie Weston Thompson, tags along, documenting the entire trip, including
their time in Tahiti. In nineteen sixty Aiden marries Catherine
(17:21):
Divine McConnell and has two more children. Catherine has a
son from her first marriage, Scott McConnell, who years later
becomes one of the founders and the editor of the
American conservative magazine Sterling. Aiden stays married to Catherine until
he dies of cancer in nineteen eighty six at age
(17:42):
seventy in his home at Saucelito. His ashes were spread
over San Francisco Bay. Aiden never liked Hollywood or acting,
but it was an easy way for him to make money.
He said, There's nothing wrong with being an actor if
that's what a man wants, but there's everything wrong with
(18:03):
achieving an exalted status simply because one photographs will and
is able to handle dialogue in the final analysis, an
actor is only a pawn. Brilliant sometimes where you're in talented,
capable of bringing pleasure and even inspiration to others, but
no less pawn.
Speaker 3 (18:24):
For that, I didn't think it was really I couldn't
take it seriously because it seems so ridiculous. It seems
so crazy, you know what I mean? Because I don't
think there are any other businesses in this world where
you can be paid very good money and so calls
semi starred and you don't know what you're doing. I
started in nineteen forty at Paramount. Then when I got
(18:47):
that thing with Houston with John something said to me, Hey,
if you're going to be here, maybe you should learn
what the hell you're doing. So then I was sort
of serious.
Speaker 2 (18:58):
US remembered as a movie star, Sterling Hayden was most
at home sailing the high seas or on gearing missions
as a marine officer with the OSS.
Speaker 1 (19:14):
And a terrific job on the production editing and storytelling
by our own Greg Hengler and a special thanks to
Roger McGrath. He's the author of Gunfighters, Highwaymen and Vigilantes.
Violence on the Frontier. A US Marine always former history
professor at UCLA. And you know him if you watch
the History Channel. What a story he told about Sterling Hayden,
(19:37):
My goodness, the things he loved, sailing the high seas
and serving his country in combat and the most dangerous
combat missions of them. All of course, are involved in
counter intelligence and espionage. And imagine trying to figure out
which Germans really are, really are people who hate the
(19:58):
Nazis as opposed to spies themselves, And then you are dead.
The American spy is dead. And the story of Sterling Hayden,
silver Star recipient in World War Two, a man who
served his country like few others working for the O
S s his story here on our American Stories
And we continue with our American stories. Our next story
is about the man who played Captain McCluskey in The Godfather.
Here to tell another Hollywood goes to War's story is
Roger McGrath. McGrath is the author of Gunfighters, Hoighwoman, and Vigilantes.
You hear him and see him on the History Channel.
He's a regular contributor to Now American Stories. Here's McGrath.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Sirdling Hayden appeared in fifty nine movies, often as leading man,
and made another eighteen appearances and various television productions. At
six foot five with a large frame and I had
a blonde hair, he was nicknamed the Viking. His movie
career began in nineteen forty one and didn't end until
(00:57):
nineteen eighty two. Despite all this fine work earlier in
his career, he's probably best remembered for his role as
General Jack Ripper in Doctor Strangelove, a satire ridiculing the
Cold War conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
Do you recall what clemenso one said about war? No,
I didn't think I know that. I he said war
was too important to be left to the generals. When
he said that fifty years ago he might have been right,
but today war is too important to be left to politicians.
(01:43):
I can no longer sit back and allow communist infiltration,
communist indoctrination, communists subversion, and the international Communist conspiracy happen
and purify all of our precious bodily fluids.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
Little remembered about Sterling Hayden is World War II service
as a Marine officer attached to the Office of Strategic Services,
the Oss. Sterling Hayden is born in nineteen sixteen to
George and Francis Walter in Upper Montclair, New Jersey. Young
(02:28):
Sterling lives a typical boy's life in that era, although
he's more mischievous than most boys and occasionally finds himself
in trouble. When he's nine years old, he fires a
slingshot at a neighbor. Greatly upset by Sterling's behavior, his
father whips him, but while doing so, collapses from a stroke.
(02:49):
Three months later, his father dies, Sterling blames himself and
mourns the loss of his father for months. Sterling's mother
finds employment a good housekeeping magazine and is able to
support herself and her son. She later marries James Hayden
and her new husband adopts Sterling, who now becomes Sterling
(03:11):
Walter Hayden. When the Great Depression hits, the Hayden family
falls on hard times and moves often. The teenage Sterling
is often absent from the various schools he attends, and
after the tenth grade he drops out permanently. While searching
for a job on the Boston Wharves, he learns that
(03:33):
the schooner Puritan is hiring crew for a voyage to California.
Sterling signs on as a ship's boy at ten dollars
a month. He's excited to have landed the job and
is off to sea at sixteen years old. The young
lad takes to life at sea with ease, and during
the next four years sails on schooners and trawlers, moving
(03:56):
up through the ranks from ship's boy to first mate.
As first mate, he ships aboard the schooner Yankee, which
takes him on around the World voyage. In nineteen thirty eight,
at the age of twenty two, Sterling Hayden is given
his first command of a ship, the Brig Florence C. Robinson,
(04:18):
inport at Gloucester, Massachusetts. The ship was sold to a
Copora trader in Tahiti, and it is Hayden's job to
sail it there. It's a bit of a lark and
he assembles a crew of experienced sailors, but others who
are less sailor and more adventurer. Of the eleven on board,
Hayden is the youngest at twenty two, and Lawrence O'Toole,
(04:41):
an artist and writer, the oldest. At thirty three. Days
out of Gloucester, young Captain Hayden finds himself in a
hurricane with winds of one hundred miles power and waves
of forty feet. It's a supreme test for all aboard,
especially Hayden. He guides the wooden ship through the fierce storm,
(05:03):
but Flossi is nicknamed for Florence c Robinson, is damaged
and Hayden puts in at Jamaica for repairs. From Jamaica,
they sail to Panama and pass through the canal, picking
up a parrot who can talk a blue streak along
the way. They next put in at the Glopagus Islands,
where they are surprised to find a small colony of Americans,
(05:26):
Norwegians and Germans among the larger population Ecuadorans from the
Galopogus Islands. It's thousands of miles and several weeks of
open sea to Tahiti. Hayden navigates by shooting the stars
with his sextant. The horizon seems endless and the night
sky is stunning. When word reaches Boston that Florence C.
(05:49):
Robinson arrived safely in Tahiti after a seventy seven hundred
mile voyage, the Boston Herald said, these are not boys
young men. They are young men made of the stuff
that makes America great. They are doers of constructive deeds.
Their assignment was to deliver the brig to Tahiti. They
(06:10):
delivered the brig to Tahiti. Once back in the United States,
Hayden addresses the Adventurers Club in New York City and
then heads up to Massachusetts, where he participates in an
annual sailing contest, the International Fisherman's Race. In the spring
of nineteen forty, a photo was snapped of the handsome
(06:34):
six foot five and two hundred and twenty pound Hayden
with his blonde hair tousled by the wind. The photo
goes on the cover of a magazine an agent with
Paramount Pictures sees it and immediately arranges for Hayden to
come out to Hollywood for a screen test. Hayden later says,
I was completely lost, ignorant, nervous. But the next thing
(06:57):
I knew, Paramount made me a seven year a contract
beginning at two hundred and fifty dollars a week, which
was astronomical. I got my lovely old mother and bought
a car and we drove to California. I was so
lost that I didn't even think to analyze it. I said,
this is nuts, but dam it's pleasant. I had only
(07:19):
one plan in mind, to get five thousand dollars. I
knew where there was a schooner, and then I'd haul ass.
Bearmount promotes Sterling as the beautiful blonde Viking god. He's
in his first movie, titled Simply Virginia in nineteen forty one.
The movie stars Madeleine Carroll and Fred McMurray, but Hayden
(07:43):
virtually shares the male lead with mc murray. In a
second movie in nineteen forty one, Bahama Passage, Hayden is
the male lead. The female lead again is Madeleine Carroll.
Let father can do anything.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
I only hope I can be half the man is.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
Hayden becomes one of Hollywood's most talked about and successful
young stars, and several movies are waiting for him. In
nineteen forty two, however, in a sneak attack, the Japanese
bombed Pearl Harbor and American is suddenly in war. Hayden
quits Hollywood and his wife as the beautiful blonde Viking
(08:21):
god enlist in the Marine Corps. He declares, I don't
want to go on imitating men, and that's all there
is to it.
Speaker 3 (08:32):
Ebsen is back. Good man, do nothing is the chief
danger of our time.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
Haiden's performance in boot camp at Paris Island is outstanding,
and together with the years of experience on the high seas,
which include earning his Master's certificate meaning he could captain
a ship and sailing around the world, the Corps now
sends Hayden to officers School. By April nineteen forty three,
he's a second lieutenant. Because of Hayden's background, General William
(09:07):
Donovan of the OSS now wants Hayden attached to his
clandestine organization.
Speaker 1 (09:14):
And you've been listening to Roger McGrath tell the story
of Sterling Hayden. When we come back more of Sterling
Hayden's story, our Hollywood Goes to War series here on
our American story, and we continue with our American stories
(09:42):
and with our Hollywood Goes to War series with Roger
McGrath's telling the story of Sterling Hayden. Let's pick up
where we last left off.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
The Marine Corps lends Lieutenant Hayden to General Donovan, and
Hayden is trained at OSS quarters in Washington, d c.
From there, he's sent to the OSS Office in Cairo, Egypt.
Three months later. Hayden is operating out of a small
coastal town, a monopoly near the southeastern tip of the
(10:15):
Italian Peninsula. He organizes a fleet of fourteen sailboats and
during dark nights in late December nineteen forty three in
early January nineteen forty four, ferries weapons and supplies through
the German patrolled Adriatic Sea to marshall Joseph Tito's communist
guerrilla forces in Yugoslavia. Hayden has awarded the Silver Star
(10:38):
for displaying great courage and making hazardous sea voyages in
enemy infested waters and reconnaissance trips through those enemy held areas.
From mid February to April first, nineteen forty four, Hayden
makes ten more clandestine trips, firing guns supplies from southern
(11:01):
Italy to Yugoslavia. He describes a typical trip to the
island of Thesee, just off the Yugoslavian coast. By plunging
through the Allied minefield the late of an afternoon, A
schooner always had a chance of reaching this at dawn,
barely in time to be backed into a precipitous cove
(11:23):
where she could be hastily camouflaged with pine boughs festooned
in her rigging unloaded the following night, the camouflage repeated,
and then driven toward Italy as soon as the weather served.
If dodging Allied mines and German patrol vessels was not enough,
Hayden's next assignment is even riskier. With a Marine gunnery
(11:46):
sergeant and a Navy radio operator Hayden on loan to
the OSS, Hayden parachutes into Yugoslavia and makes contact with
partisan forces. We hooked up with about thirty of the
toughest bastards on earth, said Hayden. None of them had
(12:07):
had a bath in years all had been in the
thick of the fighting and marching all up and down
Bosnia and Croatia. They would only take a cigarette at
a time, which they passed around in circles. During his
next several months behind German lines, Hayden makes contact with
two dozen downed American and British airmen at various locations
(12:32):
and leads them to the Adriatic coast, where sailboats take
them to safety in southern Italy, now occupied by the Allies.
Late in nineteen forty four, Hayden is working with General
Courtney Hodges and the first Armies pushed into Germany. Hayden's
OSS team seeks out anti Nazi Germans for work with
(12:54):
the OSS. In February nineteen forty five, Hayden is promoted
to captain following V Day in Europe. He's test with
assessing bombing damage of ports along the coast of the
North Sea. Captain Sterling Hayden is released from active duty
(13:14):
in December nineteen forty five. His decorations include a silver
star in two bronze arrowheads. Hayden is back in the
movies in nineteen forty seven, appearing in Blaze of Noon
and Variety Girl. He appears in another fifty five films
during the next thirty years, including the lead in the
(13:35):
highly acclaimed The Asphalt Jungle in nineteen fifty I.
Speaker 3 (13:40):
Got a chance to work in a picture called as
Fault Jungle, which you may have heard of with John Houston.
So I went up to Mandeville Cranyon and rented a house.
Malan and Roe lived there. Later she was an Asphalt Jungle.
That was her first film, I believe her first primary film,
Huh of the day she came on the set. Yeah,
(14:02):
stop business, everything stopped.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
And the lead in the equally highly acclaimed The Killing
in nineteen fifty six.
Speaker 3 (14:12):
All right, there's a parking lot less than three hundred
feet from the northwest corner of the track. From a
car parked in the southeast corner of that lot, you
get a perfect view of the horses as they come
around the fire corner and start into the stretch. A
man sitting in a car parked in that spot, using
a high powered rifle with a telescopic site should be
able to bring down any given horse with a single shot.
Red lightning will undoubtedly be leading in the stretch, because
that's the way he runs, So he goes down, a
(14:33):
couple of other horses pile up on top of him.
There'll be plenty of confusion. I can get and tell
you that.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
Despite these roles and dozens of others as a cowboy,
a seafarer, a military officer, a detective, or an outlaw,
his most famous role is that of General Jack d
Ripper in The Great Sattire Doctor Strangelove in nineteen sixty four.
Speaker 3 (14:56):
I've seen very little of myself on film, usually because
I feel uncomfortable in what I see, even when it's good,
even what passes for being good. When I worked with
the Kubrick in Strange Love, and Lord knows, it was
a magnificent picture and we all know that, and apparently
I pulled my weight in it. But I went through
the worst day of my life the first day on
that picture because I began to blow in my lines
(15:20):
and I went forty eight takes and now we're doing
as you know what to call pickups and I can't
even do one damn line. Eh, And I'm pouring sweat
and they're mopping me off. Now, beautiful thing happens. Speaking
of Stanley Kubrick, I finally got up. I couldn't take
it anymore, and I walked up to him and I said, Stanley,
I apologize to you. And he said this to me,
(15:40):
one of the loveliest things any man has ever said
to me in my life. He said, Sterling, I know
you can't help what's going on, and you know I
can't help you, he said, but the terror in your eyes,
on your face may just be the quality. And now
he said to love, he said, the quality that we
want in this jackass, General jack Ripper. He said, if
(16:00):
it has not come back in another couple of months,
then we'll do it all over again. Now that was lovely,
wasn't it. I'll never forget that. Have you ever heard
of a thing called floridation? Floridation of water?
Speaker 2 (16:16):
Ah? Yes, I have had of that.
Speaker 3 (16:18):
Jack is Yeah, well you know what it is. Yeah,
all right, now you realize that floridation is the most
monstrously conceived and dangerous communist plot we have ever had
to face, Serling.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
Haiden's first wife is Madeline Carroll, who is the female
lead in Aiden's first two movies. There are four years
of separation during World War Two ends the marriage. He
marries Betty Ann Denon in nineteen forty seven, and they
have four children before divorcing in nineteen fifty eight. He
gains custody to the children, but it's supposed to get
(17:00):
keep them in California. Instead, he loads the kids aboard
a sailboat, the Wanderer, and sets out for Tahiti. A photographer,
Dodie Weston Thompson, tags along, documenting the entire trip, including
their time in Tahiti. In nineteen sixty Aiden marries Catherine
(17:21):
Divine McConnell and has two more children. Catherine has a
son from her first marriage, Scott McConnell, who years later
becomes one of the founders and the editor of the
American conservative magazine Sterling. Aiden stays married to Catherine until
he dies of cancer in nineteen eighty six at age
(17:42):
seventy in his home at Saucelito. His ashes were spread
over San Francisco Bay. Aiden never liked Hollywood or acting,
but it was an easy way for him to make money.
He said, There's nothing wrong with being an actor if
that's what a man wants, but there's everything wrong with
(18:03):
achieving an exalted status simply because one photographs will and
is able to handle dialogue in the final analysis, an
actor is only a pawn. Brilliant sometimes where you're in talented,
capable of bringing pleasure and even inspiration to others, but
no less pawn.
Speaker 3 (18:24):
For that, I didn't think it was really I couldn't
take it seriously because it seems so ridiculous. It seems
so crazy, you know what I mean? Because I don't
think there are any other businesses in this world where
you can be paid very good money and so calls
semi starred and you don't know what you're doing. I
started in nineteen forty at Paramount. Then when I got
(18:47):
that thing with Houston with John something said to me, Hey,
if you're going to be here, maybe you should learn
what the hell you're doing. So then I was sort
of serious.
Speaker 2 (18:58):
US remembered as a movie star, Sterling Hayden was most
at home sailing the high seas or on gearing missions
as a marine officer with the OSS.
Speaker 1 (19:14):
And a terrific job on the production editing and storytelling
by our own Greg Hengler and a special thanks to
Roger McGrath. He's the author of Gunfighters, Highwaymen and Vigilantes.
Violence on the Frontier. A US Marine always former history
professor at UCLA. And you know him if you watch
the History Channel. What a story he told about Sterling Hayden,
(19:37):
My goodness, the things he loved, sailing the high seas
and serving his country in combat and the most dangerous
combat missions of them. All of course, are involved in
counter intelligence and espionage. And imagine trying to figure out
which Germans really are, really are people who hate the
(19:58):
Nazis as opposed to spies themselves, And then you are dead.
The American spy is dead. And the story of Sterling Hayden,
silver Star recipient in World War Two, a man who
served his country like few others working for the O
S s his story here on our American Stories
Host
Lee Habeeb
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