An interview with Lee Marvin

November 19, 2004 12:55 PM

"The dog gets no Pernod in this house!" An interview with Lee Marvin, by Roger Ebert, back in 1970. Man, what a character.
posted by GriffX (16 comments total)

wow. that is quite an interview.
posted by oog at 1:34 PM on November 19, 2004

uh, either Lee Marvin was high *and* drunk....or Roger Ebert is a worse writer than I thought.

but Lee Marvin kicks ass regardless.
posted by raygun21 at 1:44 PM on November 19, 2004

"Newman has it all worked out. I get a million. He gets a million two, but that includes $200,000 expenses. So, if that's the game . . ." Marvin shrugged. "I never talked to Newman in my life. No, I talked to him on Park Avenue once. Only to give him a piece of advice. This fifteen-year-old girl wanted his autograph. He told her he didn't give autographs, but he'd buy her a beer. Paul, I said, She's only fifteen. I don't give a shit, he said."

Marvin was awesome. He talks like Bukowski on speed.
posted by Tommy Gnosis at 1:50 PM on November 19, 2004

uh, either Lee Marvin was high *and* drunk....or Roger Ebert is a worse writer than I thought.

Yeah, this is what I thought. That was a really, really poorly written interview. Imagine someone like Hunter S. Thompson interviewing Lee Marvin, and one can imagine what that article could have been...
posted by SweetJesus at 2:05 PM on November 19, 2004

Hmmm. Pernod.
posted by NewBornHippy at 2:22 PM on November 19, 2004

Imagine someone like Hunter S. Thompson interviewing Lee Marvin

They'd have probably ended up burning down the house & killing a stray transient.
posted by aramaic at 2:30 PM on November 19, 2004

That was a really, really poorly written interview.

I'm curious why you think so. (I thought it was a great read.)
posted by 327.ca at 2:48 PM on November 19, 2004

if hunter s. thompson had conducted the interview laboo would endured a pernod enema.
posted by quonsar at 2:52 PM on November 19, 2004

That interview was brilliant. You get Marvin's thoughts on acting, the movie industry, his peers, his romantic relationships, his kids, economics, basically everything you could ever want to find out from a famous movie actor at the height of his career without ever having the narrator/interviewer interrupt to ask stupid questions like, "How do you get in character?" or "How do you choose a script?"
posted by FYKshun at 2:59 PM on November 19, 2004

I think those were the days when Ebert was hanging out with Russ Meyer, so his brain may well have been addled as a result of that experience. I thought it was an entertaining read myself. Stylistically, it's possible that Ebert was experimenting with a more gonzo approach at that point in his career before he found his eventual voice.
posted by Tommy Gnosis at 3:02 PM on November 19, 2004

Ooops.. Sorry some of the ads on that Russ Meyer page are NSFW. Didn't notice them until after I posted it.
posted by Tommy Gnosis at 3:06 PM on November 19, 2004

Yeah, I think you've got to take the overall style of the writing with a grain of salt. It was 1970, after all--not very fair to judge it so far after the fact.
posted by LairBob at 4:00 PM on November 19, 2004

"Bob and Carol and Bill and Ted"

Keanu Reeves and Natalie Wood in a four-way? The mind boggles. Lee was ahead of his time in many ways.
posted by killy willy at 5:43 PM on November 19, 2004

Here comes Lee Marvin. Thank God, he's always drunk and violent!

"You bring that paper back here and I'll kill you," Marvin told LaBoo.

This made me envision a Lee Marvin children's book.
posted by ticopelp at 5:48 PM on November 19, 2004

Reading this made me realize that Lee Marvin was exactly who I thought he was. Man, I would have given anything to have gone out drinking with him on a Saturday night.

Except he would probably have beaten my ass and left me puking in the gutter and I wouldn't remember it anyway.
posted by Enron Hubbard at 6:36 AM on November 20, 2004

This interview takes place at about the end of what would become Marvin v. Marvin.
posted by sp dinsmoor at 9:58 AM on November 20, 2004