Brando_ Songs My Mother Taught Me - Marlon Brando [70]
The part I would play was that of Terry Malloy, an ex-pro boxer whose character was based on a real longshoreman who, despite threats against his life, testified against the “Goodfellas” who ran the Jersey waterfront. I was reluctant to take the part because I was conflicted about what Gadg had done and knew some of the people who had been deeply hurt. It was especially stupid because most of the people named were no longer Communists. Innocent people were also blacklisted, including me, although I never had a political affiliation of any kind. It was simply because I had signed a petition to protest the lynching of a black man in the South. My sister Jocelyn, who’d appeared in Mister Roberts on Broadway and became a very successful actress, was also blacklisted because her married name was Asinof and there was another J. Asinof. In those days, stepping off the sidewalk with your left foot first was grounds for suspicion that you were a member of the Communist party. To this day I believe that we missed the establishment of fascism in this country by a hair.
Gadg had to justify what he had done and gave the appearance of sincerely believing that there was a global conspiracy to take over the world, and that communism was a serious threat to America’s freedoms. Like his friends, he told me, he had experimented with communism because at the time it seemed to promise a better world, but he abandoned it when he learned better. To speak up before the committee truthfully and in defiance of his former friends who had not abandoned the cause was a hugely difficult decision, he said, but though he was ostracized by former friends, he had no regrets for what he’d done.
I finally decided to do the film, but what I didn’t realize then was that On the Waterfront was really a metaphorical argument by Gadg and Budd Schulberg: they made the film to justify finking on their friends. Evidently, as Terry Malloy I represented the spirit of the brave, courageous man who defied evil. Neither Gadg nor Budd Schulberg ever had second thoughts about testifying before that committee.
At that time, Gadg was the director on the cutting edge of changing the way movies were made. He had been influenced by Stella Adler and what she had brought back from Europe, and he always tried to create spontaneity and the illusion of reality. He hired longshoremen as extras. He shot most of the picture in the most rundown section of the New Jersey waterfront. He was pleased because the weather was really cold. The chill added reality, and he was delighted with the fact that our breath showed on the screen. The irony of all this was that he had to get permission from the Mafia to shoot there. When they invited him to lunch, he dragged me along, and I didn’t know until afterward that the gentleman we had lunch with was in fact the head of the Jersey waterfront. Although Gadg turned his friends in to the House committee over communism, he didn’t even blink at having to cooperate with the Costa Nostra. By his own standards, it would seem that this was an act of remarkable hypocrisy, but when Gadg wanted to make a picture and had to move some furniture around to do so, he was perfectly willing. Actually, I met a number of people from the Costa Nostra at that time, and I would prefer them any day to some of the politicians we have.
The cast included my longtime friend Karl Maiden, Eva Marie Saint, Lee