Then Again - Diane Keaton [38]
Here’s what I can’t forget about the first Godfather: Dick Smith, the Academy Award–winning makeup artist; and Al Pacino. It was Dick Smith’s idea to stick a ten-pound blond wig on my head, where it sat throughout the entire movie like a ton of bricks. I hated that wig almost as much as the red lipstick and starched broad-shouldered suits Theadora Van Runkle designed from the period. I didn’t have a clue why I was cast as an elegant WASP. I’m convinced I would have been let go if it weren’t for the fact that Paramount begged Francis Ford Coppola to fire Al, until they were blown away by the rushes of Michael Corleone’s assassination of Captain McCluskey. Somehow I managed to slip under the radar. It wouldn’t have made that much difference if I was replaced or not. I was just a blond-wigged WASP in the Godfather’s world.
I met Al Pacino at O’Neals’ bar near Lincoln Center. He had been named the Most Promising New Broadway Star in the critically acclaimed Does a Tiger Wear a Necktie? We were told to get to know each other before we auditioned for The Godfather. I was nervous. The first thing I noticed about Al was his nose. It was long like a cucumber. The second thing I noticed was the kinetic way he moved. He seemed nervous too. I don’t remember talking about the script. I remember his killer Roman nose sitting in the middle of what remains a remarkable face. It was too bad he wasn’t available, but neither was I. Even so, for the next twenty years Al Pacino would be my only recurring “unattainable great.”
In 1973 Woody Allen directed me for the first time. It was Sleeper, and it was a piece of cake until the day Woody decided he wasn’t happy with a scene we were about to shoot. He went into his trailer and came out a half hour later with a new script. His character had become Blanche DuBois from A Streetcar Named Desire and mine was Marlon Brando’s Stanley Kowalski. Marlon Brando? Besides being introduced to Mr. Brando at the reading of The Godfather, the only encounter we shared was when he passed me on the set and said, “Nice tits.” That wasn’t going to help. Then I remembered On the Waterfront and the line “I coulda been a contender. I coulda been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am.” I repeated it over and over and over before starting to memorize the lines. In the end Woody and I performed our Streetcar parody. But the memory of Terry Malloy’s “I coulda been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am” is what remains.
Then There Was The Godfather: Part II
I was scared as I waited for Francis and Al to rehearse what I now refer to as the “It was an abortion” scene. I told myself I didn’t care about The Godfather or Al Pacino, but I did. Especially about Al Pacino. He was going with Tuesday Weld. Jill Clayburgh was out, or hovering, like so many others. Things had skyrocketed for Al. He had become an iconic, larger-than-life figure on billboards all over town. He was Michael Corleone. He was Serpico. At the time of the rehearsal we weren’t speaking, or, rather, he wasn’t speaking to me. Maybe I said something to hurt his feelings, I don’t remember. In any event, before our supposed altercation, I managed to worm my way into his good graces by teaching him how to drive in the parking lot of the Cal Neva Hotel in Lake Tahoe.
Al was uncomfortable with the location of the brakes, and he couldn’t comprehend the difference between the left- and the right-hand blinking signals. Worse, and far more dangerous, he kept his foot on the gas pedal no matter how many times I told him to press the brake if he wanted to stop. This made for a lot of laughs but a very uncertain ride. In some ways Al reminded me of Randy: He was so sensitive that he was insensitive to his surroundings. I know that sounds like an odd description for the Godfather, but sometimes I swear Al must have been raised by wolves. There