It’s the 99th anniversary of the birth of Lee Marvin, which can only mean one thing: yes, it’s time to hear the story of him going home on a roof rack, utterly arseholed.
We had arrived together in Lee’s Chrysler station wagon. He was staggering drunk. I begged him to let me drive. “Fuck you.” He drew back a fist. He had a whole repertoire of violent gestures, many of them cribbed from his hero, Toshiro Mifune. I tried to grab the keys, but he slashed me with his imaginary samurai sword. These were movie blows. The stopped an inch short of your neck or chin. I snatched the keys and got into the driver’s seat, the women in the back. “Get in, Lee.” Another battle of wills. How could he meekly submit, this warrior, this conqueror? We pleaded with him. He stalked and staggered round the car, raining blows on it. Finally he found a way of saving face. He climbed up and crouched on the roof rack. Despite our entreaties, he would not come down. I decided to drive slowly down the pier, hoping that the cool ocean air might sober him up. I stopped as we got to the public road. I got out. He snarled at me, would not get down. I was at my wits’ end. The streets were deserted. I drove slowly down the Pacific Coast Highway towards Malibu. Flashing lights in my rear- view mirror — sirens. I pulled over. The patrolman approached the car, warily loosening his revolver holster. He looked up, then at me. “Do you know you have Lee Marvin on your roof?
That’s from John Boorman’s Adventures of a Suburban Boy, and it’s not the only Boorman story about Marvin going home in an unconventional manner while not altogether sober.
That article, incidentally, says he
came out in favour of gay liberation in 1969, in the week of the Stonewall riots
which was… something I felt I needed to look up, let’s say. So I did, and:
What transpires between two adults is definitely their own business. … A third party, like a police officer, has no real reason to become involved…
Some of his vocabulary might be ‘of its time’, and it’s an interview in Playboy, but…
…the way the law treats them is really sick. If I were a homosexual and I saw a cop, I’d shudder.
Anyone wanting to photoshop a rainbow flag on Lee Marvin should feel free. And this is quite fun, too.
…and when I told this on Twitter last year, a mate of mine responded:
My father in law met him shooting Shout at the Devil. He was in the royal marines at the time — they were extras in the film — and Marvin, as an ex US marine, took to them and paused filming for a day so he could treat them to a massive all dayer. Sounded a fantastic bloke.
