Before They Were Kings: Part Four

Hoffman... Hackman... Duvall.... PART 4>>>

.... Hoffman was joining a world of actors starting out, steeled against rejection, energized by hope and freedom. Hackman says, “There was a kind of feeling of Jack Kerouac at that time – ON THE ROAD – kids just wanted to have a good time and kind of experience things. It didn’t have anything to do with being successful – just wanting to try this thing and see if it worked.” Duvall remembers parties at Hackman’s apartment, with Faye, who was Italian, cooking pots of spaghetti for crowds of actors. One night after dinner, they all lay down on the floor, went to sleep, and woke up for dessert. “Yeah,” says Duvall, “those were good years, not knowing what the future was about. All these friends. Very important. Dreaming. That was fun.”

Duvall’s apartment was, to a degree, a youth hostel for a flow of actors and opera singers who stay a few nights or weeks, sleeping on the sofas. The rooms teemed with music – young singers, records of Broadway musicals such as WEST SIDE STORIES, and Hoffman, playing the piano. Duvall, a fine country-and-western singer, impersonated Hank Williams. At parties with candles in Chianti bottles and pizza, actors entertained with skits. Hoffman and Duvall improvised a routine called “Roger’s Rangers: The Toughest Unit in All the Services.” Duvall was the commander, Hoffman played the three rangers who at 70 degrees below zero have just run 10 miles on the ice, barefoot, with no clothes on, and now stand naked at attention after cold water has been poured over them. The commander walks down the line of soldiers and hits one across the jaw. Hoffman recalls, “Bobby would say ‘Did you feel that, soldier?’ I’d say ‘No Sir.’ ‘Why not?’ ‘Because I’m a member of Roger’s Rangers, sir.’ ‘Very good.’ The commander moves down the line, boom in the belly, boom on the jaw. Same routine. The third ranger is standing at attention with a huge erection. The commander pulls out his sword and, boom, cuts off his penis. Bobby says, ‘Did you feel that, soldier?’ I say, ‘No sir.’ ‘Why not?’ ‘Because it belongs to the man in back of me, sir’ Bobby loved that stuff.”

Hoffman, Hackman, and Duvall have always been propelled by an uninhibited willingness to dare. An actor in their circle, Elliot Gould, considered Duvall “very tough, very independent, great integrity,” and vividly remembers their first meeting. Hoffman brought Duvall around to Gould’s apartment and rang the buzzer. Peering out the peephole, Gould remembers, “I saw what looked like the back end of two very bald horses with out tails. They were the butts of Dustin and Duvall. I thought, OK, that’s fine. They’re saying hello, in their way. Interesting. I’m sure we all look fundamentally the same from that angle. They were both a coupe of ASSHOLES.” Years later, on the set of THE GODFATHER, Duvall, off-camera, mooned Brando during a take. “Hey,” says Duvall, remembering the incident, “You have fun. It’s harmless.”

“Bobby maybe was the most outrageous, uncensored,” says Hoffman. “Do anything on impulse.” Once, as they ate together in a diner, Duvall spotted two Puerto Rican girls walking by. Dragging Hoffman with him, he caught up to them. “Hey, talk English. My name is Bobby Duvall; here’s my friend Dusty Hoffman. We’re actors.” They ignored him. Desperate, he came out with a unique pickup line:” We live right around the corner. You want to come up to our apartment? We have new linoleum in the kitchen.”

For the unmarried Duvall and Hoffman, girls were central to their free-rein theater world. Hoffman admits, “We were obsessed with sex.” Duvall concurs: “It was like what a friend from England said about being an actor- ‘Bob, it’s the greatest leg opener in the world, isn’t it?” Acting classes were a gold mine. “There were always a few models,” says Hoffman. “One comes up to you and says ‘Hi,’ like you’ve never looked at her, while for six months, you’ve been imagining her in bed with you. And she says, ‘I’d like to do a scene with you,’ and WHOA, she picks a love scene, and you’re rehearsing and it’s ‘YES!’ That happened to me and to Bobby. Much as were adherents to our craft, we looked for classes with women.

In the early 60’s, after Hoffman had lived with a succession of girls and friends – even slept in a dance studio where he taught acting – he and Duvall shared an apartment on West 22nd Street. “I’d get lucky,” and have a girl sleep over, and we’d be in the shower the next morning, and Bobby’d take his clothes off and just jump in the fucking shower – ‘Hey, I’m Bobby Duvall. I’m his roommate. I’m an actor. What do YOU do?” Duvall counters: “Let me tell you what went on before. I came down and he had the girl up on the table, standing there naked, and he’s standing there like he’s a painter.” (Duvall measures in the air with an imaginary pencil.)

In 1963, Hoffman was rooming with an opera tenor named Maurice Stern, who had discovered a Laundromat where beautiful ballerinas worked. Any girl who would load his laundry, and touch his dirty underwear, he figured, liked him. If after a week he had not scored, he would move on to the next candidate. Stern particularly liked Anne Byrne, a 19 year old dancer with the Pennsylvania Ballet Company who was studying in New York at the Ballet Theater. Stern wanted Hoffman to check her out. “Now, don’t do that sensitive shit,” he warned him. “You know what I’m talking about – you play that one song you’ve ever written and you get that Jimmy Dean look.” Stern took Byrne to a club called The Improvisation, where Hoffman played the piano for fun. “My heart pounded,” says Hoffman. “She was my fantasy girl. The unattainable.” His date, Phyllis, went to the bathroom, and Stern went to make a phone call. After a long pause, Hoffman said, “So, you’re a dancer,” She nodded and said “So you’re an actor.” No other words were spoken, but soon, he did do Jimmy Dean. Stern finished out the prescribed week without success, and Hoffman took over. On his motorcycle, they went to the beach and to art museums, and they read poetry together (Hoffman once organized a Sunday-evening poetry group).

When Anne Byrne returned to Philadelphia, he told Duvall, “I will marry her,” and the two men bet $100. After she returned from Philadelphia in 1969, he did. Hoffman adds, “Bobby’s never paid me.”

(to be continued)