If there's a better actor than Gary Sinise working in television today, I don't know who it would be.
An Oscar-nominee for "Forrest Gump," an Emmy winner for the HBO movie "Truman," Sinise turns in another powerful performance in the title role of TNT's two-part, four-hour movie "George Wallace" (Sunday and Tuesday at 6, 8 and 10 p.m.)"I will tell you quite honestly that Gary Sinise . . . is the best actor I ever worked with," said John Frankenheimer, the Oscar- and Emmy-winning director who helmed "Wallace."
And that's not faint praise, given that Frankenheimer has directed the likes of Marlon Brando, Kirk Douglas, Ava Gardner, Gene Hackman, Richard Harris, Raul Julia, Deborah Kerr, Burt Lancaster, Fredric March, David Niven and Gregory Peck.
In "Wallace," Sinise put his considerable abilities toward portraying a man wasn't exactly admirable in much of his behavior. Sinise as well as Frankenheimer expressed their disgust with many of the actions of the former Alabama governor, who built a national reputation on his racist policies and is best known for "standing in the schoolhouse door" to prevent the integration of the University of Alabama.
"But there were some admirable things about him," Sinise said. "He was a very controversial character, and ultimately . . . what happens to him at the end of the story . . . is the beginning of what we see as him attempting to change."
In the movie, as in Wallace's life, it took him quite a while to get to that point. "Wallace" covers the high points of that life, beginning with the day in 1972 when Wallace was shot by a would-be assassin and then flashing back to his earlier days. And there's no attempt to whitewash his image.
What may come as a surprise to many is that Wallace did not begin his political career as a racist - it was an approach he adopted after losing the 1957 race for the governor's seat.
It's a stand that appalled his political mentor, former Alabama Gov. Big Jim Fulsom, according to Marshall Frady, who co-wrote the script, which is based on his book about Wallace. There's a scene in the movie in which Fulsom confronts Wallace for betraying their populist roots and says, "What did you do? Chatter yourself into it (racism)?"
"And in a sense that's what happened," Frady said. "He chattered himself into that anger. That suspicion. And that racial antagonism as he deemed it - as he calculated it - in order to stay alive. It was staying alive for him, which was interchangeable (with) staying alive politically."
"For this man to adopt this behavior just to get to the governor's mansion makes it, in my view, extraordinarily despicable," said Clarence Williams III, who plays a fictional, composite character - a prison trustee who was Wallace's long-time personal servant.
And much of this portrayal does make the man seem utterly despicable. In addition to his all-consuming political ambition and his racist policies, there's the way he ignored and cheated on his devoted first wife, Lurleen (Mare Winningham in another fine performance). And, still worse, the way he used her to further his own political ambitions while the poor woman was dying of cancer.
Then there's the way he shuts out his much-younger second wife, Cornelia (Angelina Jolie), after he's crippled in the assassination attempt.
"George Wallace" does not, however, paint its subject in black in white but in shades of gray. Frady said he was "particularly concerned that Wallace not appear just to be a hobgoblin - that garish short of Southern gothic caricature of him that would have been very easy to do, given his public past."
And, indeed, you can almost feel sorry for the sad, pathetic Wallace in his later years - crippled not only in body but in spirit. The telefilm closes with his stunning appearance at the church once led by Martin Luther King Jr. - an appearance at which he apologized for his racist views.
"And when I got to that part of the story, in reading the script, I said, `Well, there's something really worth playing here,' " Sinise said. "It's not just about a guy who did a lot of wrong things. There is an attempt made to sever those ties to the past as much as he was able.
"But I don't think he's ever going to live down that schoolhouse door, and nobody will ever forget that. That'll always be the image of George Wallace that we have."
CONTROVERSY: Not surprisingly, there have been cries of complaint from the Wallace family, including George himself, about this TV movie. And those complaints center on a scene in which the character played by Williams holds an ice pick in his hand and considers murdering Wallace.
The Wallace camp maintains the scene maligns a real person who never considered any such thing.
But Frankenheimer rejects the criticism, calling it a "brilliant scene" and pointing out that the criticism came from people who had not seen the movie.
A couple of points must be made. Williams' character does not portray a real person. And there's a disclaimer at the beginning of "George Wallace" indicated some scenes have been fictionalized to create drama.
Viewers must remember this is drama, not documentary.