WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — "I've never thought I was good," says James Whitmore. "I've touched the hem of the garment a few times but never grabbed it full-hand."
A more clinical observer might disagree and say that Whitmore has never been bad, that he's one of those unusual actors who's always worth watching even if the film isn't.
Whitmore took time to talk about his more than 50 years in film and theater prior to accepting an award from the Palm Beach International Film Festival.
For more than 50 years, Whitmore has been working, often being taken for granted — the frequent fate of character actors — until one day the public wakes up and notices.
Whitmore was born in 1921. His initial choice of occupation was to be a minister, because of his mother's influence. His next choice was law, because of Clarence Darrow's influence. He had completed pre-law and was planning on going to Harvard when, as he puts it, "The Japanese interrupted everything."
Whitmore served in the Marines, and after the war, the acting bug hit. He landed a part on Broadway in "Command Decision," playing the character Van Johnson portrayed in the movie. That brought him to the attention of Hollywood, and after an initial tour of duty in a Glenn Ford movie at Columbia, Whitmore was offered a small part in a movie William Wellman was directing called "Battleground," about the Battle of the Bulge.
"A young man had been cast as the sergeant, a dancer, James Mitchell. A wonderful dancer. Jim had a great face, but he had the grace of a dancer, and when he drilled the platoon at rehearsal on the back lot, Bill Wellman felt a dancing sergeant wasn't the best way to go.
"Bill — 'Wild Bill' — was responsible for me getting the part. 'How about the bowlegged kid in the back from New York,' he said. I was fresh out of the Marines, where close-order drill was part of the mantra, so it worked out well."
"Battleground" became a classic, and Whitmore got his first Oscar nomination. It also got him the chance to work with the combative Wellman a few more times and to almost get into a fistfight with him.
"It was a Clark Gable picture called 'Across the Wide Missouri.' I had vanished from the picture because Wellman was angry with me. 'Why don't you do the same damn thing you did in "Battleground?" ' he said. " 'Because this is a different character, Mr. Wellman,' I replied.
"We got to playing Ping-Pong in one of the lodges in Durango, Colo., the kind of Ping-Pong where you rotate around the table. You hit the ball, put the racket down, and the next person picks up the racket and hits the ball. I didn't put the racket down fast enough for Wellman, and he decided to choose me and I decided to choose him, and it was only because of the intervention of Dotty, his dear wife, that somebody didn't get hurt. Probably me. He was a tough guy."
Whitmore was on the verge of becoming a kind of character star — the studio was promoting him as a young Spencer Tracy — but it didn't quite happen. The movies he fronted — "The Next Voice You Hear," etc. — all tanked, while the movies where he was the primary support did very well.
A stage actor at the beginning, Whitmore is still doing it, and like most he has a guarded respect for film acting but a wholehearted passion for the stage.
"Movies are a whole different method of acting, and I don't mean method acting. Screen acting is technical; it's out of context. A woman you're in bed with you only meet that day. It's all out of context and chronology, and a lot of it is hitting the marks. In the theater you have a chance to build a character.
"I have great respect for motion picture actors who do it well."
The key word is 'presence.' Garbo is the example — the camera made love to her, and she made love to it. That's important, and it's ineffable. Cagney also had it."
Whitmore has worked with directors as varied as John Huston ("The Asphalt Jungle") and Ingmar Bergman ("The Serpent's Egg"), and it's clear that he's not one of those actors who resents direction.
"The really great ones — Kazan qualifies, Huston qualifies — they had a way of making you believe that their idea was yours. On "Asphalt Jungle," I had prepared my first scene for John. It was in a diner. I was perfect on my lines, and I was ready to go.
"John said to me, 'You know, this is a city here, and there's noise. Is the radio on?' I said, 'Oh yeah, I listen to the radio because it's boring when nobody's here.' He said, 'That's interesting. Turn it up. Way up.'
"And I somehow thought that it was my idea. So the radio got turned up, and I had to shout my way through the whole damn scene. And I went home that night and told my wife, 'I've just been had by John Huston.' "
The '70s were good years for Whitmore, as he toured for years with "Give 'Em Hell Harry," and "Will Rogers' USA." The film version of the former earned him another Oscar nomination, and he continues to work right up to the present day. A few years ago, he played in "Inherit the Wind" at Ford's Theater in Washington opposite Robert Prosky, and he counts it as one of his all-time best acting experiences.
His performance as a benevolent old prisoner in "The Shawshank Redemption" was certainly worthy of another Oscar nomination, and he became so close to writer/director Frank Darabont that he withdrew from the cast of the James Garner series "First Monday," to honor a commitment to Darabont for "The Majestic."
"Shawshank' was amazing — every element worked. The producers were wonderful, giving great respect to actors, and Frank is wonderful in terms of his sensitivity to everyone else, including the guy who makes the coffee.
"After nearly 60 years in theater and movies, I've learned that the central dichotomy in this business is trying to combine art with business. The two things are not compatible. It's amazing how hard it is to make a good movie. It's really a house of cards, and if one card is shaky, the whole edifice is threatened."