CE: You know I've had people come up and ask me to sign their guns.
Sign my name on gun handles and holsters and stuff. I've done it once or
twice for law enforcement officials, but when people do that - and there
have been quite a few of them lately - I always tell them no. I don't
want to do that. I don't want my name on that and I hope you use this gun
- whatever its purpose is, I hope it's used wisely.
PT: You could live with it, though?
CE: Yeah. Id have to live with it inside of me. It's just a sick
mind. What starts John Hinckley into doing his program, whatever his
program becomes in life. I mean he could turn around and just out of the
blue blame it on somebody. Whether it's the old deal of saying, Jeez, my
mother whipped me when I was little or my father yelled at me or
something. Everybody is looking for a reason to not to take
responsibility for their own actions in hand, anyway. That's kind of like
the way the world is. So I would accept it but I wouldn't like it. I
would hate to think - I guess every actor likes to think his fans are
special, that they would be above that sort of thing. That they would
realize that this is just an act and as soon as they walk out of the
theater forget it all.
PT: Have you ever been stalked?
CE: Yeah. I have.
PT: You might not want to talk about this. I know that it's a
delicate area for most celebrities now. Do you feel that's the example of
the sick mind who sees your movie and loses touch with reality and
over-identifies, doesn't know what the hell is going on and comes after
you because of some fantasized grievance or psychological
solution?
CE: Yeah. I've had people. I've had threats. Also as a politician,
and even in a small community like Carmel, but as being a movie actor
turned politician I've had them and there are a certain amount of cases
on file. But I think every personality has to deal, has to five with that
a little bit.
There was one recently where the F.B.I. had gone to see the guy
because he had made some threats over the phone and left it on tape. And
they said the guy seemed quite normal until they mentioned my name and he
went crazy.
PT: He wasn't a frustrated Hollywood writer was he?
CE: No. No. But it's those kinds of minds that get out there,
they're not rational about anything.
PT: Would you say that, if people emulate you based upon a screen
persona, then society would be better off for it?
CE: Well, maybe certain elements. I really don't know. I can't
really grasp onto that. Whether society is better off for me having
existed in the film business. I don't know whether I want that.
PT: Well, do you think there are people around who are negative
role models? Entertainers today who are having a detrimental effect
because of their behavior or what they are promoting?
CE: Yeah. I think there probably are some.
PT: What about gangster rap, which often advocates violence?
CE: Oh, like that Ice T? I don't see any values to any of that,
other than that it's appealing to the very worst in a crowd.
PT: Do you think that the violence that has been in many of your
films is more justified than the violence that's being advocated or
promoted in gangster rap?
CE: Yeah. To depict a law-enforcement agency as the villain in
society is a little bit of a tough one to swallow, because after all
there are abuses in everything. But to say that's the cause of all the
ills of society is really pretty heavy. But we are in a sort of fall-guy
generation. We are always looking for someone else's fault as to why
everything is. Everybody's looking to blame everybody. I guess the L. A.
riots would be an example. Everybody's looking for someone else to blame
as to why it all got that way and there are millions of different
answers. Probably all of them have some smidge of validity
somewhere.
PT: Let's say, though, that there's a legitimate basis for a group
of people perceiving the police differently than you do. Then the
question is, does their commentary in the gangster rap have as much
legitimacy as, say, yours does in talking about corruption in politics or
even films that dealt with the corruption of the police? Is your resort
to violence or advocacy of violent methods to resolve things better than
Ice T's?
CE: I don't know. I think I know what you're saying. Everyone deals
with what their relationship is to police officers. But it's like saying
a woman who has been a victim of rape - does she hate all men for the
rest of her life and put out records about the male gender being an
absolutely animalistic human form that doesn't deserve any credibility
whatsoever?
Everyone can do that in every frame of life. I understand it.
Before I became wellknown I've had incidents with the police. I've been
stopped and rousted around. Stuff where you could have wished ill-will on
them. Maybe that happens a lot more in the ghetto? I'm sure it
does.
PT: Have you stayed away from topics that might hurt you at the box
office or have a negative effect on your image?
CE: No, I haven't. I never knew what my image was or cared that
much really. I just like to do it because I like to do it. I don't think
I'm worried about it. There's nothing I wouldn't attempt if it was within
the realm of a good story.
PT: When your kids were growing up did you not let them see certain
films?
Tags:
alfred hitchcock,
bartlett,
blight,
Clint Eastwood,
cure for cancer,
dirty harry,
entertainment value,
familiar quotations,
film,
first person,
Hollywood,
magnum,
mankind,
morality,
peole,
psyche,
social influence,
stuart fischoff,
violence,
violent films,
violent images,
william jennings bryan
