I'll reiterate: any of you who haven't yet read Eli's autobiography, "The Good, the Bad, and Me: In My Anecdoatge," should do so ASAP. It is a really wonderful read. Great stuff!
btw, Eli was offered – and turned down – the role of Maggio in
From Here to Eternity, the role that eventually, famously went to Frank Sinatra, won him an Academy Award, and kickstarted one of the most famous comebacks in showbiz history. I just remembered that now because A) TCM showed FHTH tonight, and I happen to be in middle of watching another movie with Sinatra now,
Not as a Stranger.
I don't remember why Eli said he turned down the role. But I do remember that in general, Eli writes a lot about the tension between taking stage roles – which he preferred; an actor gets to really
play a part straight, as opposed to a movie, which films out of sequence and with a bunch of takes and cuts – and taking movie roles, for which there is so much more money and fame. Indeed, so many legendary stage actors are forgotten, but movie stars are remembered and have their performances recorded so we can enjoy them again and again, whenever we want to.
I just finished reading Edward G. Robinson's autobiography, he also writes about how much he preferred stage acting – but in Robinson's case, once he started in the movies, he didn't return to the stage for 28 years (and even then, I think it was only because he was having a hard time finding work in the movies cuz he was blacklisted). In the case of Marlon Brando, I believe that once he started working in movies he never returned to the stage. Eli obviously did plenty of stage work throughout his career, but I'm sure glad, and we're all sure lucky, that he also chose to work in the movies. He made an unforgettable impression in every one of his performances.
It's great that he lived so long, and got the well-deserved Oscar for “a lifetime’s worth of indelible screen characters.”
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