Word: pattonisms
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Most recently, and perhaps most familiarly, he played General George S. Patton, the flamboyant commander of the 3rd Army in World War II. It was a performance that transformed a rather ordinary war movie into an astonishing personal tour de force and won him an Oscar nomination. Characteristically, he declined Hollywood's gilded accolade. He professes as much indifference to screen acting as to its awards. "Film is not an actor's medium," Scott says. "You shoot scenes in order of convenience, not the way they come in the script, and that's detrimental to a fully developed performance. There...
...found I had been programmed to move as though they were there, and I never had to worry about falling out of the character movements again." Scott is also a perfectionist with makeup, and he has the devotion and knowledge to fill the demand he makes on himself. For Patton, he borrowed old newsreels of the general and watched them so often, recalls Producer Frank McCarthy, "that they were completely worn out when he finally returned them." Scott also read 13 Patton biographies several times each, had his dentist mold him a set of caps to duplicate Patton's teeth...
...joined the Marines for a four-year hitch. "I was very gung-ho. They sent me to Parris Island; then, right in the middle of my training, they dropped the Bomb and the war was over. I felt a little like General Patton ?they stole my war." With 45 months left to serve, he was sent to language school, then eventually assigned to a desk in Washington, where he taught a correspondence course in creative writing. He also worked on the graves detail, where he learned that he really did not want the war they stole...
...anchor in George's life." Colleen herself credits Scott's self-control. "When G.C. isn't drinking, up here he becomes the most prosaic of gentlemen." Not so prosaic, however, as to accept what many people consider the honor of an Academy Award nomination. This month, cited for Patton, he declined again. "I don't give a damn about it," he says in a voice like a sonic boom. "I'm making too much money anyway...
...always successful. His scuffles with several scripts, including one version of Patton, have not been felicitous. He wrangled constantly with Patton Producer Frank McCarthy, who comments: "He rewrote several scenes to make Patton more sympathetic, but the rewrites were not as good as what we already had." Scott missed eight days of work, some because of a recurrent problem with the retina in his left eye, two because he was drinking hard and feeling mean. "I got fed up, exhausted and frustrated, so I'd go out and get loaded," he says. His frustration, however, in no way detracted from...