|
Gray Matter
Well-Deserved Oscar
Ordinarily, I couldn’t care less who wins the night they disburse the Oscars. This year, however, I
have a horse in the race. In fact, my guy is a lock to hold up one of those coveted mantelpiece
ornaments.
Come March 5, my horse is director Robert Altman. At age 81, Altman is being honored by the Academy
of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences for what The New York Times describes as “a long and prolific
career.”
How long? Try four decades, while critics point to five films that, arguably, are masterpieces.
Chief among these is M*A*S*H, in 1970, and this is where I get to say my piece.
The time is the late 1960’s; the city: New York. I am a writer for the Saturday Evening Post, as is
my mentor and lifelong friend, author W.C. “Bill” Heinz. One fine day Bill takes a phone call from a
surgeon-pal, asking a favor. “Please read this manuscript…it needs work.”
The manuscript (alleged) is all about military doctors, nurses and hapless patients during the
Korean War. Bill Heinz asks my help, saying: “You like to play editor. Here….”
Turned down by 12, or more, discriminating publishers the manuscript, nonetheless, has promise—along
with major problems. First of all, it is salacious, or what we then termed “dirty.” Second, there
was no identifiable nurse, no babe the GI-types lusted after.
Not only did I report this to Bill Heinz, I also telephoned a book editor, and pal, at William
Morrow publishers and said, in effect, “Want Bill Heinz in your stable of authors? Here’s how you do
it: pay him to rewrite this cockamamie manuscript; sign him to one of your contracts. Thereafter, he
has to give you first crack at anything he wants to write.”
Three years later, I am standing on a long line in Chicago, outdoors, waiting to get in to see
M*A*S*H, the Robert Altman directed movie. Staring up at the marquee, I begin to laugh. “What’s so
funny about standing in the cold?” my late wife asks.
“If only they’d held out for a percentage of the film gross,” I said, reciting the following
melancholy facts: 1) the surgeon-author of record, Dr. H. Richard (Dick) Hornberger, of Maine, and
friend Bill Heinz accepted $100,000 for the film rights to their collaboration; 2) thereafter, they
also got a small fee ($300-$400 or so) on the television versions of M*A*S*H, up to four repeats.
In fairness, no one then predicted the M*A*S*H culture (or was it a craze?) would explode, giving us
tee shirts, caps, toys, fatigues, plastic bottles, several paperback editions of the book, and two
television series (remember Trapper John?), making star performers of every major character.
Actor Alan Alda became M*A*S*H. To see Alda, anywhere, was to also hear, in your mind, the
chop-chop-chop of helicopters—incoming.
Today, Dick Hornberger is dead, while widower Bill Heinz, 91 years old, is a resident in an assisted
living residence in Vermont. The irony, to me, is that three other of my genius friend’s books were
classics, including “Run to Daylight!” with Vince Lombardi. Yet, M*A*S*H made Bill Heinz the most
money—and for Robert Altman, well, it helped earn him Mister Oscar.
Finally, if this were a just world, director Altman would travel to southern Vermont and suggest to
the creator of Hot Lips Houlihan, Spearchucker Jones, and the other marvelous M*A*S*H eccentrics,
that Bill Heinz borrow his Oscar, for as long as he chooses.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have reruns to watch.
|
Outrageous Associations
