The late writer F.X. Toole

DATE September 12, 2002 ACCOUNT NUMBER N/A
TIME 12:00 Noon-1:00 PM AUDIENCE N/A
NETWORK NPR
PROGRAM Fresh Air

Interview: Cinematographer Gordon Willis talks about his work
in several classic films
TERRY GROSS, host:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross.

Today we talk with the great cinematographer Gordon Willis. Here are scenes
from a few of his classic films.

(Soundbite from "The Godfather")

Mr. MARLON BRANDO: What have I ever done to make you treat me so
disrespectfully? If you'd come to me in friendship, then this scum that
ruined your daughter would be suffering this very day. And if by chance an
honest man like yourself should make enemies, then he would become my enemies.
And then they would fear you.

(Soundbite from "All the President's Men")

Mr. DUSTIN HOFFMAN: Mitchell was in control.

Mr. ROBERT REDFORD: Wait a minute.

(Soundbite of typewriter)

Mr. HOFFMAN: There were men working under Mitchell.

Mr. REDFORD: How many?

Mr. HOFFMAN: I don't know how many, but the men working under Mitchell were
the ones that received the money from the slush fund.

Mr. REDFORD: OK. Do we know how much money we're talking?

Mr. HOFFMAN: Yeah, we're talking about hundreds of thousands of dollars.
And these men are the key to what that money was used for. Boy, that woman
was paranoid. At one point, I suddenly wondered how high up this thing goes.
And her paranoia finally got to me. I thought what we had was so hot that any
minute CBS or NBC were going to come in through the windows and take the
story away.

Mr. REDFORD: You're both paranoid. She's afraid of John Mitchell, and
you're afraid of Walter Cronkite.

Mr. HOFFMAN: Right.

Mr. REDFORD: You want to go back to what you were saying?

(Soundbite from "Annie Hall")

Mr. WOODY ALLEN: Hi.

Ms. DIANE KEATON: Hi. Hi.

Mr. ALLEN: Oh, hi. Hi.

Ms. KEATON: Well, bye.

Mr. ALLEN: You play very well.

Ms. KEATON: Oh, yeah? So do you. Oh, God, what a dumb thing to say, right?
I mean, you said, `You play well,' and right away I have to say you play well.
Oh, oh, God, Annie. Oh, well. La-di-da, la-di-da, la-la. Yeah.

GROSS: In sequence, we heard Marlon Brando in "The Godfather," Dustin Hoffman
and Robert Redford in "All the President's Men," and Woody Allen and Diane
Keaton in "Annie Hall," three films on which Gordon Willis served as
cinematographer. He shot eight Woody Allen movies, including "Manhattan,"
"Broadway Danny Rose" and "Zelig," and "The Godfather" trilogy. His other
films include "Klute," "The Parallax View" and "Pennies from Heaven." This
weekend, Willis will give a master class at the American Museum of the Moving
Image in Astoria, New York.

We invited Willis to talk with us about some of his films, starting with "The
Godfather," which was released in 1972. I asked him about the guiding
principles behind the look of the film.

Mr. GORDON WILLIS (Cinematographer): You know, for a while I really didn't
know what to do with that movie. You know, I thought about it for weeks and I
finally decided, I thought, `This movie should have this kind of brassy,
yellow look to it.' Don't ask me why, it just felt right, you know. So that
was the first thing that I applied in my thinking. And the other part of the
thinking was that it should have this kind of New York street look, one foot
in the gutter '40s kind of feeling, a little dirty. And so I was satisfied
with that kind of feeling in my mind.

And then the other thing is, well, I thought--you know, we didn't get the
money to go to Sicily until about two-thirds of the way through the movie when
the Paramount people realized that they had something better than a cheap
crime novel on their hands. So they gave us the money to go to Sicily. So I
figured at that point, Sicily should look, you know, mythical and sunny and
kind of storybook feeling. So there was a juxtaposition between these two
places, New York and Sicily, and it was a counterpoint when we went back and
forth.

GROSS: Let me ask you about one of the kind of most famous scenes in the
first "Godfather" movie.

Mr. WILLIS: Right.

GROSS: And that's when the studio executive who isn't playing ball with the
Corleone family...

Mr. WILLIS: Right.

GROSS: ...wakes up in his silk sheets and his satin cover to find that his
bed is basically flooded with blood because the decapitated head of his horse
is underneath the covers. Can you talk about shooting that scene?

Mr. WILLIS: It was very hot that day. It was kind of smelly. I think for
animal lovers, you have to know that this was a real horse's head, by the way.
But it was a horse that had already died and one that was, pardon me, in the
glue factory already. So they acquired the horse and kept it on ice. And,
you know, we put it in a bed, and when we ready, after we were through
lighting, etc., and off we went. But as I say--I prefaced it by saying it was
hot that day. So once you took this horse out of the ice, it got a little
gamy. So it was kind of the last thing we did. But it was real, a real
horse.

GROSS: And what were your concerns at the cinematographer of that scene?

Mr. WILLIS: Well, my concern always is just getting it right. I mean, you
know, getting the visualization of the moment, getting that right. That's
always my concern, you know.

GROSS: And what did getting it right mean in this situation where a guy's
kind of waking up out of a dream, senses something's wrong and then realizes
this absolutely horrible thing is happening in his bed and he's just, like,
screaming?

Mr. WILLIS: Well, from my point of view, getting it right means seeing it at
the level that you should see it from an audience point of view, perceiving it
properly, visually. That's all I have to come up with at that point.

GROSS: What are some of the changes you made between the first "Godfather"
and "Godfather II" in terms of, for instance, how you shot the interiors?
Because "Godfather II," it's a different decade, it's a different generation.

Mr. WILLIS: Right. Right. Well, one of the things you have to do, or one of
the things that I decided to do was--since these are sister movies and they
really work together in a sense is that I maintained the same color structure
in the second "Godfather." It was this kind of yellow that went. However,
the content or the structure of the photography I changed because of this
turn-of-the-century feeling and the retrospective footage. And then we went
from, you know, 1902 up to 1950-something in Lake Tahoe. So...

GROSS: Yeah. So what were some of the differences between the flashback
sequences, the turn-of-the-century sequences with De Niro, and the current
sequences with Pacino?

Mr. WILLIS: Well, I guess, you know, that's all in my head more or less, but
the way I can give you a quick example of it is we--our only reference to
those of us who are living at this point to what was going on in 1902 or
late-1800s are photographs of the period. So you sort of take that as a
resource. But you have to go a little bit further in order to make it work.
So it was that kind of structure, and you don't have the same kind of clarity
in the photography. It's more ethereal in a way. And when we get to Sicily
in the same movie, it becomes, you know, more mythic and more beautiful.

So it was tricky because you had New York, then you had Sicily which had to be
different but still in the same time period, and then, you know, you had Lake
Tahoe in the '50s. So when you have an audience watching this kind of film,
you don't want to push too much visual information at too many different
levels. You want to be able--they should be able to watch the movie, take it
in, know they're in a different place and be able to accept that without
getting in the way of telling the story.

I mean, at one point, Francis said to me, `How are we going to know where we
are here? We're going from here to there to there to here.' I said, `Look,
you know, we get to New York, you say New York, nineteen-so-so. When you get
to--then say--put it--you know, put a one-liner under it.' I said, `It's been
done for years. It's classy, and everybody will know where they are and it
won't be a problem.' So there were--presentation of a story that was that
long and that complex, you want to present simply, you know, because simple is
the most elegant, you know?

GROSS: What were the streets in New York or the parts of New York that were
easiest to transform convincingly to the turn of the century?

Mr. WILLIS: Jesus, none of them. It was--you know, we were downtown in the
Lower East Side and what happened was we had one--actually one east to west
block which the art department--Dean Tavoularis, who did a great job--changed.
Changed means, you know, you redo everything, you redo all the storefronts,
the buildings. And the buildings, for the most part, the superstructure of
the buildings, were about the same. But all the storefronts and everything
had to be put back in time. So it was very complex, and then, of course, you
see past that into more contemporary streets at the very end which I had to
block out with big tarps and things that became sort of transfused into the
visual. You couldn't see them. It was tough.

GROSS: You had to put tarps over whole buildings?

Mr. WILLIS: I put tarps over whole buildings, not based on what I just said,
but I'd hang them like two blocks away so you couldn't see down. But I had to
tarp one whole side of the street. I had people yelling at us. We pulled
tarps right up in front of the windows, but--because the sun would hit that
side of the street, that side of the building and bounce into the street. And
we couldn't do that. You know, we had to have continuity in the visual
structure. So there were two reasons for tarps, one to kill sun, and one so
you couldn't see across town.

GROSS: My guest is cinematographer Gordon Willis. He shot "The Godfather"
trilogy, "All the President's Men" and eight Woody Allen movies. We'll talk
more after a break. This is FRESH AIR.

(Soundbite of music)

GROSS: If you're just joining us, my guest is cinematographer Gordon Willis.
He shot the three "Godfather" movies. He shot eight Woody Allen movies,
including "Annie Hall" and "Manhattan," and "All the President's Men."

In "The Godfather" films, there are so many great actors...

Mr. WILLIS: Right.

GROSS: ...different generations of great actors, different types of acting
styles. You've got De Niro, Pacino, Brando, Lee Strasberg.

Mr. WILLIS: Right.

GROSS: Was there anything that had to change in your approach to shooting
them because of their different approaches to acting? I mean, for example,
was one of them the kind who wanted to do a scene over and over again, and
another the kind of actor who believes first take is best take?

Mr. WILLIS: Yeah, you've always got a certain amount of that while you're
working. Regarding the structure of the movie, they had to do--you know, we
laid out and you sort of work in concert to make sure everybody's comfortable.
But that's the design of the movie. As far as the way they function, yeah,
you know, Al would like to do things in a certain way and--actually the most
definitive actor was Lee Strasberg. He had no problems doing it and doing it
well and not doing it a whole lot, you know? Marlon Brando didn't like to do
a lot of takes, either. Al I don't remember being particularly indulgent,
wanting to do too many. But, you know, it depends on how secure an actor is
within the structure of the scene and material, how far he wants to go with
it.

I think Bobby De Niro was kind of the most method actor in the group, and Bob
would take a while to get to the place that he thought was good, almost to the
point he'd drive you crazy, you know, how to pick up an apple; you know, 25
minutes later he's still trying to pick it up, three, four different ways. I
mean, Francis said, `Just pick the apple up and eat it.' I mean--you know?

But everybody has their own way in, you know, and finally if it works, that's
all that matters.

GROSS: I'm sure you realized that, you know, when Brando was in "The
Godfather," everybody would be studying him to see what did he look like...

Mr. WILLIS: Oh, sure.

GROSS: ...how had he changed, what's his acting like now?

Mr. WILLIS: Oh, yeah. Right.

GROSS: Yeah. So how did that affect how you shot him, knowing that he had to
look, you know, pretty iconic in this movie, that he was a much older man than
people remembered and that he was no longer going to be like the kind of sex
icon that, you know, he was?

Mr. WILLIS: Yeah. Well, of course, all that worked in our favor because,
just to recap this business about asking about photography on the first movie,
the thing that happened or that had to happen was Marlon said, `Well, I have
this idea, you know, about this makeup and everything,' he says, 'but, you
know, it has to be photographed.' And I said, `Sure, I know.' So we shot
these tests, which are--actually those tests are available on some of the
re-releases of "Godfather" on DVD. So we went into the studio and he stuffs
the stuff in his mouth and he puts on a few things and--you know. And to make
a long story short, I had to design the lighting so that Marlon looked right
in the movie when you first see him in the office and when you see him in the
rest of the movie. And the design of that lighting had to work for Marlon,
but it also had to be able to take in through the rest of the movie to be able
to apply it everywhere. So actually it was him and his makeup and his look
that actually were responsible for designing the overall look of the lighting,
which was not just carried through one, but it was carried through two as
well. He had...

GROSS: So what was it that you needed to do lighting-wise to get his look
right?

Mr. WILLIS: Well, the bottom line of it is, it all had to be overhead
lighting because--I mean, there were two things. They didn't really want to
see his eyes that well, although I was criticized for it because I didn't want
anybody to say--well, you didn't want to quite know what he was thinking all
the time, you know? And in order to make the makeup work, we had to have this
sort of overhead lighting to give him this look that he had. And, of course,
everybody else had to selectively be subjected to this same kind of lighting
to make the movie hold together visually.

GROSS: There's this great operatic sequence in "Godfather I" that intercuts
between a baptismal scene in a church and these Corleone mob murders. And can
you talk a little bit about the kind of shooting that you did to give it that
operatic look?

Mr. WILLIS: What happened was it was Francis' idea to use this counterpoint
of taking this baby, this child in the environment of a church and the
dialogue that went with it denouncing the devil, etc., and at the same time,
putting the counterpoint of killing everybody against that image. So that
idea in itself sort of holds the whole thing together. So it's the idea--it's
the counterpoint that makes this so strong of a baby, renouncing the devil and
a baby being christened in the middle of the church and then the counterpoint
of all these people being murdered. So it wouldn't mean much--a lot of people
have tried to do that in movies since, by the way, in one form or another,
but...

GROSS: I noticed.

Mr. WILLIS: Yeah, right.

GROSS: Yeah.

Mr. WILLIS: But it wouldn't mean much if you, you know, finished that scene,
got in a car, drove away and then started the other stuff. So what means
something is the counterpoint of it, you know, of Richie Castellano shooting
somebody in an elevator and then shooting somebody else in bed and then
somebody getting shot--it's--I don't want to use the word fun, but it's fun to
watch that kind of structure, and it's definitive and it works, you know?

GROSS: Let's talk about working on Woody Allen's movies. "Manhattan" is shot
in black and white.

Mr. WILLIS: Right.

GROSS: Was that your idea or Woody Allen's idea?

Mr. WILLIS: Well, actually it was Woody's idea because he loves black and
white. So do I.

GROSS: Why do you love black and white?

Mr. WILLIS: I don't know. I look at New York. It's kind of a black and
white city to me. It's--you know, when you work in color, it's a burden. It
can be a burden to an audience if you don't use it properly, and it's a burden
to the people that are working with it because if you don't make the right
choices in color, you don't make the right choices in clothes, you don't make
the right--you know, then it all comes together and looks good. Whereas in
black and white, you're really working in values, you know--grays, blacks and
white. So actually the visual structure in a black-and-white movie can become
more difficult in one sense because you have to pay attention to values, you
know--separating people from backgrounds, etc., etc. And I just find the
content of black-and-white movies sometimes--sometimes--can be a lot easier to
watch because you don't have this kind of color thing going on, you know.

GROSS: Did Woody Allen ask you to go back and watch a lot of Ingmar Bergman
movies before working with him? Because Woody Allen's such a Bergman fan and
there are so many Bergman references in his films.

Mr. WILLIS: Right. No, he never asked me to watch anything. And all of his
movies are designed from the ground up. I mean, I must say that working with
Woody for 10 years was like a vacation. I mean, I had so much fun. And I
think I probably like Woody a lot more than he likes me because I'm kind of a
carnivore when I'm making movies, you know. I want to get it done and want to
get it done the right way, and I don't, you know, want to fool around. But
from the standpoint of working with a man whose--you know, it's like working
with your hands in your pockets when you're working with Woody. It's a very
easy, off-the-cuff kind of day. And I don't mean that we don't plan. We do.
And the movies are designed to look like they're off-the-cuff, but they're
not. But it's just working with him as a personality was a pleasure.

And I also like working with writers, I mean, because if something's not
working, you know, take the pencil, you cross it out and you throw the page
away and you do something else, you know? And it's much faster than working
with a director who can't write who has to get on the phone and talk to the,
you know (unintelligible). This way, you know, it's right there. So he tears
it out and we start again, you know. It's quick.

GROSS: Cinematographer Gordon Willis. This weekend he'll give a master class
at the American Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria, Queens, as part of
their second annual Master Class series. Willis will be back in the second
half of the show. I'm Terry Gross and this is FRESH AIR.

(Soundbite of music)

Unidentified Woman: (Singing) Seems like old times having you to walk with.
Seems like old times having you to walk with. And it's still a thrill just to
have my arms around you, still the thrill that it was the day I found you.
Seems like old times...

(Credits)

(Soundbite of "Rhapsody in Blue")

GROSS: Coming up, cinematographer Gordon Willis talks about shooting the
Woody Allen film "Manhattan." And we listen back to an interview with F.X.
Toole, who has died at the age of 72. He was a boxing trainer and cut man who
published his first book of short stories a couple of years ago.

(Soundbite of "Rhapsody in Blue")

GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross, back with cinematographer Gordon
Willis. He shot "The Godfather" trilogy, "All the President's Men" and eight
Woody Allen movies, including "Annie Hall" and "Manhattan." Willis grew up in
New York City.

Now your father was in the movie business when you were growing up. He was a
makeup man?

Mr. WILLIS: Yeah, he was a makeup artist at the old Warners lot in Brooklyn
at that time, during the Depression.

GROSS: And so what kind of work did he do? He made up the stars?

Mr. WILLIS: Yeah, he'd make up actors and things. At that time, Warners on
the East Coast, you know, they were doing a lot of shorts. Remember those new
movies, shorts? All kind of things like that. So he was there, and I used to
go to work with him a lot and he'd take me out to the studio.

GROSS: So since your father was a makeup artist, I'm wondering what his
attitude toward glamour was. Did he think of it as something synthetic that
was created by artists like him, or did he think of it as being something that
certain actors intrinsically had?

Mr. WILLIS: That's a good question. I think he felt it was intrinsic to the
actor, but, you know, again, makeup was a tool and you put it on in the best
way you know how to help the actor.

GROSS: In earlier Hollywood eras, such as the era your father worked,
glamorous stars were supposed to go to bed with their makeup, survive attacks
without their makeup--you know, without their lipstick getting smeared...

Mr. WILLIS: Yeah.

GROSS: ...or their mascara running.

Mr. WILLIS: Right. Right. Right.

GROSS: And I think in some ways, we've gone past that; not in all movies.
What was your approach to makeup? Were there things about makeup you wanted
to rethink when you started making movies?

Mr. WILLIS: Yeah, I always look at makeup as like Bondo, you know, stuff
they use on cars. I mean, I'm like, `Take it all off, OK? Just no makeup on
men unless, you know, they've got a problem, a problem meaning they've got to
cover blemishes or they need a little bit of this or that, that's fine. But,
you know, when somebody goes in with a spray gun and puts on the makeup for
the day--I don't know how many people I sent back, men, mostly men, that--just
take it all off. You know, it doesn't look good. And there are some women
that wear too much as well. But you take the eye makeup off a lot of famous
actresses, and you won't know who they are. I mean, a lot of it happens in
their eyes. But generally speaking, I like a minimum amount of makeup on
people, you know. I mean, a natural look, let me put it that way. It looks a
lot better on the screen, in my opinion. I mean, a lot of actresses become
panicky when you say, you know, `Look, why don't we just take some of this
off.' You know, it's like you're asking them to take their clothes off. `No,
just take some of the lipstick off, it's too (unintelligible), you know.' And
sometimes you make a mistake and say, `Take that off,' they take it off, and
they don't look good. You know, you say, `I'm sorry. Put it back on again,'
you know. But generally less is better than more.

GROSS: How do you say, `Oh, I'm sorry, you better put that lipstick back on'
without making them feel real bad?

Mr. WILLIS: Well, no, because, you know, it's kind of--you're sort of all in
the same deal there. I mean, you want to be--I'm not very political,
actually, but I am when I'm talking to certain actors and to certain women who
are actresses. But you're all on the same boat. You know, everybody's trying
to get it right.

GROSS: Right.

Mr. WILLIS: I've had actresses come up to me, one of which I think is a
brilliant actress, and she's never been a movie star and she's a great
actresss, she came up to me in the middle of a movie and she said--they
usually have a set of stills in their hand that the still man has been taking.
Well, a set of stills don't represent what you're doing, because they're at
the wrong angle, I can't really see, but they have the set of stills. And
she's saying, `Listen, you know, you see all this stuff under my neck here,'
she says, `I'm'--I said, `You don't have that.' I said, `You can't see it on
the screen.' I said, `You look wonderful, actually, on the screen.' She said,
`I'm so frightened.' She says, `You know, I'm getting up there. You know what
they do to women in Hollywood when they get to be 40.' I said, `Don't worry,
it's not going to happen to you. You look great.'

But there's a lot going on, you know, with older actresses as well as younger
actresses, but mostly, you know, you begin to put on a few miles, you begin to
worry. So you want a lot of war paint on and you want to look good, you know?

GROSS: Right.

Mr. WILLIS: So you have to understand that when you're discussing these
things, with actresses especially.

GROSS: Now a lot of actresses now, and I guess actors, too, have face work
because there's so much pressure to look young...

Mr. WILLIS: Yeah.

GROSS: ...and to not have wrinkles.

Mr. WILLIS: Right.

GROSS: Can you kind of see that behind the camera? Do you feel that there's
any differences you can see in the fact that's had that kind of work?

Mr. WILLIS: Yeah. Well, I've never really felt that plastic surgery is that
successful for someone who's been working a certain way all their lives and
then they suddenly decide they want to sand down their entire face and make it
look better. It always looks like you've got this huge clip holding their
face back, you know, in the back of their head; that you can't see it. But
I find it generally doesn't work. It's one thing to have just--you know,
someone had a nose job when they were 20 and now they're 40 and it still looks
great, that kind of thing, or a few wrinkles. But when anybody starts, you
know, putting on a new head with new ears and new--it doesn't really--you can
see it. I mean, it's not great.

GROSS: I think when you've had more than one face-lift, the face gets so taut
that you can't make regular expressions. They're also out there using botox,
which paralyzes some of the facial muscles.

Mr. WILLIS: Yeah.

GROSS: You can't have a fully expressive face. Have you come across that?
Have you had to...

Mr. WILLIS: No, I've never ...(unintelligible) the Bondo look. No, I never
really been faced with, you know, the stainless steel actress face look. It's
kind of sad to look at. I've seen personalities that I haven't dealt with,
but I look at them and I think, `This was a beautiful girl 10 minutes ago. I
don't know why she decided to rearrange herself,' you know.

GROSS: My guest is cinematographer Gordon Willis. He shot all three
"Godfather" films. He shot eight Woody Allen films, including "Annie Hall"
and "Manhattan," and "All the President's Men."

You've photographed Manhattan so much for Woody Allen's films and for "The
Godfather" movies, I'm just wondering, you know, if you could share any of
your personal thoughts about ground zero in Manhattan.

Mr. WILLIS: Well, you know, I've thought of the times that I photographed
this building, with people in front of it and skylines that I've photographed,
and it made me so sad. And it's hard for me to look at those pictures now in
retrospect because--it might sadden a lot of people, but I've got this very,
very good library of these great shots that I've made of people in front of
these two buildings. I haven't gone down--I have to do into New York next
week, but I haven't gone downtown since it happened. I will, but I just find
it very disturbing still.

GROSS: You live in Cape Cod now...

Mr. WILLIS: Right.

GROSS: ...which is known, among other things, for its beautiful light.

Mr. WILLIS: Right.

GROSS: Is that something that means a lot to you?

Mr. WILLIS: Yeah, it means a lot to me not so much from the standpoint that,
you know, I want to rip out a camera. Light means a lot to me in life. You
know, I mean, I hate to be in rooms that don't have dimension and beautiful
light. And I have the same feeling about living in a place that doesn't have
dimension and beautiful light. I mean, I hate Los Angeles. It's like living
inside a toaster oven, you know? I mean, it's awful; the light stinks. The
only time I get there is really in winter when it's a little bit better. But
I love New York light in the winter. Winter light is so beautiful. It's
beautiful here in the winter.

GROSS: Can you describe New York light?

Mr. WILLIS: I can describe New York light mostly in the winter, because it's
like my favorite thing, you move from light to dark. You know, you move from
a brilliant splash of sun to kind of like a midnight shadow, you know, and you
watch the sun come up in the East and go down in the West in New York, and it
looks like welding sometimes, it's so beautiful. It's stunning, mainly because
it's moving through all of these buildings, you know, and it bounces through
windows and off windows and down into the street. And it's always changing,
which is quite wonderful, unless you happen to be photographing something,
then you want to hurry up so you get it the right way. But it's just
stunning.

GROSS: Cinematographer Gordon Willis. He'll give a master class this weekend
at the American Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria, New York. Three other
cinematographers, including Conrad Hall and Ed Lachman, will also give master
classes there this month. Coming up, we remember boxing trainer, cut man and
writer, F.X. Toole. This is FRESH AIR.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Interview: F.X. Toole discusses his career as a boxing cut man and
his writing
TERRY GROSS, host:

We were sorry to hear this week that F.X. Toole had died. Toole learned to
box when he was in his late 40s. It was too late to make it as a boxer, but
he stayed in that world as a cut man. In between rounds, the cut man stops
his boxer's bleeding so that he can get back in the ring. A couple of years
ago, at the age of 70, F.X. Toole published a collection of stories called
"Rope Burns." Although Toole had a trunk full of novels, stories and plays,
this was his only published book. He didn't want this boxing friends to know
that he was writing stories set in their world, so he used the pen name F.X.
Toole. But the good reviews blew his cover. His real name was Jerry Boyd.
The editor and publisher who discovered him, Dan Halpern, says, `Toole's
stories leave you a different person, especially if you don't care about
boxing, because this man's life was a life of the soul, and he lived on the
edge.'

Toole died at the age of 72 of complications from heart surgery. I spoke with
him when he book was published. We started with a reading from the first
story in "Rope Burns" about a cut man.

Mr. F.X. TOOLE: (Reading) `I stop blood. I stop it between rounds for
fighters so they can stay in the fight. Blood ruins some boys. It was that
way with Sonny Liston, God rest his soul. Bad as he was, he'd see his own
blood and fall apart. I'm not the one who decides when to stop the fight, and
I don't stitch up cuts once the fight's over. And it's not my job to
hospitalize a boy for brain damage. My job is to stop blood so the fighter
can see enough to keep on fighting. I do that, maybe I save a boy's title. I
do that one thing, and I'm worth every cent they pay me. I stop the blood and
save the fight, the boy loves me more than he loves his daddy.

But you can't always stop it. Fight guys know this. If the cut's too deep or
wide, or maybe you've got a severed vein down in there, the blood keeps
coming. Sometimes it takes two or three rounds to stop the blood, maybe more.
The boy's heart is pumping so hard, or he cuts more. Once you get the
coagulant in there, sometimes it takes another shot from the opponent right on
the cut itself to drive the blood far enough from the area so the stuff you're
using can start to work. What I'm saying is there are all kinds of
combinations you come up against down in the different layers of meat. When a
good cut man stays ahead of the combinations, he can stop most cuts, but not
every one.'

GROSS: And that's F.X. Toole reading from his new collection of short
stories, "Rope Burns."

What's your training like to do this? Do you study medicine at all, or do you
just study with another cutter?

Mr. TOOLE: You study with other guys. You pick their brains. You have to
remember that what you're working on is a restricted area and the tissue's not
very deep, OK? It's not as if you're trying to work on someone who's
suffering a stab wound in the liver. It's shallow tissue. Sometimes it looks
like--during the fight sometimes you think you're looking down into a volcano,
but it's--you know, that's obviously not the case, so you're working on the
face; primarily the forehead, the scalp, maybe. And so you learn how to stop
that blood. You don't learn how to deal with stab wounds.

GROSS: Tell me more about what goes on in the corner during the period
between rounds if the fighter is tired and he's bleeding. Who's paying
attention to him? What's everybody doing? Who's competing for his time
there?

Mr. TOOLE: Well, there's--what you do is you get him breathing deeply from
the diaphragm, number one. And you water him down. You put ice packs on him
and you get him breathing, breathing, breathing. Now if he's cut, you've got
to do all of that and get the blood stopped at the same time, but the fighter
is completely focused on you. And he trusts you. He's put his life in your
hands, which is one of the reasons I'm so careful about what I do with these
kids. And so he's focused on you and he's learned through the whole training
process to listen to you. While the crowd is roaring, he will hear your voice
above them all, if you shout instructions up to him.

But now he's cut and now he's tired. You get him breathing. You get him
breathing. You get him breathing. You cool him down. And you'll be
surprised how someone in good condition--and I'm speaking cardiovascular
now--will revive in just that time. Now if he's terribly hurt, you know, I've
called fights off, but that's the last resort. You don't want to do that
because, again, his future is in your hands, but you don't want to make a
decision to make his future his past, either.

GROSS: In your book you write `boxing is an unnatural act. Everything in
boxing is backwards to life. Instead of running from pain, which is the
natural thing in life, in boxing you step to it.' You've boxed as well as
worked as a cut man. What's it like to try to get over those natural
instincts and replace them with boxing instincts?

Mr. TOOLE: Well, I boxed, but you have to understand, my boxing began when I
was 48, and I sparred in the gym. I worked out in the gym. I did what we
call `worked.' And I didn't do it as long as I would have, but--and you also,
if you can imagine--I wear glasses so when I was sparring I was throwing
punches at shadows, so I probably took more shots than I would have.

What happens to you is you become focused on the idea of landing your shots to
the other guy, of doing damage to your opponent. And so you take shots and
you have to understand that you're in what's called--you know, Hemingway
called `hot blood.' And so the shots don't hurt you as much while you're
excited because adrenalin is part of the formula. It's later on that
fighters, you know, for a day or so afterwards, will be holding their ribs, or
you know, you'll see fighters wearing dark glasses for a couple days; that
sort of thing.

GROSS: I imagine it was a little harder for you to take blows or heal from
wounds in your late 40s.

Mr. TOOLE: Oh, sure. And I had teeth cracked. I had my nose broken before,
but I had it broken again. And I would have kept on boxing. I had to quit
because I developed a jaw problem and I was told that I had to wear braces.
So you can't box and wear braces, so that's a regret that I have. Along the
way I found that I was able to do this stuff. I was able to focus. I was
able to remember the mechanics; first of all, do the mechanics--the mechanics
for your mind.

Now how do you hit this other guy? In a street fight you can rush up and grab
someone by the shirt, by the throat, by the neck, by the head, trip him, knock
him down, kick him and all of that good stuff, but in the ring it's very hard
to hit an opponent who's not going to stand there and fight you back. If he
just moves, you're probably not going to be able to do much more than tap him
on the shoulder. So, you know, I learned how to do all of this stuff, how to
cut off the ring, how to throw punches correctly, how to protect myself. And
so, you know, it became a way of life for me to the degree that I actually
quit writing. I said, `Why am I ruining my life writing when I can do this
other thing?' I can be--I can participate in it every day instead of being an
outsider; instead of being, you know, someone howling in the woods for all
those years. And so writing became unimportant to me and I said, `Forget it.
I'm not gonna hurt like that anymore.' And so I know about hurt outside of
the ring as well as inside of the ring.

GROSS: You're talking about the hurt of rejection?

Mr. TOOLE: Absolutely. That would destroy me. It would just put me flat on
my face, so I...

GROSS: That hurts more than the broken nose?

Mr. TOOLE: Oh, absolutely; no comparison. I'd take a broken nose any old
day. To sit there, you know, with that brown envelope in your lap and your
head in your hands and you say to yourself, `Who am I kidding? I'm no good.
If I was any good, somebody would have bought this. I'm just kidding myself.
I've wasted my life. I've thrown it away. What I--I thought it was the muse
who kissed me, who tapped me on the shoulder, and it was a whore that did.
And I've been drained of all my resources. Here I am a complete fool. Why am
I doing this? I've just kidded myself.' And I'd go through that and then,
suddenly--not, suddenly, but slowly I'd get back to my feet. Suddenly,
another story would play before my eyes. And I'd be back at it again.

GROSS: We're listening back to an interview with boxing cut man and writer
F.X. Toole, who has died at the age of 72. We'll continue the interview after
a break. This is FRESH AIR.

(Soundbite of music)

GROSS: Let's get back to our interview with boxing cut man and writer F.X.
Toole, recorded two years ago after the publication of his only book, a
collection of short stories called "Rope Burns." Toole has died at the age of
72.

Now I know as a young man you studied acting with Sanford Meisner, the famous
acting teacher at the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York.

Mr. TOOLE: Yes.

GROSS: You had written plays that weren't produced, but you wrote them. Any
connection between boxing and theater?

Mr. TOOLE: Oh, there's--yeah, there's a lot of performance in boxing. In
fact, when I see fight movies--and they try to train fighters to perform like
fighters, it usually doesn't work. Oftentimes, they don't take enough time
because it takes a long time to learn how to do this stuff. And so I would
say that they probably should take fighters and train them to be actors. It
would probably shorten the process. But, indeed, there's a lot of show biz in
the game and the audience is there to be entertained. You entertain
differently than, say, in the theater and, yet, the drama is there. It's real
drama. It's going on right before their eyes and all sorts of things are
being tested and challenged throughout the number of X number of rounds. And
the audience, when they see it, and see that it's done well, absolutely
becomes enchanted with the activity and are transported.

GROSS: Of course, in boxing it's not stage blood. It's real blood.

Mr. TOOLE: It's the real deal.

GROSS: And you like that.

Mr. TOOLE: Sure.

GROSS: Why do you prefer real blood to stage blood?

Mr. TOOLE: Well, because it's real. You know, I was a bullfighter and I was
gored three times. And so for me to see blood pumping out is not that big a
deal. You know, I had one--you know, I was gored in the bladder. I was gored
in my left leg a couple of times. One of the times there were three
trajectories that were as long as your hand. And at the time I weighed
probably 140 pounds. I'm 6' tall, so you can imagine how thin my leg was.
It's part of the territory. It's the price of doing business. It's--How
shall I say?--being there at the time when the greatest challenge is met. And
then it's also being there when that challenge is met in a positive or a
negative way. And so, again, it's real drama. It's not playing. It's not,
`Well, I can go home after the theater or go to a local bar and have a few
pops and forget about it.' This is stuff that you take with you for the rest
of your life, and that's what I see life as, a series of experiences that
should be lived and not nullified, not anesthetized with drugs, etc.

GROSS: Who was the first person who read one of your stories and said, `I'm
going to publish this'?

Mr. TOOLE: It was Howard Junker, God bless him, at a literary magazine out
of San Francisco called Zyzzyva and--Z-Y-Z-Z-Y-V-A. And one day I got a phone
call and he introduced himself. And he said, `This is a terrific story. I
want to publish it.' And I said, `You're kidding?' And he said, `No, no. I
want to do it.' And we chatted a moment and I think for the first time in my
life I used the word flabbergasted because I--really, I've never used that
word before because I usually have plenty to say, right? But I just could not
believe it. I was--at that moment I was vindicated, if you will. At that
moment I was a successful writer.

GROSS: Had you sent him the story?

Mr. TOOLE: I had sent him the story through the mail, like I always have. I
never put any blurb about myself. I just submit the story. And I was always
very selfish about writing. If I was going to have any success in writing or
be published at all, I wanted it to be absolutely on the merit of the work, as
read by someone anonymous reading an anonymous writer. And that's what
happened, finally, after 40 years.

GROSS: You're somebody who, in a way, starts things or accomplishes things
late in life. You know, you started boxing at the age of 48. You're about 70
now. Is that right?

Mr. TOOLE: Seventy, yeah.

GROSS: Yeah. And your first book has just been published. This is
something you've wanted your whole life. What's it like to get something that
you've always wanted, but get it at the age of 70 when, you know, you're not
looking ahead at your whole life any longer?

Mr. TOOLE: Well, it's sweet, indeed. I will also tell you that if this had
happened to me at 35, we probably wouldn't be having this conversation because
I was, let's say, something of a wild man. I would probably have destroyed
myself along the way because I--given--let's--I'm hoping to make some money on
this, but let's assume that I would have made some money. I would have
probably squandered it and squandered everything else along with it because I
would have wanted to push the envelope on principle, but also in terms of
understanding the world and, if nothing else, to have more things to write
about.

So it's probably the best thing that could have happened to me, individually.
I look around and I see so many young people who get the success early on,
fold in the stretch, if you will, and destroy themselves and destroy a lot of
people around them. And what a great tragedy that is, because I think many of
them end up with success that they don't feel they've earned. I've earned
every bit of it. However much I get, I will have earned it. And I don't say
that as some kind of a nut puffing myself up. I'm just saying I paid my dues.
Here it is. Thank God it's here and I'm gonna protect it and nurture it to
the best of my ability.

GROSS: Have you saved all your earlier writing, and do you like some of that
stuff?

Mr. TOOLE: Some of it I do. I will tell you the first thing I really wrote
seriously was a bullfight novel after I had been blown out of the game and I
returned to California to Los Angeles. And I was working in the Good Humor
ice cream factory, the swing shift. I was climbing down in the stainless
steel vats with live steam, and go home at midnight, 1 in the morning, my wife
and baby were asleep. I was still charged up and someway or another I had the
idea that I wanted to write a bullfight novel. So I did. And I still have
it. It's wrapped up in the brown paper, you know, and the stamp that I sent
it to myself. I think the date is February something in 1958. I'm terrified
to open those pages to go back and read how terrible it must be. On the other
hand, there's some great material in there, OK? And if I live long enough,
maybe I can go back and use some of that.

GROSS: F.X. Toole, recorded a couple of years ago, after the publication of
his only book, "Rope Burns." Toole died September 2nd at the age of 72. He
was working on a new book, a novel, which his editor, Dan Halpern, hopes to
publish.

(Credits)

GROSS: I'm Terry Gross.
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