Playboy Interview: Rod Steiger

Sporting a sinister grin that seems more suited to a post-office wall than to a movie billboard, and often behaving as boisterously off screen as he does on, Rodney Stephen Steiger has always rubbed Hollywood's establishment the wrong way. When he was still scuffling for parts during the early Fifties, he liked to hang out at Schwab's drugstore, wearing rumpled clothing and two days' growth of beard, rather than hobnob with the other upward-mobile movie hopefuls in a Don Loper original. On those few occasions when he was seen in the "right" places, he tended to put ketchup on his filet mignon and, if properly motivated, was known to stand up and sing in the most sacrosanct restaurants. His emotional acting style---the result of his New York training---set him apart from the docile Thespians molded by the California studios, and some of his passionate characterizations alienated the studio heads themselves. Many moguls felt personally insulted by his scathing portrayal of a Hollywood demagog in "The Big Knife," a film that exploded movie-star shibboleths the same way Steiger does in real life. Happily, the industry's lingering animosity ended last year when, after some 30-odd pictures, he was awarded an Oscar for his abrasive performance as the red-necked Southern sheriff of "In the Heat of the Night."

Though his rise to stardom came as no surprise to Steiger, it surely would have amazed anyone who witnessed his inauspicious show-business debut at an amusement park in Seaside Heights, New Jersey. Wearing blackface, he perched on a splintery plank while customers tossed balls at a pyramid of milk bottles beside him. At climactic moments, the stoic 12-year-old was unceremoniously dumped into a six-foot tub filled with water. The only child of a struggling song-and-dance team, Steiger fled Newark's West Side High School in 1941 to escape his disoriented home life, lied about his age (which was 16) and enlisted in the Navy. His military career---on a destroyer in the South Pacific---ended with a discharge 24 hours after V-J Day. Back in New Jersey, he found a Civil Service job at the Veterans Administration. The uninspiring regimen of oiling office machines and carrying boxes of allotment checks was alleviated by a Thursday-night theater group composed mainly of clerks, typists and secretaries. Steiger joined to meet the girls, but his first taste of real stagecraft---a part in "Curse You, Jack Dalton"---abruptly altered and elevated his ambitions.

Within six months, he was using his $75-a-month G1 Bill of Rights benefits to study acting at the New School for Social Research, across the Hudson river in Manhattan; he also subjected himself to operatic voice training. Settled in a cold-water basement flat on West 82nd Street, where he was obliged to fight off the roaches with a hammer, he spent countless evenings at the Thalia Theater, an Upper West Side moviehouse that specialized in revivals of film classics such as "Grand Illusion" and "The Blue Angel." Steiger later transferred to the American Theater Wing and eventually to the Actors Studio, where his classmates included such stars-to-be as Karl Malden, Eva Marie Saint, Kim Stanley and Marlon Brando. But while his uninhibited classroom performances won their respect, they seldom saw him outside the studio; he was busy earning a living on television. From 1947 to 1953, Steiger appeared in more than 250 live dramas, playing a wide range of characters, from Romeo and Rasputin to the title role in "Marty," which won him the Sylvania Award.

That accolade resulted in his film debut as a sympathetic psychiatrist in "Teresa." His second screen appearance, as Brando's weak-willed brother in "On the Waterfront," won him a 1954 Academy Award nomination for best supporting actor. The four years of voice training proved invaluable for "Oklahoma!," in which he sang the part of Jud Fry and nimbly tossed around a 165-pound adversary in a balletic fight sequence. Some critics complained that he played Jud as if he'd been created by Dostoievsky rather than Rodgers and Hammerstein. But Steiger's versatility impressed a number of influential producers and directors, such as the late Jerry Wald, who told him that he could become the greatest movie lover in 25 years if he would only lose 30 pounds. That never happened, and the beefy actor contented himself as a character lead in a series of B-plus pictures, one of which---"Al Capone"---belatedly vaulted him into prominence. Due largely to his bravura portrayal of the scar-faced gangster, the low-budget film emerged as a winner at the box office. Meanwhile, Steiger was co-starring with the classically trained British actress Claire Bloom in a stage adaptation of "Rashomon"; three months after the show closed, she became his second wife.

Skeptics predicted that the union of this gentle, delicate beauty with the crude, volatile Steiger would never last; they were right. As we went to press, the Steigers announced their impending divorce after ten years of marriage. Steiger currently occupies an antique-laden Upper Park Avenue co-op apartment that serves mainly as a base of operations, since his peripatetic schedule over the past several years has necessitated extensive travel: "Dr. Zhivago" in Spain, "The Sergeant" in France, "Hands on the City" in Italy and "The Mark" in Ireland. His domestic filmwork during the same period has run the dramatic gamut from the spit-curled Mr. Joyboy in "The Loved One" to his sensitive, critically acclaimed performance in "The Pawnbroker" (which earned him a second Oscar nomination) and "No Way to Treat a Lady," a commercial flop that was nonetheless a satisfying ego trip for the star, who played four separate roles.

Playboy interviewer Richard Warren Lewis caught up with Steiger in his bungalow suite at the Beverly Hills Hotel while he was working on "Waterloo"---an epic biography of Napoleon that would take him to Italy and later to the Soviet Union for a colossal scene involving 12,000 troops, 3000 horses and plenty of thermal underwear. A week earlier, Steiger had attended the San Francisco Film Festival, which opened with "The Sergeant"---released this year, along with "The Illustrated Man" and "Three into Two Won't Go," both co-starring Claire Bloom. At a subsequent press conference, he anticipated the mixed critical response by displaying a rather dated lapel button that read: I am a Human Being. Do Not Fold, Spindle Or Mutilate.

Lewis' first impression was that Steiger looked more like a sumo wrestler than a movie star: "His unusually broad shoulders, thick neck and large forearms, developed when he worked in an icehouse as a teenager, were swaddled in a blacksilk robe. His dainty size-nine-and-a-half-EEE feet, badly in need of a pedicure, poked out from thonged leather sandals. Overweight, Steiger was ready to embark on a two-week program of sauna baths, sweat and solitude at a health spa in Carlsbad, California.

"Piled on his coffee table were the collected letters of Van Gogh, Norman Mailer's 'The Armies of the Night,' several biographies of Bonaparte and a volume of Eric Hoffer's aphorisms, along with a single rose that had arrived that morning with his breakfast. Getting in his last licks before the health-spa crash diet, Steiger ordered double servings of pancakes, French toast, steaks, sausages, bacon, Monte Cristo sandwiches, quarts of milk, Johnnie Walker Black Label and imported beer throughout the ensuing week. At times it seemed that he was playing Henry VIII. As he talked, he thumped on the table---once with enough force to send glasses of grapefruit juice tumbling to the floor; and often he paced back and forth, munching on a piece of meat or waving a fork in his left hand to punctuate his discourse." Awed by this prodigious and almost uninterrupted intake, Lewis began the interview on a gourmandial note.

[Q] Playboy: There's a line of dialog in The Sergeant that reads, "Eating is the only way to beat this life. Does that philosophy apply to you as well as to the character you played?

[A] Steiger: Maybe it's not the only way, but I do love to eat. Sumptuous food is one of life's great experiences. I have haunted restaurants all over the world, seeking the definitive beef Wellington and its counterpart, a perfect bottle of vintage French Bordeaux. When I'm alone after work in a strange city, I confront my chauffeur and inquire, "What's the best restaurant in town? Not the celebrated restaurants. Where do you eat? Where do the natives eat?"

[A] A funny eating experience occurred when I was asked to make a personal appearance in connection with the release of some picture. The studio said, "Would you like to go to London?" And I said, "What do I have to do?" They said, "Just walk on the stage and say hello." I'd never been to England, so I agreed. They paid for the tickets. I went, and I had a marvelous Cockney chauffeur named Drew, who taught me to play snooker and also chiseled 15 pounds out of me. Wherever you are, Drew, I still love you. Anyway, the night before I was to leave, an accountant from the film company called the hotel and said, "Steiger, we've got a laundry bill here for two pounds." I said, "So?" He said, "We're only supposed to pay for your lodgings and your food, not your laundry." This is the kind of pettiness I can't stand, but I didn't complain. Instead, I replied, "I shall mail you a check for two pounds in the morning." I put the phone down, turned to the chauffeur and said, "Drew, we're going to the Savoy for dinner." We went and we ate a meal that cost 33 guineas, which at that time was about $99. It took us about two hours to finish this feast. I ordered caviar and didn't even eat it. Drew went home with a bottle of champagne and a box of Cuban cigars under his arm. The phone rang the following morning and the same accountant said, "Mr. Steiger, we have a bill from the Savoy for dinner." I said, "You pay for the food and the lodging, right? I pay for the laundry." Pettiness demands petty justice.

[Q] Playboy: Hasn't your fondness for good food made you a bit overweight?

[A] Steiger: Well, I weigh 230 now and that's too much. But weight's not that big a problem for me, because I've been heavy all my life. I never minded it when they called me Rodney the Rock in high school. Of course, it's different when your life becomes public. At one time, I was greatly flattered by the word "burly," because I thought it was a polite way of saying I'm fat. Now "burly" tends to bother me. I don't want to see that word anymore---probably because I still haven't taken off enough weight.

[Q] Playboy: Is that why you're planning to spend two weeks at a health spa?

[A] Steiger: I've finally decided to discipline myself. No doctor's advice, just common sense. I hope to lose at least 20 pounds this trip. When you come to California, you inevitably become body-conscious. What you can cover up in Europe and New York, you have to show more of here, so you kind of get more health oriented. Especially when you see these California girls on the beach, goddesses who are only 14, 15 or 16 years old, all of them already grown women. I watch a girl walking down the beach and somebody tells me, "Stop looking, she's fourteen." You come to a screeching halt. You can't believe it. Ah, the golden children of California. They're beautiful. But that's the rub. Suppose one wanted to get to know one of these young ladies. You wouldn't have a chance, because of the generation gap. Try taking a walk down King's Road in London some Saturday morning. You'll see some of the most beautiful birds in the world with the shortest skirts in the world, with the bestest hips and legs and faces and everything else. I guess man is always a bit of a voyeur. Anyway, you start walking from Sloane Square, trying to look like a mixture of John Wayne and Clark Gable. You get halfway down the street and you realize that if you're over 12, forget it. Nothing's going to happen. A friend of mine in London and I once started walking at one end of the street, feeling like King Kong and Tarzan. By the time we reached the other end, we were so deflated we felt like Mickey Mouse and Tiny Tim. It was sad, because a man likes to feel desired just as much as a woman does. Every man has that marvelous fantasy that he can step into Rudolph Valentino's shoes.

[Q] Playboy:You, too?

[A] Steiger: Of course! I'd like to think that I'm absolutely irresistible to every female in the world. Who wouldn't? You've got to think you're something special; otherwise, how could you tolerate all the crap you have to go through? Every man would like to think he's the biggest swinger in the world and that after he's been to bed with a woman, she says, "Après vous le déluge." Nothing makes a man feel more masculine than when he knows a woman thinks he's fantastic in bed. There are only two truly superlative compliments you can receive from a woman. One: "I think you're a master chef." And two: "I think you're a great lay." The two basic drives in life.

[Q] Playboy: Which have you received the most compliments about?

[A] Steiger: Well, my cookies have always left something to be desired; so did my liaisons, occasionally, before I was married. Everybody finds out that there are some people you can turn on just by coming into the room and other people you couldn't turn on if you stood on your head. Which isn't a bad idea, by the way. I guess this is part of growing up---discovering sooner or later that there's somebody you think you could really swing with, but who can't see you at all. It's always hard to accept, though. There are many attractive women I've known who I've done my damnedest to get into a bed, but it was no use. There just was no empathy, no connection to begin with. It's like a Feiffer cartoon, where the guy stands in front of a woman peeling off his skin and reciting poetry, saying, "Look at me." And she doesn't even notice him.

[Q] Playboy: What techniques have you used in trying to seduce these holdouts?

[A] Steiger: Long before Hugh Hefner, there was the circular bed with the silk sheets and the changing lights. Also the planetarium, which turns the whole room into the Milky Way. It's available at toy stores like F. A. O. Schwartz for $16. You pull all the shades down, dim the lights, flick the switch and the whole room becomes a miniature universe. The stars are projected onto the ceiling. If you have one of those in your room and you add some good music, it may not work as an aphrodisiac, but it's certainly beautiful. As Pushkin once said passionately, "You can't romance all the women in the world, but you must try." Of course, there's one brief romance I could have done without. When I was in the Navy, I got crabs and they had to shave me to get rid of them. That should interest the American public.

[Q] Playboy: Wasn't your entire body shaved to apply your elaborate make-up for The Illustrated Man?

[A] Steiger: It certainly was. They did it with an electric razor. I'll never forget it. I itched a little bit, in unexciting ways, but otherwise there were no ill effects. Then the make-up experts tried to figure out how to paint my body without poisoning me. They tested rabbits and guinea pigs with dyes. Finally they did me from the neck all the way down, using a black silk-screen stencil. They put on one sketch at a time, just a black outline. That took an eight- or nine-hour day. Then my body was hand-painted all the next day; it took 11 men. The horrible thing was that after the second day, the illustrations would begin to smear in bed at night. I had to sleep in long Johns and I couldn't go swimming. I missed the therapeutic feeling of throwing myself into the pool after coming home from work, which helps me wash off all the crap---my own as well as everybody else's. But this time I couldn't do that. On the third day, I did my acting. Fortunately, some days we needed only half a body; some days just the hands. The two guys who removed the paint used a combination of Ajax and Ivory Soap. Then we had to put the illustrations on again the following day. In a five-day work week, two days were spent making up and three days acting.

[Q] Playboy: How did you get along with the 11 make-up men?

[A] Steiger: Well, the first day, there was the joyous discovery that I'm not tough and difficult. I go through this all the time. People in Hollywood, I think, usually have two attitudes toward me: one, that I'm egocentric; two, that I'm snobbish. I imagine they have these attitudes because they misinterpret independence. I'm trying to maintain my idea of independence, and this is not a very independent town. In this world, most people "sell" themselves, and if you try not to, they're liable to call you a lot of things, because you remind them of what they sold. I get angry when I hear people call actors like Montgomery Clift or Kim Stanley difficult. Many of these same people resented Spencer Tracy's grumpiness. Maybe there's something important in being difficult that way, in maintaining a certain privacy, a certain determination to retain your original concept of a part and a way of life. Anyhow, I joked around a lot with these make-up men, to break down this artificial barrier. "No faggots allowed," I told them. "The first guy who starts painting my balls is out of a job." This, of course, brought on a lot of jokes from everybody around the table, and that got us through the first couple of weeks. We then went on to all the scandals about movie stars of the past and present.

[Q] Playboy: Speaking of scandals, you've been criticized for appearing completely nude in The Illustrated Man.

[A] Steiger: Big deal. In one shot, I get up from a couch and as I cross the room, you see all of me. "All of me, why not show all of me?" If you want to be polite, one is apt to see my genitals in this scene. Nobody at Warner Bros. -Seven Arts paid any attention to it until some executive said, "Look at that!" He probably never saw one before. All of a sudden, Hollywood discovered that men are built different from women. It was truly a situation where a molehill was made into a mountain---figuratively speaking, of course. My feelings were, "Let it all hang out."

[Q] Playboy: You'd never been nude in public before that?

[A] Steiger: Somebody may have watched me through a window someplace, but not that I know of. I've never felt self-conscious about nudity, anyway. A good example is the time my daughter came in while I was taking a shower. This happened long ago and she was taking a good look at me and the difference between the two of us. This is probably one of nature's most beautiful creations, certainly the most miraculous part of the male body. I didn't want any shame or taboo or darkness to be connected with it as far as my daughter was concerned, because she'll get all those inhibitions shoved on her anyway by the outside world. Our relationship has always been that open. The important thing has been not to hide anything from her. When she grows up, I want her to have as many men as she bloody well pleases, to know that if anything goes wrong, she can come to me first and we can decide what's wise in any situation. I don't want her to get married on the wings of her first orgasm, thinking she's in love and then, when the newness wears off, suddenly wake up in bed with someone she doesn't really know at all. That happens much too much today. Sex is not love. It's a necessary part of love, but it is not the definition nor the depth nor the totality of love. Unfortunately, more people are kept together by certificates and lawyers than by real love or feeling for each other, and I think that's truly a crime.

[Q] Playboy: Do you see your own attitudes about love and sex reflected in the frankness of many recent films?

[A] Steiger: European influences forced us to stop being so adolescent. But now I think both Hollywood and European film makers are going overboard. They've become very repetitious. Sex in films has been put on such a disproportionate level, it's incredible. I would end the glut once and for all and do a television special called Fuck, depicting in graphic detail every possible technique and sexual variation in one gigantic three-hour orgy. It would be televised once a week and everybody could tune in and have a ball. It would be cosponsored by U. S. Rubber and the manufacturers of Enovid. On second thought, it would have to be unsponsored, because Madison Avenue would start watering it down until it turned into a hygiene demonstration with robots instead of people. To avoid offending any minority group, of course, the male robot would have a white head, a black body, red arms, yellow legs and a multicolored penis. And the female would be striped and starred and painted like the American flag.

[Q] Playboy: Considering the conservatism of TV censors, it seems unlikely that even your kissing scene with John Phillip Law in The Sergeant will ever be seen on television. How did you feel about kissing another man?

[A] Steiger: I didn't even notice it. I was so concerned technically with the camera that I don't remember any sensation; I really was too busy working. It was just like kissing a woman on the screen. It doesn't mean anything to you unless you're hot for a body. I happen not to be hot for John Law's body, nor he for mine. That scene, by the way, wasn't in the original script. I don't know if I was the one responsible, but I insisted on kissing him. There has to be something like that after all the tension that preceded it. The sergeant character doesn't even know what he's doing. Probably the saddest line in the script is when he says, "I didn't do that." He's trying to bring back to life the German boy he killed at the beginning of the film. The audience doesn't have to know that, but I do. Maybe for the audience it was a homosexual kiss, but for me it was mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

[A] It was very difficult to do, to say to a man, "I need you. I want you. I can't live without you." I've never done that in my life. I don't really know if I've ever felt healthy enough to say that to a woman the way I really should, for Christ's sake. How many of us today can actually strip our insides bare and say to somebody, "Look, I really do need you"? We can say, "I love you" 27 times a day, but it's not like saying, "Look, here I am, vomit and all, sick and frightened. Recognize my need and my humanity."

[Q] Playboy: You said that you insisted on adding the kissing scene in The Sergeant. The film of The Illustrated Man is quite different from the Ray Bradbury short stories on which it's based. Were you responsible for any of those changes, too?

[A] Steiger: Yes. The man I play in the third part comes home and says to his wife, "It's the last night of the world. What are we going to do?" The original story just answered, "Love each other. God is love." I thought that was too innocuous for modern films. The word "love" can no longer justify destruction or injustice. "I did it because I love you. Please forgive me." Nobody believes that anymore. They say, "If you really loved me, how could you do it?" Originally, there was nothing in the script except, "We must love each other before we die; then maybe we will love each other after we die." It sounded to me like a sermon from some pulpit. You need a "tag" on a movie, a big closing scene. That wouldn't do. We needed a powerful confrontation to cap the story, so we discussed, we fought, we haggled. Then we kind of dreamed up something: I said, "What would happen if I killed the children---to spare them from a painful death by fire or radiation?" Right away, some people were afraid the public would reject us. But the public is often far more intelligent than the people who make movies.

[A] Anyway, I couldn't get anywhere with these "executives" until they realized we were discussing euthanasia. "That's different," they said. "I don't know about euthanasia," I told them. "I just know theatrically it's a strong scene to play." So the whole ending was changed and now the man comes home and says: "It's the last night of the world," but he's carrying two pills. He tells his wife he's going to kill the children, but she won't let him. They make love, and she wakes up the next morning and the world didn't end after all. Then she finds him slumped in a daze between the two dead children. He has killed them anyway. He didn't believe they could survive. Now the story has a punch. There's an ending to the picture. Any parent who sees it should be able to identify with it.

[Q] Playboy: How does this new ending relate to the film's over-all theme?

[A] Steiger: Well, the film is actually a trilogy of Bradbury stories, each set in a different time but all revolving around the illustrated man, who has symbolic designs and intricate vignettes tattooed over his entire body, each of them depicting a cataclysmic future event. And there's one bare spot on his back, which, when observed long enough, will reveal the viewer's own future. In looking at the future, trying to discover his fate, the viewer sees something that's hideous and frightening, suggesting that maybe it's best not to know the future, to accept that simply being alive is enough. Those who aren't satisfied with what they have from day to day are always greedily looking for more. It's true that tomorrow may be better---or worse---but today may not be so bad. You must appreciate the miracle that you're alive right now and forget about how---or if---you're going to live tomorrow.

[A] Bradbury doesn't write science fiction; he writes Aesop's Fables for our time. This film is an imaginative trip, a kind of psychedelic parable. It'd be a wild thing to distribute joints to an audience as they walk in and start the film 20 minutes later. The first time I saw it, I wasn't so fortunate. I watched it in a screening room, armed with a bottle of Scotch. I sat by myself in the middle of the theater, just to be alone, to concentrate. It's kind of a personal moment when you watch yourself for an hour and 40 minutes. I didn't want anybody to hear the groans and see the nervous twitches and the agony when I thought something was wrong. Midway through the picture, I had to go to the John. I left the room and couldn't find one, so I went outside between a couple of buildings. Meanwhile, my film's running inside. As I stood there, I reflected on this bizarre situation. In the middle of this great big Warner Bros. factory, the star of a picture that's running himself between buildings and wondering what he's missing on the screen.

[Q] Playboy: How do you feel about the use of pot in situations other than film screenings?

[A] Steiger: I don't think it should be illegal. I've experimented with the stuff twice myself; nothing happened. My mind doesn't let itself go. But it relaxed me and I fell asleep. I enjoyed it. It's certainly better than regular cigarettes and it's far better than alcohol.

[Q] Playboy: What do you have against cigarette smoking?

[A] Steiger: For some reason or another, I've just never got with it. But just recently, I began smoking nicotineless cigarettes made from celery stalks. They smell exactly like marijuana. I had a great time coming on the set the other day and lighting one up. Then I just sat there and watched people. They sniffed and they kind of gave a look like, "No, it can't be," and then sniffed again. One by one, they'd ask, "What kind of cigarette are you smoking?" I said, "I'd rather not talk about it. Really, it's just a cigarette." They taste terrible, but it's worth it to get the reactions. Anyway, I feel marijuana can be beneficial when used correctly. It could be one of the greatest tranquilizers around.

[Q] Playboy: Do you need tranquilizers?

[A] Steiger: From time to time, because we've made society into a factory, and I have to live in it. You can't make time a commodity as we've done. You can't sell your lunch hour for three dollars and not expect to get an ulcer and die at least five years early. No animal is supposed to live as fast as we do in the big cities. During a normal workday, there are 12,000,000 people in Manhattan---an island 2 miles wide and 14 miles long. You can't put that many animals in a cage. We're creating situations where the human animal has no freedom, no room to roam free. Why are there riots in the summer? Not only because the kids are out of school but because they're sitting in a hot, steaming jungle---overpacked, overcrowded, in all the filth and dirt, on top of all the racial pressures. Until those conditions can be changed, I'm certainly in favor of legalizing pot.

[Q] Playboy: Have you experimented with hallucinogenic drugs?

[A] Steiger: No, I wouldn't go near anything like that. It's fun to try anything for kicks once, but there are certain limitations. Too many doctors have told me the statistics on people who flipped out at Bellevue in New York or became schizophrenics or were twisted for life. That should tour any intelligent person off LSD. Furthermore, these drugs make you think you know what you are, but you may not be that at all. If they were legal, I suppose they could be used as a form of research into human nature. But one certainly can't create under the influence of drugs. If someone gave a performance under the influence of pot, he might get away with it, but I don't think he'd be in command---and that's when a performer is at his best. In acting, one kind of molds moments as they go through his body---at least in the kind of acting I believe in. I don't know exactly what I'm going to do when they start shooting. I'm just trying to believe desperately in what I'm doing. So I have to keep a clear head. I want to be able to control whatever I discover at the moment it happens; a split second later may be too late. I couldn't use drugs in that type of situation. They distort one's sense of timing.

[Q] Playboy: To judge from the increasing candor and honesty with which sex is being depicted on the screen, public attitudes toward censorship are liberalizing more rapidly than toward drug use. You implied earlier that there was studio pressure to delete a nude scene in The Illustrated Man, however. Was there any comparable resistance to some of the strong language in the film?

[A] Steiger: No. I think the censors are beginning to understand that sometimes there's nothing as effective as a curse or an obscenity to convey a point. The script includes the line, "You're a shit!" and it fits. It's right. It would be ridiculous to say, "You're no good. You're a dog." I had a very interesting discussion the other day with Jack Valenti, who's in charge of the Motion Picture Association of America. I said, "Why did I have to change that line in The Sergeant from 'If you want a piece of ass...' to 'If you want to get laid...'?" He said, "When you say 'piece of ass,' it's all right with us, but we're afraid somebody else is going to use those same words to exploit them, because they think people will be titillated by what they're hearing. "Maybe he has a point. But I always thought it was kind of insane to censor a phrase like "piece of ass" but allow the word "kill" to be used as often as possible. I think "kill" is more obscene than "fuck" will ever be.

[Q] Playboy: Didn't The Pawnbroker attract considerable attention from the censors?

[A] Steiger: It created a storm because a girl showed her bare breasts. But that was what led Nazerman, the pawnbroker, to remember his wife's breasts, the concentration camp and what happened afterward. There was a reason for it. First the censors said no, but finally they agreed. It was a step forward for American motion pictures, in a way. People think that if you expose your body for a cheap reason, then it's vulgar; but if you expose your body for somebody you love, somebody who needs you or wants you, then there's mutual communication and it's beautiful. One way, you're a prostitute; the other, you're a lover. I've never been able to figure it out. But I do know that anything in nature can be revealed in any art form for the purpose of communication or exploration.

[Q] Playboy: Aside from nudity and four-letter words, The Pawnbroker portrayed some of the more gruesome and shocking aspects of Nazism. Was it difficult finding a producer willing to deal with such a theme?

[A] Steiger: You'd better believe it. One studio suggested we eliminate the concentration camp and another said, "Does he have to be Jewish?" Those were typical of some of the stupid attitudes we ran into. See, they have words in the movie world that can kill a script. Take the devastating power of the word "grim," for instance. If that gets around about a script, everybody says, "Holy Jesus! Grim? The public don't want to see grim!"The other red-flag word is "fantasy." Don't ever mention that. God forbid I should ever want to do a "grim fantasy."

[Q] Playboy: You seem bitter about Hollywood. Why?

[A] Steiger: I don't really have any cause for complaint about Hollywood. I've been successful here and I've done it on my own terms. I've worked hard and the industry has repaid me for my efforts most handsomely. I'm not in love with the place, but I'm not anti-Hollywood, either, because I've been in Rome and London and the movie business is just as crappy there---and just as good. What bugs me most about Hollywood are the phony stories one has heard about oneself. It's as if some people just can't stand that I've proved you can be successful independently. Our society is supposedly based on the independence and individual rights of all men, and then the first son of a bitch who maintains his independence becomes an enemy of society. Maybe we have too many clubs, too many joiners. Big organizations love to own people, and they can't stand it when somebody refuses to be bought. It drives them berserk. With the czars gone now in Hollywood, independence may become more a way of life. I think it will.

[Q] Playboy: Don't you ever participate in some of the more traditional Hollywood folkways, such as garish premieres and celebrity parties?

[A] Steiger: I've never played the Hollywood games. I'm not a member of the A or B or C party group. I don't usually go to openings. Those who do are people desperately wanting to be seen, desperately overdressed, using the premiere as an excuse. Nobody really knows anybody here. Above all, Hollywood is a community of lonely people searching for even the most basic kind of stimulation in their otherwise mundane lives. I've met too many people in Hollywood who sacrifice personal happiness for professional gain. They have big swimming pools and more money than they can spend, and then at two A.M., they go to pieces. They turn their souls inside out and become bitterly disillusioned.

[Q] Playboy: Are you suggesting that Hollywood's bacchanalian image is a myth?

[A] Steiger: Exactly. Let me give you a more recent example. Last fall, I went to Gene Kelly's house to watch a Green Bay Packers game on television. As I walked in, I couldn't help thinking of all the false impressions of Hollywood. There were Walter Matthau, Joe Mankiewicz, Carl Reiner, Marty Ritt and a shadow of the old generation, Mike Romanoff. Everybody was sitting around making nickel and quarter bets. I took a look around and asked, "Is this one of those Hollywood orgies I've read about in the papers?" That's such a bunch of shit.

[Q] Playboy: Despite your denials, there's a good deal of evidence to indicate that such parties are being held on a rather big scale in the Los Angeles area.

[A] Steiger: If you ever find one, give me 20 minutes' notice so I can get there. Until then, the worst vices I can find to indulge in here are overeating and daily massages to relax my working tensions.

[Q] Playboy: According to some reports, your tensions cause occasional explosions of temperament on the sound stage.

[A] Steiger: Those are absolutely phony, concocted stories. Cheap publicity minds do that with their stupid little wormlike brains. If people with strong personalities work together, someone inevitably manufactures a conflict, thinking the public will read it. Years ago, when John Osborne hit the best-seller lists with Look Back in Anger and The Last Angry Man was popular, a lot of writers picked up on the word "anger" and applied it to me. I was new and people were trying to write copy to make a living. To certain columnists, at that time, anybody who came from New York was a rebel with a chip on his shoulder. Publicists plant that stuff in the belief that it will help stimulate interest in the films they're promoting. They should be farmed out to the Motion Picture Country Home. The public is too intelligent for that sort of hyperbole. They like gossip, but they want something more for their money now. It's no longer enough to know who's sleeping together. People are finally saying, "What else is new? Tell me something interesting."

[Q] Playboy: Many of the old-fashioned scandal techniques you mention are certainly contemptible---but do they really hurt you? Despite your occasional bad press, hasn't your earning power increased dramatically since the columnists started writing about you?

[A] Steiger: Yes, but it hasn't happened because of publicity. Whatever success I've had, I've earned on the screen. If I'm making more money, it's because producers think that audiences will pay to see me perform. I'm really not that concerned about money, anyway, though I know you can't work for too little or they'll screw you. I've been burned more than once. I worked for next to nothing on The Pawnbroker---$25,000 and a percentage of the gross. Now, there's some discrepancy between my version of the gross and the producer's. I may have to go to court. It's become a question of whose bookkeeping will be accepted, which is a way of being screwed. The thing I hate most about this is the indignity of having to demand what's rightly mine. I had the same kind of trouble in Al Capone. I almost had to sue. I hope that doesn't happen with The Sergeant, where the deal was similar.

[Q] Playboy: Why do you get yourself into such situations?

[A] Steiger: I'm not a good lobbyist for myself. I don't want to have lunch with people, go to their house, play tennis and pretend I'm friends with them just to make a deal. I've been working on a script for ten years called The Untold Story; it's about an actor. It's a film I want to make, commercial or not. Frankly, I don't care whether it ever shows in the United States. For years, nobody would produce it; but now I'll get it done, because there are people who figure, "Well, it sounds crazy, but what the hell, if he's in it and if we do it on the right budget, we'll make money." They're not doing me any favors. They can't lose money with the television sales and everything else I have going for me. On a small budget, $1,000,000 or $2,000,000, they immediately get $750,000 back on the television sale. I've been talking to Paramount about The Untold Story. Recently, I was told that they didn't like it, but they'd do it anyway. That's been bugging me. Now it becomes a point of honor. I don't like their condescending attitude---"We don't like it, but we'll do it." I really should tell them to go fuck themselves.

[Q] Playboy: Then why don't you?

[A] Steiger: I hate to admit it, but I'm trapped by the system. The more money these commercial minds pay, the more my artistic power grows. Theoretically, I can then do those things that I really believe in artistically. But when you get on top in this fabled land, you have to fight twice as hard to stay there. You have to be twice as selective as you were on the way up, so you need the discipline of patience.

[Q] Playboy: Is patience one of your virtues?

[A] Steiger: No. After three weeks of not working, I get very uptight. Most actors are that way. They say, "Jesus God, I've got to get a job." Then: "Thank God, I got a job." Then: "My God, when is this picture going to be finished?" Then: "Christ, I need rest. "And finally: "Oh God, I've got to get a job." It's an unsettled way to live. But for me, at least, acting is the food I need to sustain myself. If it was taken away from me, I'd probably froth at the mouth and hit the bottle. Or maybe I'd get into drugs. Some people light up to get there; I want to act up to get there. In acting, I find many things other men may miss in their work. I find release. Ideally, a man should work at a job that releases the things he's got inside him. He should work at what he loves. Too many people work in an office or a factory every day because they have to feed a family. When a man is hungry, he'll eat anything, even though he knows it'll make him sick. The wise man, after a few of these nauseating experiences, realizes as he matures that it's more important to wait. So one has to have the patience and the strength to resist the immediate satisfaction of false food---false work. I've succumbed to that a couple of times in my life. I once signed to do a picture a year to pay off my alimony in one lump. I wanted to be able to get it out of the way. So I did a bomb called Seven Thieves. When the film opened, I was sick for days. I went crazy. I said, "That's it, I've sold out. Son of a bitch." Fortunately, when they had a big studio strike, a lot of the bigger contracts were canceled and I was finally free. I've never signed a long-term contract since.

[Q] Playboy: Couldn't that attitude work to your disadvantage?

[A] Steiger: It already has on a number of occasions. A few years ago, I met with David Selznick to discuss starring in a remake of A Farewell to Arms. He was interested, but he insisted on talking about placing me under contract to him; so I refused. That was the end of A Farewell to Arms. For much the same reason, I missed doing the film version of Marty---a part I originated on television. I'm happy to say that my performance of Marty is at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, which to me is a great compliment. But I just didn't want to sign a lengthy contract with the film's producers, so I lost the movie and they got Ernie Borgnine.

[Q] Playboy: Your reluctance to sign longterm contracts and your legal disputes over salaries indicate a certain degree of mistrust for the big studios. Have these encounters made you more cautious?

[A] Steiger: Well, as a child, things I trusted blew up and because I couldn't comprehend that, I suppose even to this day it's difficult for me to really trust anybody, including myself. My family disintegrated when I was 12 and strange people were coming in and out of the house. When you wake up one morning and your stepfather's gone and there's just a note saying, "Good luck," or something like that, it's liable to upset you a little bit. Soon after that, I can remember finding my mother drunk. Undoubtedly, that left its mark on me and accentuated my disappointment in other people. Lack of trust, in a sense, is exactly what's happening on a grand scale today in this country. The great big happy family called America has proved to be a phony group. That's why its children are now lashing out in every direction---sometimes righteously, sometimes adolescently, but always in quest of some sense of security.

[Q] Playboy: Do you remember your father?

[A] Steiger: No. And I've never tried to find him. I never had a desire to see him, because he was a myth. I wouldn't know him if you were him sitting here talking to me. Oh, once in a while I get curious and then I embroider my imagination. Some of these embroiderings can have horrible endings. I always used to wonder what would happen if a man walked into my dressing room and said, "Hello, I'm your father." I'm glad it hasn't happened. I guess I'm afraid to face it because either it would be meaningless or else I might release some horrendous resentment; maybe go berserk and say, "Where the fuck were you when I needed you?" and get to beating his head in. There's no need for us to contact each other now. I consider that part of my life dead---a thing of the past.

[Q] Playboy: Why did your mother and father get divorced?

[A] Steiger: Who can ever know why his parents split up? You get conflicting versions from both sides of the family. The child is caught in a barrage of propaganda. "Your father did this." "No, your mother did that." "Your father was a shit." "Your mother was a shit." But nobody tells you the truth or gets to the real root of it.

[Q] Playboy: In the absence of your father, were you close to your mother?

[A] Steiger: I resented her tremendously for failing as a mother. Later on, after analysis, I realized that she had her own weaknesses and strengths and sicknesses, so we became very good friends again. Then she died two years ago and I began to think more about her. When I'm sitting in a dimly lit room, especially when my rationality is diminished by fatigue, if I concentrate, I swear that I can see my mother's face. Fear or hope can create anything. I never drank much---my mother was the one who had the problem with alcohol. Anyway, a psychiatrist would probably make something of the fact that my mother was advised not to have me. They said she couldn't make it. When I Was born, the back of my head wasn't formed properly. That's probably affected me all of my life. They put me in a cast and didn't move me until I hardened up. In gratitude, I was named after the doctor who delivered me---a Dr. Rodney.

[Q] Playboy: Was it all these memories and conflicts that eventually prompted you to see a psychiatrist?

[A] Steiger: Not specifically. I went into analysis because for some reason it seemed that I didn't want to sustain an emotional relationship with anybody, male or female. It bothered me that I was unable to respond to others as fully as I thought I should. I started with the doctor at 26, and then it was on and off for five years. At first I could only afford to go once a week, but when I got a little lucky, it was twice a week. Finally, it went up to three visits a week and the price got higher. I remember being very defensive with the doctor the first time I went to see him. I jokingly announced that he was dealing with a budding genius and if this enlightenment would in any way louse up my "great" gift, then I'd rather suffer with my problems than deprive the world of my great treasure. He looked at me with half a smile and said, in a Viennese dialect, "If you think an increase in knowledge on any level will be detrimental to your development as a human being, you can leave now." I just looked at him and said, "All right, what time's the next visit?" At the next session, I confided that I was willing to "suffer" for the world through my art. He said, "I'm going to ask you a question and I want you to answer yes or no. Do you think you're Jesus Christ?" After about 15 seconds, I said, "No, of course not." He replied, "Well, I gave you five seconds for the shock of the question and five seconds to say no. Now, what about the other five seconds?" I couldn't answer him. But finally he halped me realize how childish it is to fancy myself a savior of anything or anyone, let alone humanity.

[Q] Playboy: Was that a painful realization?

[A] Steiger No, I really didn't suffer very much in analysis. I wasn't consistently involved; my work was constantly pulling me away, so it was never complete. I opened myself up much more than I used to, but I know I'II never be able to fulfill my romantic notion of total openness. We got to the point, though, at which the doctor realized that I functioned pretty well on my own terms, despite the hang-ups. To get rid of them all would have taken 30 more years of analysis, which would have been ridiculous. I haven't been near a doctor for two or three years now. You're supposed to go back every five years or every 50,000 miles for a retread on your psyche, but I don't think I really need one.

[Q] Playboy: Are you that self-sufficient and well-adjusted now?

[A] Steiger: Well, I've changed a wee bit for the better, but things still aren't easy for me. No miracles have been done, that's for sure. But my life is much better than it was. So I guess it served its purpose. It was also incredibly instructive as far as acting in concerned; it was a real lesson in human behavior. I was awakened to observe things I didn't ordinarily observe in people: mannerisms, speech, inflection, relative patterns of conversation and thought process. These things can be very revealing about people-especially about the psychiatrist himself. When I played a shrink in The Mark, I adopted my own psychiatrist's short-sleeved shirts and his chronic fatigue. He also smoked a pipe constantly, so I made the character a nervous chain smoker, too---all to get away from that terrible cliché of the calm, quiet psychiatrist with the deep voice. I tried to play that part very well and humanly as a token of appreciation for the patient endeavors of my doctor.

[A] Steiger: I try to. At the eng of The pawnbroker, for example, I did that silent scream. If it hadn't worked, I would have looked like a jackass with its mouth open. But it did work, and I have the satisfaction of knowing it. Sidney Lumet and I also cut as many lines as possible. I felt that if a man like Nazerman doesn't aspire to anything more than merely existing in society, then he wouldn't want to have contact with people. I made him not even look at people unless he hat to. One of the most revealing moments in the picture is when a customer says, "You Jew!" and Nazerman doesn't even change his expression. He says, "What's your address?" Sometimes in my acting, I shoot for things and I may not make it. But the times I've hit it, I have a feeling nobody can take away from me. That's what I call the narcotics of acting. It's my LSD.

[Q] Playboy: Aren't some of your dramatic innovations a bit too subtle to be noticed by most people in the audience?

[A] Steiger: They're not supposed to be noticed. If they were, they would come off as affectations rather than as natural character traits. When I did In the Heat of the Night, for instance, I chewed gum constantly and wore oversized chukka boots to give the sheriff a shambling walk. In Zhivago, I added something when Julie Christie slapped me in one scene. Nobody slaps Komarovsky; he doesn't give a shit who you are. She hauled off and belted me and I spontaneously belted her right back; it wasn't in the script. David Lean said, "Cut," and left it in.

[A] My best contribution to Al Capone was that I never once played him with a gun in his hand. Capone was a commercial, entertaining film of no relative importance, of course, but the character was interesting. When it was first brought to me, though, I refused to do it. "I'm not going to do a gangster movie," I said. The original script had Capone surrounded by women all the time. Even if it was true, I didn't want to show him that way. In the original script, they also had him murder somebody, and I asked, "Did they ever prove that he did?" The writers said, "No, but------" And I said, "No buts, If I have to play the life of a criminal, it doesn't mean I have to become a criminal myself and lie about the facts." So we changed all that. I rewrote it at home, then came back and reworked it with the writers. For some reason or another, the film made a big impression. I've done other things I've liked better---like The Pawnbroker, for instance---but people keep saying, "Gee, I like that Capone thing you did," I was working in a Broadway play---Rashomon---around the corner from Capone when it opened in New York. What secretly pleased my warped ego was that these were two vastly different parts, and that made me feel like a real actor.

[Q] Playboy: Are you concerned that audiences won't be able to identify with your constanly shifting screen image?

[A] Steiger: I believe anyone who's gifted is really a poet at heart, and no true poet would ever write the same poem over and over. It'd be and insult to his integrity. You know the cliché, "Familiarity breeds contempt"? When a performer becomes too familiar, his longevity is cut in half. He dilutes himself as he moves forward. That's why I don't believe in an actor having an image. He should be able to create a different image with each character he plays. When an actor says, "That part would be bad for my image," he doesn't know what he's talking about. I like to see an actor risk something, even if he doesn't make it. Ome of the nicest compliments anyone ever gave me was when I played Judge Gaunt in Winterset at the Equity Library Theater in New York. I was only a kid, still in my 20s, and a stranger came backstage one night and said, "I disagree with everything you did, but Jesus, I like your interpretation." I understood what he meant, and I appreciated it.

[Q] Playboy: In No Way to Treat a Lady, you played four parts---a priest, a plumber, a homosexual hairdresser and a female prostitute---and you were on screen almost continuously throughout the film. Was that tour de force a vehicle for your versatility or simply a display of ego?

[A] Steiger: It was a dream come true. What actor wouldn't want to take a whack at something like that? So many people don't understand the difference between ego and desire. "Ego" has become a dirty word. People say, "My God, has he got an ego." Well, he goddamn well better have an ego in this society------and a healthy one, because without faith in himself, he's going to be kicked and battered and screwed every step of the way. In any art form, a man's got to think secretly that he's better than anybody else------certainly in the movie business, because it's such a rat-race. But anybody who takes his talent for granted is on the way out; he's going to die. It's like a guy who boasts he's the best lay in town. Maybe to one girl he is, but not for the whole town. There's always somebody ready and able to knock him off.

[Q] Playboy: How did you feel about dressing up as a woman in No Way to Treat a Lady?

[A] Steiger: That was just part of the job to me. I was worried that it might not come off. I knew there would be bad jokes about my playing a homosexual and wearing women's clothes, but that's only testimony to the kind of adolescent stupidity that sill lingers in this country. Christ, it wasn't so long ago that a man was in trouble if he wore cologne. In my old neighborhood in New Jersey, I used to come home from playing tennis and one of my friends might say, "What are you, a fag or something? I don't know why so many American males are worried about that, especially since they all shared the homosexual experiences of boys playing together. Everyone went through that stage, and most of us grew out of it. Those who didn't have a mental problem, a sickness that must be helped. I don't know why everybody pretends it never happened in their lives. Such hypocrisy.

[A] They even lie about things like masturbation. Like everybody else, when I was a kid, I used to have a great time reading pseudopornographic pulp magazines like Spicy Detective with a flashlight under the blankets. The hero was always "advancing on her alabaster globes." Remember that? One night, the blanket was ripped off and there was my stepfather. He asked, "What are you doing?" And I said, rather stupidly, "Reading." There I was with an erection, playing with myself. It sounds very funny now, but that was a moment of absolute terror. He didn't say another world, but the next day he called me in and gave me a lecture about how masturbation can damage the brain. Something instinctively told me he was lying and to forget it, because I'm sure his father caught him under the blanket once, too. Watch yourself, Linus!

[Q] Playboy: Your catalog of deviant roles also includes Stanley Hoff, the motion-picture-studio head you played in The Big Knife. Why did you portray him as a homosexual, when there was little indication in the script to support that interpretation?

[A] Steiger: In my analysis of the character, he was a latent homosexual and a masochist, with a hatred for women. In the first couple of speeches, he talks about hating his wife and the money he's wasted on her; that's what tipped me off. In one scene, he turns to a girl and, looking right at her, says, "Why does a woman have to be here?" "When I did the line, I was thinking, "If there's anything I can't stand, it's the smell of an old garbage can that hasn't been washed out." While I was originally thinking about how to play Hoff, I walked through a department store. Sometimes, that's very good exercise for your imagination, if you're stuck for an interpretation. I walked around the store, thinking to myself: "How does an umbrella relate of Hoff? Does he like flowers? What does he think about women's underwear, men's raincoats?" Sounds like a crazy game but you'd be surprised. All of a sudden, you're thinking in areas you haven't touched on before.

[Q] Playboy: You certainly touched on something unique as Mr. Joyboy in The Loved One, which Time called the epitome of you obvious fascination with the deviate character.

[A] Steiger: First of all, I resent that crack. I am fascinated with people------not deviates. All of us are deviates in one way or another. Who dares define the norm? Mr. Joyboy was delightful because it was an exercise in acting for me. Before I went to talk to Tony richardson about it, I passed a statue of Apollo in white plaster and I got the idea of wearing the bleached hair and curls. I saw him as a chubby Apollo.

[Q] Playboy: Do blondes really have more fun?

[A] Steiger: I didn't. I've changed the color of my hair so many times that it's ruined now. Dyeing it burns my scalp. I don't know how women who get touched up every ten days can stand it. But aside from the hair and the effeminacy. I came completely equipped for that part. I was already so chubby that I didn't have to gain any weight to play Mr. Joyboy. But even my normal girth wasn't enough for Norman Jewison and Sidney Poitier in Heat of the Night. Norman kept saying, "I'd like to see your stomach over that belt." That's all I had to hear. I gladly sacrificed myself to art. If I had only two pieces of pecan pie, they went mad. So I gorged myself.

[Q] Playboy: Before your Oscar for In the Heat of the Night, you had been nominated for your performance in The Pawnbroker and failed to win. Considering what you put into the role, was that a major disappointment to you?

[A] Steiger: No, because I didn't really expect to win, anyway. I was very surprised that an independent film like that, made in New York, was even nominated. But even so, nobody likes to lose; I can't say I was happy about it. My wife and I went back to our hotel, trying to commiserate with each other. I think I wound up telling her not to feel so bad. Not surprisingly, my mood was some-what different after I won the Award for In the Heat of the Night. The morningafter the Oscar presentation, I got a cape and a big hat like The Shadow might wear, a blue coverall suit and white cotton gloves. The Shadow has got to be one of my all-time heroes. When I was in the Navy during World War Two, standing the boring night watch on the U.S.S. Taussig, I used to get on the intercom and do a running show for the crew. "Hello, this is The Shadow speaking. Tonight we will tell you the story of. ..." I customarily improvised some filthy story, with the hero slowly being squeezed to death by 37 naked women. One night, I came on for my moment of glory, with my usual opening line, "Hello, this is The Shadow speaking," A split second later, the captain's voice came from the bridge and said: "And this is The Phantom. Shut the fuck up." Needless to say, I went off the air promptly and permanently. I could take a hint. I thought about that as I was being driven through the Warner Bros. stage doors onto the set of The Illustrated Man, horn blowing full blast. I stepped out with that outlandish outfit on and king of gave a Queen of England salute to the crowd. I told them, "Rise, my loyal subjects. But don't touch the royal garment."

[Q] Playboy: When you accepted your Oscar, you made an impassioned plea for racial brotherhood, reminding the audience that "We shall overcome." Had you prepared those remarks beforehand?

[A] Steiger: I hadn't planned to win, so I hadn't planned to speak. What I said wasn't original, but it was how I felt. I said it because I felt the thought should be articulated. It was also my way of thanking Sidney Poitier, who's been a friend of mine for a dozen years. But until Heat of the Night, we weren't in a position of power; neither one of us was able to put anything together. This picture changed all that for both of us.

[Q] Playboy: Poitier, of course, is one of many actors, black and white, actively involved in the civil rights movement. Are you?

[A] Steiger: I'll give financial support, but I have my own work to do. If I devoted as much time to that cause as it deserves, I'd have to become a politician and stop acting. But I do think I say significant things about the situation in my acting. In the Heat of the Night was not the greatest social drama ever done, nor did it let me fully explain my feelings about racial prejudice, but it must have affected people subconsciously to see a white man and a black man get along like that.

[Q] Playboy: What would you have said if you had been given a chance to explain those feelings in detail?

[A] Steiger: I would have said that I don't believe men are born equal. That's a misconception of democracy. But I believe every man must have the equal right to prove himself superior or, unfortunately, inferior. I don't give two shits for the white man or the black man or the yellow man; but I'm pretty goddamn interested in what we call mankind. For all his stupidity, greed and fear, the white man is going to get his ass kicked for a while; I only hope that these extremist groups, white and black, don't unconsciously become fascist cliques and delude the people into thinking that they're fighting for democracy, because they're not. They're fighting for power. Nor do I believe you can fight white prejudice with black prejudice. Prejudice in any form is evil. You can't say, "All white men are shits because I suffered as a black man," any more than a white can say, "All black men are shits because I've suffered as a white---or because of their color."

[Q] Playboy: Since In the Heat of the Night and your appeal for brotherhood on Oscar night, have you been asked to involve yourself more actively in the racial cause?

[A] Steiger: After I won the Academy Award, I started getting floods of letters from groups begging me to make personal appearances in behalf of their cause, political or otherwise. But I'm not about to start lending my support to groups who are interested only in exploiting big names for fund-raising. I have neither the time nor the desire to be used that way. If a cause really interests me, I'll support it, but I'm not going to be a shill for every charity or political group that comes along. As a matter of fact, I never got involved in politics at all until the last election, when I felt I had no choice but to stand up. When a man like Wallace can find support, when a man like Nixon can even be nominated again, you've got to speak out. But knowing many people in the public eye who keep appearing at demonstrations and rallies, always with the flashbulbs popping, I often wonder what they're really there for---publicity or principle. There are certain celebrities who are always in the forefront of these marches, and I wonder if they march for the cause or for the feeling of belonging to something---anything. I would hate to have anybody think that of me. Furthermore, it's possible that my appearance would antagonize more than benefit, in certain instances. We're living in a time of rage---justifiable rage. How can we expect the black man to be patient when he's been tortured and lied to for hundreds of years?

[Q] Playboy: Many black leaders are advocating violence rather than patience. How much influence do you think these militant spokesmen really have?

[A] Steiger: At this point, it's very difficult to say, but a lot of people are listening to them and I think it would be dangerous to underestimate their importance. The power of the spoken word was crystallized for me personally a couple of years ago, when I was asked to appear at a Hanukkah Festival in Madison Square Garden. I stepped out on the stage and there were 18,000 people all around me. The New York Philharmonic Orchestra played the background as I began my reading. I got more and more excited with each passing minute. Finally, I literally screamed at the audience, "And then on this earth God put a new land, a new place, for a new people, called Israel!" The moment I pronounced that last word, 18,000 people got up on their feet and shouted back at me---"Israel!" It was then that I first felt the surge of power and understood how anyone who spoke with a certain amount of force and credibility could create mayhem. The audience's behavior at that moment was no different from any totalitarian group that might have stood up and screamed, "Heil Hitler!"

[A] They asked me to do the Hanukkah Festival a year later. This time, I remembered that moment, and I wanted to see if I could create the same response and get the same feeling of absolute leadership, like the imperial Caesar. I got to another phrase that was something like the one I had spoken a year before and I let loose, deliberately milking it for all it was worth. I got the identical response from 18,000 different people; or at least half of them must have been new. They leaped to their feet and shouted back at me. Then I started to play with them. I began to whisper. You could hear them respond, like a wave. Then I spoke a little bit louder. I could feel the power mount as I heard them getting more and more excited. Then I deliberately stopped dead. I was sick with this power thing. I realized that I was becoming like an Adolf Hitler.

[A] At the same time, I could also comprehend the impact of a Churchill. A man like that, we desperately need today. I once heard a story that explains his charisma. Churchill had given his famous speech, "We shall fight on the beaches ... we shall fight in the fields and in the streets ... but we shall nevah surrender," and the applause was still ringing in his ears. As he sat down, he whispered to a friend sitting next to him: "Fight them with what? Beer bottles?" That's one of the classic examples of what leadership really means. He knew he had to tell his people something to boost their morale, but in his heart he knew he had nothing to fight with except his determination to keep them alive.

[Q] Playboy: Is there anyone in this country who could offer that kind of leadership?

[A] Steiger: Not that I can see. The thing that alarms me is that so many of the men who possess great leadership have been assassinated---a situation reminiscent of the Roman Empire, when the Caesars were knocked off, one after another. Regardless of one's personal feelings about them, the Kennedy brothers and Martin Luther King could lead people. If one thinks of a nation like a family, the fact that Daddy's not coming home again hurts even more. We now sit here as if in an incredible kindergarten with no teacher. What a tragic prospect for our youth. Almost certainly, this accounts for much of the disenchantment in our society.

[Q] Playboy: Do you think, as many do, that disenchantment is responsible for the increase in violent student demonstrations?

[A] Steiger: It's certainly a factor; but unfortunately, there are some kids who think the authority in the country has gotten so weak that it's become a game---"How far can I go before they bust me?" I wonder how many of them get into trouble not really protesting but just showing off. Misbehavior has become a fad. The majority of these young people, though, are sincerely committed to the ideals of the movement, and I'm with them all the way. I'm in favor of any sincere demonstration in the name of freedom.

[Q] Playboy: How do you feel about those who object to the draft and refuse to fight in Vietnam?

[A] Steiger: If a guy's doing it because he really doesn't believe in war or in hurting another human being, I'm all for it. But I believe the draft resisters could more emphatically make their antiwar point if the law allowed them to volunteer their service to help relieve pain.

[Q] Playboy: It's clear that you're in sympathy with certain aspects of the youth revolt. Do you think the young relate to you as well as you do to them?

[A] Steiger: I don't know, but I'm told that I'm one of the few "older" people that the younger generation has accepted. They like my work, and I want to continue to do movies for people who are looking for new beliefs, movies for people who have said to their parents, "Sorry, folks, but I think you blew it and I don't want to go your way." They're going with people who are (continued on page 161)Playboy Interview(continued from page 74) trying to be more real than male mannequins or actors in a tooth-paste commercial. Young people are now awakening older people to the fact that there's beauty in everybody. They're looking more deeply into things. The youth of this country is quite rightly saying, "This is a one-time trip and I don't want to wear these masks anymore." They place a tremendous amount of importance on free and natural expression. They've taught me, for example, that there's no reason why you can't have fun with your clothes and hair. I wear my hair combed forward because it makes me look like I've got more of it, and it kind of goes with the beads and the medallions I sometimes wear. They're probably a pathetic attempt at youth, to be part of what's happening, but at least I'm trying to keep up.

[Q] Playboy: Just what do you think is happening?

[A] Steiger: This is one of the most exciting times to be living in, and one of the most promising. Before every new era, there has to be a catalytic period of chaos and struggle. These kids reflect the nation's disenchantment with the old answers and the old ways. The hypocrisy has been exposed. A man teaches his child to be honest. Says his boss is a schmuck and then his child walks in and there's the boss sitting there at the dinner table, with the father falling all over him, running to get drinks. Older people have sacrificed themselves for creature comforts. The top societies of the world have everything, yet they're surrounded by misery. The kids are discovering that Daddy and Mommy and government and religion don't have the integrity they were taught to believe in. Organized religion is a disease, and governments aren't really functioning. They are both despicable because they promise things they never deliver.

[Q] Playboy: Why do you consider organized religion a disease?

[A] Steiger: Because it peddles myths that thwart man's natural impulses. It's a holdover from medieval days and has nothing to do with practical society today. A lot of the big religions have become power games, just like governments, while overlooking all the discoveries of modern psychiatry and the advancements of science. Man has accomplished far more miracles than the God he invented. What a tragedy it is to invent a God and then suffer to keep Him king. If people want to believe in God, that's fine. But I have a religion called humanism. That's all a religion is: some principle you believe in. I just can't condone anything that demeans the human being. I can't believe that a baby, still wet from the womb, can be a sinner. Any philosophy predicated on fear and guilt is unconscionable---is evil.

[A] I wrote a short story once in which the ribbon of news unfurling in lights on the New York Times building flashed, God Will Return Easter Sunday Morning. And, Jesus Christ, you couldn't get near Times Square. All of a sudden, sitting on top of the Times building, without a thunderbolt or anything, was a gigantic whale. Not even a white whale; it was a black whale. And everybody shouted, "Get off the building! God's coming!" And the whale said, "I'm here." And they said, "Blasphemer! Get off!" And he said, "I'm telling you I'm here. This is me." They got out the artillery and tried to shoot him off. He got angry and retaliated by blowing up Times Square. A God arrived that the public didn't envision. It wasn't a projection of man's own image, so they didn't accept it. Call God what you like, call it hope, call it love, but there can be no such thing as a deity with the conscience or the mentality of man.

[Q] Playboy: Have you always felt this way about religion?

[A] Steiger: Are you kidding? I was raised a Lutheran and was president of my confirmation class. I used to sleep with the Bible under my pillow. Then I woke up one morning and it suddenly dawned on me. I walked into the kitchen and threw the Bible into the garbage can. I thought my mother would drop dead. She didn't say anything except, "What's the matter?" I said, "I just don't believe it anymore." At 14, I gave it up. Ironically, I returned home to Newark after the War and got on a bus; sitting next to me was my former pastor. I hadn't seen him for five years. He said, in all seriousness, "I was thinking about you. How would you like to take over my church?" To take over anything appeals to anybody's ego. My whole life could have changed. But I told him I couldn't do that, because I'd probably stand up in the pulpit, look down at the pretty girl in the front pew and wonder what kind of lover she'd be. He said, "That's why I want you to take it over." I finally said, "Sorry, I just don't believe in it anymore." Seventeen blocks later, I got off the bus and said, "I'll see you." We could have made one of the great movies out of that---man gets on bus, pastor says, "Take over the church," and the Second Coming of Christ is born on the number 30 to Bloomfield, right?

[Q] Playboy: What was your reaction to Pope Paul's birth-control encyclical?

[A] Steiger: I thought it was idiotic, and the opposition to it within the Church proves I'm right. This man, whom I assume to be intelligent, did more damage to his organization than he ever dreamed. It's like Russia going into Czechoslovakia. It's the same sort of stupid blunder. There go my Catholic fans throughout the world.

[Q] Playboy: Perhaps not. You recently played the part of Pope John in And There Came a Man. During your days in television, you played a wide assortment of biographical roles---adaptations of the lives of Andrei Vishinsky, Rudolf Hess, Dutch Schultz and Charles Steinmetz, among others. What fascinates you so about reliving the lives of other men?

[A] Steiger: I've always liked to read about real people. It dawned on me that acting could satisfy my Walter Mitty fantasies by allowing me to live the lives of the people I read about. That's probably one of the reasons I can make a living as an actor. If I don't like what's going on around me, I can escape into a different world. Now, all of a sudden, Napoleon has come into my life. I've collected a lot of research on him. There was an article on Napoleon in the American Medical Association's Journal three or four years ago. They sent me a copy of it: theories on his death and a medical report containing information from his autopsy. It's wild. His corpse was bloated and they cut him up on a billiard table. He died of stomach cancer and other complications. These facts and other readings convince me that he was dead on his feet for the last six years of his life. Only his fantastic determination, will power and discipline kept him going. This medical report corroborates my conception of the character. I had this idea of playing a sick Napoleon and now I know I was right. By the way, I think I'm going to be the first Napoleon who never puts his hand inside his coat. It probably would be appropriate if I played him with his hand in his fly.

[Q] Playboy: Why?

[A] Steiger: Through my research, I discovered that during the Moscow campaign, his urinary tract was blocked half the time. Aside from leading an army, how do you ride a horse like that? I read numerous descriptions of the Battle of Waterloo, and he must have been in miserable pain the night before. Obviously, the tension aggravated his stomach. He had a terminal cancer and couldn't have been thinking too clearly. One reason he lost that battle was that he didn't attack as he usually did. At the light of dawn---pow!---he should have had them. But he was so sick I don't think he knew what he was doing. That would account for his sudden indecision. When you play a great man like that, a figure larger than life, you must find a way to humanize him; otherwise, the audience can't identify with him. But humanity is a difficult thing to capture on film. I've met people twice as large, twice as crippled, twice as hurt as any I've ever seen on the screen or a stage. Of course, judging from some of the reviews of The Sergeant, a lot of moviegoers don't want to be confronted with reality.

[Q] Playboy: Why?

[A] Steiger: I knew from the beginning that the personal problems and perspective of each critic would influence his analysis of the film---particularly his conditioning and response to homosexuality. Some with rigid, puritanical backgrounds were likely to say, "My God, why does Hollywood do things like that? That's not what movies are supposed to be about!" I expected it to get mixed reviews all the way down the line, and it did. We're not the modern society we claim to be, not by a long shot. You discover that when you get 20 miles outside of New York, San Francisco or Chicago and start a conversation dealing with homosexuality or other so-called taboos. Anyway, the morning after I read the first reviews was a morning of adjustment. Even if you expect the worst, it's difficult to laugh off reviews that bad---not about my performance but about the theme. First I was hurt and later I got furious. This happens with any bad notice. First I absorb it. Although I may be partially stunned by it, it just sinks in and I don't show any reaction. The third day is the dangerous one. All of a sudden, I find myself reacting badly to people, withdrawing or getting into unnecessary arguments. I have that kind of delayed reaction to things like reviews.

[Q] Playboy: Why is an actor of your stature so concerned about reviews?

[A] Steiger: Because it's my name up there in lights. It represents me. There's nothing egotistical about wanting people to like my work and to respect it. I want them to want to see it. I want them to know that I work hard. And I especially despise critics who write things too personally. One critic, describing a performance of Spencer Tracy's that he didn't particularly like, called him "the aging, paunchy Mr. Tracy." Now, that crosses the line.

[Q] Playboy: We agree, but even if a critic doesn't get personal, is an actor really the best judge of his own performance?

[A] Steiger: I think actors have a right to say, "Wait a minute, why didn't you like that?" The critic's word has become the second Ten Commandments. People have got to think a little bit for themselves and not believe everything they read in the newspapers and magazines. I get so uptight about all of this because I think acting is not only an art but a way of life as well. I could puke when I read about some broad screwing some dictator's son on his yacht and telling the press, "I'm an actress." The public's inevitable reaction to that is, "Those actors and actresses---what a bunch of degenerates." Well, they're not. Maybe there's only ten really good actors in the world, but Jesus, I'd fight for those ten.

[Q] Playboy: Who are some of the actors you admire?

[A] Steiger: Start the list with Olivier, Scofield, Finney and Courtenay. These are people who have a spark, poets at heart who have a gift and a perspective, who are pained by their own weaknesses, as well as the weaknesses of those around them. They have the courage to conceive their roles on a level far beyond the usual expectations. They take chances in their acting. They work for a living. These people must be respected and understood for what they are---artists who use their bodies, brains and guts to remind people of the miracle of being alive. They all have the individual desire to contribute according to their beliefs and feelings and insist on doing it that way. They don't compromise. I'm sure these gentlemen I've mentioned have been flat on their asses at times and done some pictures they didn't really want to do. But by and large, they have the strength to survive and do their own thing.

[Q] Playboy: You've mentioned only British actors. Are there any Americans on your most-admired list?

[A] Steiger: Some of the best American actors are deceased. We've lost Tracy, Montgomery Clift and Paul Muni, to name a few. We lost Jimmy Dean, who I think was a tremendous talent, if not a polished technician. Then there's Brando. After Clift brought a new naturalism to acting, Brando really revolutionized the world's acting styles.

[Q] Playboy: We've heard that you and Brando don't get along very well.

[A] Steiger: Well, we're not particularly fond of each other. He walked out during a scene with me in On the Waterfront and I thought that was unethical. But that's a thing of the past and I should be a bigger man and forget it.

[Q] Playboy: You were living in New York when On the Waterfront was filmed there in 1954, and you moved back a few years ago, after spending the interim in Hollywood. How do you feel about giving up your beach house at Malibu?

[A] Steiger: I lost a portion of my solitude. I had spent many nights there alone, finding out about myself. When I was living there before I was married, I once tried to write some poetry and got carried away with creativity. There was a full moon that night and I wanted to look farther out to sea. I wound up sitting on the roof with no clothes on. It was wonderful. I could feel the air and the night and the sea around me. There I was, Malibu's Rimbaud. It was crazy, but it made me feel very free. The sight of the full moon hypnotized me. I guess I was fighting off the impulse to become a werewolf.

[A] I did another idiotic thing like that once during a great storm. I must have thought I was Beethoven or somebody. The waves were crashing around and I decided to challenge the ocean by swimming out to this raft. I started to swim and, boy, it seemed like I wasn't going to make it. As I lay on the raft gasping, all sorts of victorious feelings ran through me: "I'm God; He isn't!" When I looked back and saw the light from my living room in the distance, it suddenly dawned on me. "Jackass, you've got to swim back." The bloody raft was bobbing at 45-degree angles. I waited there for two hours, trying to find the courage. I barely made it in. I lay on the beach for about ten minutes before I could get up. It was a stupid thing to do---but fantastically exhilarating. I had challenged nature and I'd won. But once was enough. I could just hear the ocean saying, "OK, one time, son, because you'd like to think you're poetic and you'd like to think you can challenge nature. This time you can go. But the next time you're not going to make it."

[Q] Playboy: Wouldn't you be happier to remain in one place---such as Malibu---than to commute around the world?

[A] Steiger: Undoubtedly, but the agony of moving constantly seems to be the pattern of my life. I came from a rootless background to a rootless profession. I usually manage only three or four months in any one place. If you stay anywhere too long, you get too comfortable, you see too much of the same people and get too many false compliments. I guess an artist is always restless, always meant to be prodded and made to move on.

[Q] Playboy: Does living in Manhattan present any major problems?

[A] Steiger: Not really; but I often wonder how people can live in a place where there's constant noise, constant rush, constant dirt. One perfect example was when I started to fool around in the kitchen, using recipes from the Larousse Gastronomique. I imagined I could be another Alfred Lunt, a great actor-chef-gourmet. My triumph was a pumpkin pie that stood about four inches high. I put it out onto the window sill to cool---and it got covered with soot. What a blow! To get away from the rat-race, I've recently been sketching plans for a little house on Sardinia, an island that probably won't become overcommercialized for a while yet. It's good for another 10 to 12 years. People seem to be going farther and farther to find the remnants of nature without the shadow of man's greed. New York is little more than the world's biggest cash register. London's charm has gradually begun to wear off, because it's been mechanized and Madison Avenue-ized and suffocated by greed. The same goes for Rome and Paris; and Milan is one of the coldest cities I've ever been in. It's the Chicago of Italy; nothing but business. So you keep looking elsewhere.

[Q] Playboy: Do you think it's likely that you'll ever escape that greed?

[A] Steiger: I doubt it. Commercialism touches everything. For instance, somebody asked me last year if I wanted to publish the little poems I write as a form of therapy. I said, "OK, if you'll publish under a pseudonym." That brings them to a screeching halt. It's like when somebody says, "Would you like to make a record?" They're trying to capitalize on my luck in the acting field. If I really thought that people would buy my poetry because of any talent in that form, then fine; but not just because I got an Academy Award and someone thinks that he can make some quick money. So far, the only Steiger poetry recitations are those dating back to my youth, when I taped some of my poetry to play for my lady of the moment. Reading poetry to a lovely lady has never done anybody any harm.

[Q] Playboy: Since you don't read or publish your poems, what do you do with them?

[A] Steiger: I have an aged and crumbling leather-bound scrapbook that was given to me by a girlfriend many, many years ago. In it are most of the silly little poems I've written, dating back to 1945. Every once in a while, I go through them and I either scare myself to death or get depressed. I've never thrown them away, because I think it's a marvelous way to kind of look back on your life.

[Q] Playboy: Aside from your own, whose poetry do you enjoy most?

[A] Steiger: E. E. Cummings was a towering poetic talent, and as an actor I desperately want to do the life of Dylan Thomas. He had a spirit that I admire very much and a tragic life that any actor would love to play. Above all, he was a great poet, which is what I probably would like to be. If I want to find out about somebody, I often say, "Do you like Dylan Thomas' Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night?" "Do you know E. E. Cummings' poetry?" or "Ever read The Little Prince?" I can judge how far our friendship is going to go by their response. I've never met anybody who liked The Little Prince who turned out to be a shit.

[Q] Playboy: What impresses you about it?

[A] Steiger: Its faith in the goodness of people. "When you pick a flower, doesn't it cry?" Childish things like that get to me, maybe because I'm sentimental. The other day, I picked up six paperback copies of The Little Prince. Then if I met somebody I thought might dig it, I gave it to him. What the hell, it's better than a cigar, isn't it? It would be wonderful if people walked around giving away their favorite book. Unfortunately, that sort of altruism has gone out of style.

[A] Something else that's almost disappeared in big-city life, which may be another sign of the times, is really inspired humor. Remember how you used to hear a regular joke of the month? Nowadays, people don't have time to joke with one another. When time becomes such a precious commodity that you can't afford to amuse each other, that's sad. Practical jokers are virtually extinct, and that's another loss. One of the greatest put-ons I've ever heard concerns a movie director who was in a hospital where the nurses were nuns. A group of practical jokers hired a prostitute to dress as a nun and when nobody was looking, she slipped into the fellow's room and said, "I've come to change your bed sheets." The director was in casts---totally bedridden. He could hardly move. As the hooker began to change his sheets, she occasionally stroked his thigh---accidentally, of course. What could he say? She was a nun! Then she started stroking him a little more vigorously, got more and more involved, and the next thing you know, she was going down on this guy. When she got through with him, she calmly finished making the bed and walked out like nothing happened. He went insane. He called his friends and said, "You won't believe this, but a nun just came in and. ..." They kept him on the hook for a while before letting him have the zinger.

[Q] Playboy: Do you consider yourself a practical joker?

[A] Steiger: Every once in a while, I get my jollies that way. One time, I organized and catered a surprise party for myself at the Malibu beach house. I arrived wearing golf shoes and a golf hat, carrying a set of clubs. I don't even play golf. "Oh, gee whiz, is this for me?" I exclaimed. Nobody ever knew. They took Polaroid pictures of me standing there with the golf clubs, looking stunned. I also used to scare people by playing dead. But I stopped that childishness when it ceased being a joke any more.

[Q] Playboy: Your psychiatrist might say that it was a subconscious attempt to neutralize your fear of death.

[A] Steiger: I don't know if it's a fear. I expect to be kicking around until I'm 80 or so. If my brain stays young, I'd like to live indefinitely. If I get stagnant in the head, I'd just as soon kick off---but not lingeringly. I don't want to know when it's coming. Like, bang! It's over. The thing that bothers me most about death is that you don't move anymore. I remember looking at my mother after she died. It frightened me that she looked like she could move but didn't. That made me mad at her. My stepfather died about two months after she did, and I've been aware of death ever since. I think of "dust to dust" and all that crap. I wonder if we begin to hate the dead for bringing the awareness of death into our lives.

[A] Years ago, during a radio interview, a guy asked me, "When would you like to die?" I said, "When I bring more pain to the people around me than I do love." That was something I had written in one of my notebooks. Then he said, "Well, what do you want as your epitaph?" I said, "See you later."

[Q] Playboy: Your epitaph hints at a belief in life after death. How do you feel about reincarnation?

[A] Steiger: I'd like to come back as a beautiful woman. I would probably be known around the world as "Spread Legs" Sally Steiger. I don't know if I really believe in reincarnation or not, but I must say, it's a nice thought. At times, I could swear to God that I've been here before.

[Q] Playboy: Are you ever concerned about dying before you're able to accomplish everything you want to?

[A] Steiger: When I'm fatigued and unhappy, I may welcome the idea of this sudden finality; but other times, I pray that it won't come for 500 years. Until recently, I didn't think I had that much to say or do. Then a publisher read some stuff I had written and listened to an interview of mine. He made an offer: Would I write a book? It didn't have to be on acting---just a book. Well, I was pleased and flattered. Then I thought, "What have I got to say in a book?" It's a lot of crap to relate the story of my childhood. What a bore, for Christ's sakes! A broken home and alcoholism? Bravo! Other people have dealt with much worse. But it does appeal to my ego when somebody makes a suggestion like that. I see myself as a great author, the Norman Mailer of the cinema world. At the same time, the thought of writing my memoirs makes me feel old, like the thought of a Steiger Film Festival. The idea of people seeing my films in retrospect makes me recall the well-known capsule show-business biography:

"Did you ever see a kid named Rod Steiger?"

"You should see this kid Rod Steiger."

"Let's go see Rod Steiger."

"Let's use Rod Steiger."

"Can we get a Rod Steiger?"

"Can we get a Rod Steiger type?"

"Can we get a young Rod Steiger?"

"Hey, whatever happened to Rod Steiger?" That's the whole business in a nutshell.

[Q] Playboy: Which of those stages are you at right now?

[A] Steiger: Right now, it's "Can we get Rod Steiger?" Jesus, I hope they don't want a young Rod Steiger yet. I always resented that kind of comparison. Who is a younger anybody? You can't be someone else. I certainly never tried to imitate anyone. My big problem has been that I look like everybody's father, because of my size and my weight. Stanley Hoff in The Big Knife was supposed to be in his 50s. I was 30 when I played him. Nazerman, the pawnbroker, was in his early 60s. Many actors who are a little older than I am look 15 years younger. I'm occasionally jealous of fellows like Paul Newman. Like Newman, incidentally, I hope to direct films someday.

[Q] Playboy: What motivates extremely successful actors such as Newman and yourself to risk failure as a director?

[A] Steiger: The challenge of being responsible for everything, or maybe some romantic and egotistical desire to be a "leader." I've got three scripts that I've worked on for years. I could direct them and act in them simultaneously. I may lack the guts to commit myself as a director yet; but I've got to make a move soon, because something's been bothering me lately. I feel like I want more out of life, perhaps because I'm in my mid-40s now and I've been brainwashed with this terrible age consciousness we have in America. I wake up in the morning and think, "I'm 44. How many hairs did I lose last night? When will I lose my teeth?" I'm sounding like I'm 94 and I'm thinking that acting is such a transitory art that you can't really leave a mark. Perhaps I'd better put something down on paper, so people in the future will know that I lived once. I'd be happy to leave one good poem that people could quote. Instead, I find myself in an essentially childish occupation. Now that I know I can act, what else is new? Success to me is like yesterday's paper. It's hot for the moment, but then everyone looks forward to the next edition. I don't believe success sustains itself. It requires constant labor. You have a big moment in acting and it's like an orgasm. It comes and it goes---continual arrival. And departure.

[Q] Playboy: Isn't there any satisfaction in knowing that your big moments as an actor are preserved on film?

[A] Steiger: Some, of course. But after a film is completed, it belongs to the audience, not to the actor. Just think of what the word "actor" really means. It implies movement, emotion---life. For me, for any real actor, the excitement comes from the struggle to create new realities. Once that challenge is met in a performance, I have to look for new challenges. I've got to keep testing myself, proving my ability, finding new selves.

[Q] Playboy: Why?

[A] Steiger: I guess because I want to be remembered. They're not going to cart me off to the old-folks' home before I leave something behind---some proof that I ever existed, that I was unique, that I mattered, that I made a contribution. I won't be made the butt of that old actor's nightmare in which the guy turns on his TV set to watch The Late, Late Show, opens a can of beer and says, "Hey, Madge, isn't that what's-his-name?"