20 Questions: George Hamilton

With his new movie, "Zorro, the Gay Blade," about to be released, George Hamilton met with free-lancer John Calendo at the Polo Lounge in the Beverly Hills Hotel. The actor was dressed in a Western-style suit--"the kind of thing you'd wear in Texas," said Calendo, "if you had money."

1.

[Q] Playboy: You came from a family with lots of money, right?

[A] Hamilton: No, I came from a family that went through lots of money.

2.

[Q] Playboy: Then how did you survive in movies before your hit Love at First Bite?

[A] Hamilton: I went after roles, worked on picture after picture, did TV game shows to pay the electric bills. See, Hollywood is prone to everything from fad diets to fad movie stars. The life of a major star is generally two to three years, then it levels off for ten or it goes. I did not want to be a short flash. I came to Hollywood in the Fifties, when they wanted to re-create the matinee idols. I'd go down to wardrobe at MGM, take Cary Grant's suits apart, study Fred Astaire's clothes on dress dummies, and I saw that all the actors who had survived had gotten rid of their negatives and played up their positives. Cary Grant had a short neck and round shoulders, so he picked up his collars and added extra-thick padding to his shoulders. Clark Gable's wife taught him how to really see himself in a mirror--you look into a mirror by looking into a second mirror.

So if you were willing to learn, Hollywood could provide commando training in survival. If you wanted to be a long-distance runner, you wore lighter shoes, ate a certain diet and went for stretches of being called a lightweight Cary Grant impersonator. And yet when the dust settled, there wasn't anyone else around to do Cary Grant. Love at First Bite grossed over $45,000,000 and I cleared $2,000,000.

3.

[Q] Playboy: You've made recent killings in real estate, reselling mansions at 100 percent profit. Do you have a philosophy for success?

[A] Hamilton: Yes. All businesses are the same; you must sell yourself. But you can't do it outright. You sell yourself by selling something else. The man who says, "This is the greatest thing in the world; I made it" is not believed because he made it; he's biased. But you'll listen to the man who says, "I work for a company; this company makes a product; I came to work for this company because this product is the best and I wouldn't be involved with anything less." My father always said, find out the other person's dream and then feed it back to him. Therein lies success. Right off, it gives you a genuine interest in the other person.

4.

[Q] Playboy: Your tan is your signature. Do you mind that it has been spoofed in Doonesbury----

[A] Hamilton: "The George Hamilton Cocoa Butter Open." I love it. It's the ultimate compliment.

5.

[Q] Playboy: What are the secrets of stalking the perfect tan?

[A] Hamilton: I'm one of the few people who go to an airport and say, Where's the sun? They say, "Where would you like to go?" I say, That's not important; how is it in Acapulco? "Eighty-two and overcast." How is it in Tangier? "Variable weather, patchy clouds." How about Brownsville, Texas? "Eighty-four and clear." That's it. I go to Brownsville and sit on the beach. I have stipulations in my contracts; if I'm on location and it's raining, I get weekend air fare to Casablanca or the Canary Islands, where-ever the sun is.

6.

[Q] Playboy: Do you have an over-all tan?

[A] Hamilton: No. I believe in tan lines. I like to see how I'm doing.

7.

[Q] Playboy: How many hours do you spend tanning?

[A] Hamilton: I must put in a 20-hour week. At least.

8.

[Q] Playboy: Do you use a special lotion?

[A] Hamilton: My favorite is Aloe vera; it softens the skin. Carmex is incredible for the lips. P.A.B.A. is the best thing for sun filtering. Believe me, I've tried everything on the market. There was this pill back in 1959, Oxsoralen. It was used by the white guy who infiltrated the ghetto as a black and wrote Black Like Me. The pill was terrible and probably killed you, but I loved it. I got sooo dark. I don't like to wear make-up in films, and with a suntan, I don't have to. I have a wonderful opportunity to reflect my face. Beyond that, I'm Leo, ruled by the sun. Solar energy restores my batteries.

9.

[Q] Playboy: Don't you worry about skin cancer?

[A] Hamilton: I'm extremely careful about that. I go to the best guy in the world, in New York. He looks my skin over and says, "What's this little scaly thing?" It might be an artinic keratosis, which can turn into a carcinoma--skin cancer. Whatever it is, the scaly thing goes off immediately, rather than watch it over time. Also, I have dark hair, dark eyes; lighter pigments are more susceptible. The bottom line is I love the sun. It probably does age the skin and I wouldn't use a sun lamp, but I've gone 40 years, must have been in the sun every other day since I was 16. For me, it's therapy. It gets me higher than any drug.

10.

[Q] Playboy: Do you do drugs?

[A] Hamilton: I don't need them. But I'm not a hypocrite; I've been around. I was of the amphetamine generation. The studio gave you amphetamines if you were tired and had to work. I've sat with Lenny Bruce when he shot up--and laughed because he was the funniest man I've ever known. But heroin killed him. I've smoked grass and found myself delaying tomorrow and eating up the icebox. Drugs are just not my style. I take 120 vitamins a day and go to every youth doctor there is; I don't want to jerk around with my body for a 15-minute high. Besides, there's nothing worse than some coked-up party person coming right up to your face and telling you his plans for the future. They go on like parakeets on Benzedrine. It gives them a small sense of "God, isn't it great!" And all during the party, there's this conga line to the bathroom. You hear sniffling behind the door, like everybody's crying. And nobody's at the party anymore. Hollywood should build large bathrooms and forget about living rooms.

11.

[Q] Playboy: Are your looks ever an obstacle for women?

[A] Hamilton: Yes. I often have to make twice the effort. A woman doesn't want to feel she's one of many. So I have to make her know it's she I want to make love to, she I want to take to dinner. But I've come (continued on page 252)George Hamilton(continued from page 163) to the point where I tell them I don't have time to waste on a stormy relationship. You can't do what I do and go home to a depressed woman. I will not even date a depressed woman. I want to have fun; I want to he happy. Usually, the girl I'm interested in is special or on the verge of being special. I have this Professor Higgins thing. I like to bring out their potential.

12.

[Q] Playboy: As you did with Lynda Bird Johnson. After you orchestrated her Hollywood make-over, Women's Wear Daily wrote, "George Hamilton may never go to Vietnam, but he's done his part for his country."

[A] Hamilton: I've tried to contribute to everyone I've been involved with. I've given and gotten in return.

13.

[Q] Playboy: In many ways, you are the epitome of the Playboy man, in that you possess the great masculine graces. Do you have any tips on being a bachelor with style?

[A] Hamilton: Well, the hard thing is to be married with style. Being single is a breeze. Nowadays, you can have a head-on collision on Sunset Boulevard and end up going home with the girl you hit. The biggest problem facing men is being too laid back. Men now are shunning money, sex, responsibility. They're laying back and saying, I'd like to have children, but I don't want to say they're mine, or I'll admit it, but I don't want to marry the girl. Meanwhile, women are saying, Someone has to make a decision, so it better be me. If I'm not going to find Mr. Right on Friday night, I better go to the office on Monday morning and make a life there. This, to me, is a terrible shift. Since cave days, men have been the protectors, and I'm a throwback to male chauvinism. If I go out with a woman, I open the door. Here are my tips to young men. I don't see a woman unless I'm taking her to dinner, I ask her what she wants and then I order it for her. I don't like a woman saying, "Well, let's eat at Nick's tonight, and then dancing afterward...." I'll say, "You want to see this car make a U turn? This car makes beautiful U turns. I've made reservations somewhere else. If you invited me to dinner in your home, would I bring a steak and say I didn't want your chicken? Would I tell you I want to eat on the terrace instead of the patio?" If that makes me a chauvinist pig, OK.

14.

[Q] Playboy: How about getting divorced with style? When your wife Alana divorced you and took up with Rod Stewart, you handled the situation with charm and friendly remarks. How did you manage that?

[A] Hamilton: You have to spend a lot of nights alone with yourself when a relationship ends and you realize no man ever takes a woman away from another man. The relationship was over before that man arrived. It's absurd to love someone and then hate her. It shows your lack of judgment and taste. Now, my ex-wife Alana is the kind of person who could stand on a street corner and there'd be a party in 15 minutes. If she drives your car, there's an accident. She's a catalyst. She could take people to Delores' Drive-in on skates and everybody would think he lived that night. But before I met her, she was negative. If it rained, it rained only on her, as though she were God's personal guinea pig and He had opened His laboratory of tricks on her. I told her she could have anything she wanted. She just had to decide what it was, take a deep breath and, without stepping on anyone, go out and get it. I see something in a woman, not so much what she is but what she could be, and I try to bring that out. Now, when other men discover it, it doesn't make me unhappy. I knew it all along.

15.

[Q] Playboy: What is the worst thing that can happen to a man?

[A] Hamilton: Hearing someone committed suicide over you or ended up a drunk.

16.

[Q] Playboy: Is it true that you get your blood "cleaned." or was that hype for the Dracula film?

[A] Hamilton: It's true. You get an antitoxin shot and it cleans out all the impurities, like an oil filter in a car. The big problem of life is not a major organ failing. It's the stress put on the other organs when it fails. People would live longer if the ailing organ were detected early and supported by the right diet, blood cleansing--whatever means available. Diet has so much to do with it. I follow Pritikin's method: no fats, high carbohydrates and lots of jogging. The worst drug today is not smack or pot; it's refined sugar. Sugar kills.

17.

[Q] Playboy: How many cars and homes do you own?

[A] Hamilton: Cars? I'm down to almost nothing. Sold the Porsche Turbo Carrera and the Rolls Corniche yesterday--I like to keep my assets liquid; I'll sell anything on any day. So I have a station wagon and a truck in Mississippi, a jeep in Aspen--that's about it. Homes? Let's see, I have six in Mississippi and two plantations and I sold a few mansions in Beverly Hills. I don't think California real estate is a safe investment anymore. Too many foreign investors who want a secure political situation. If these speculators decide to dump, the market will be glutted. I'm going to sit it out in Mississippi. Gone with the Wind plantations are still standing there, because after the Civil War, no one had the money to modernize them. Their value can only increase.

18.

[Q] Playboy: Do you ever dress down? Do you ever wear, say, ripped jeans?

[A] Hamilton: In Aspen, I lived ripped, in jeans.

19.

[Q] Playboy: How many suits do you own?

[A] Hamilton: Enough to fill the Polo Lounge. Hundreds. I make a deal with the studios; I keep the suits. I get doubles, triples. Sometimes I rent them back for pictures. I've kept everything from the day I started, Sixties stuff. And I've had guys who wanted to buy it, too; they say they've never seen such a "period" wardrobe.

20.

[Q] Playboy: Do you have a philosophy of dressing?

[A] Hamilton: Yes. Everyone looks better in black tie.

"It's absurd to love someone and then hate her. It shows your lack of judgment and taste."