Shortly after graduating from college, I began to obsess about a movie that I must have watched on cable about 500 times growing up. The title of that movie is Super Fuzz, and for a while it seemed like it was something that I had dreamt up when I was stricken with a bad case of chicken pox. None of my friends had ever heard of it, and no video store in Southwestern Michigan had it for rental. But it had to be real, right? After all, I could still hum the theme nearly two decades later. Scouring the Internet, I managed to track down a videocassette of Super Fuzz, and — oddly enough — it was every bit as fun as I remembered it to be. Childhood favorites can often be slightly embarrassing upon later reflection, and while no one could ever mistake Super Fuzz for high art, the goofball comedy still possessed a charm that, for me at least, proved impossible to resist. Sure it’s nothing more than a low-budget, lowbrow cop comedy shot on the cheap in Florida, but something about the catchy theme and unabashed corniness of it all, not to mention the sight of a frazzled Ernest Borgnine floating on an over-sized chewing-gum bubble during the awesomely ridiculous climax, just clicked with me. It was my first real movie memory, and to this day the mere sight of Borgnine still takes me right back to my childhood living room.

In high school, my Myths and Legends teacher showed The Poseidon Adventure in class under the guise that it was related to our studies since the name “Poseidon” was in the title. There was Borgnine once again, only this time in a slightly more serious capacity. Over time I developed a sort of soft fascination with the man, and taking in such classics as The Dirty Dozen, Willard, The Black Hole, and Escape from New York, I realized that his range was much greater than Psychotronic Video Guide author Michael Weldon had given him credit for in the indispensable movie tome’s capsule review of Super Fuzz (”Ernest Borgnine looks surprised a lot”). When the time came to interview Borgnine, he was less than a week away from his 92nd birthday. Not only did he have an incredible body of work to his name, but he had also led a fascinating and eventful life. His colorful book Ernie: The Autobiography is a genuinely fun read, and now that I had the chance to speak with him, I wanted to talk about some of the memories he had shared in the book. The interview was set to take place the day after Barack Obama’s historic inauguration as President of the United States, and after kicking around the prospect of asking the man who had seen so much in his lifetime just what he thought about the future of our country, I decided to stick to movies.

Little did I realize that Ernest had the same thing on his mind, and after a friendly call to keep things casual (“You call me Ernie, and I call you Jason”) he launched right in with…

Ernie: What did you think of all those doings yesterday over in Washington?

Me: We all gathered around the big screen here at work. Everyone was really excited. How about yourself?

Ernie: I only hope that people don’t think it’s just going to be a magic button getting pressed, you know? That he’s going to fix everything up in one fell swoop.

Me: Absolutely.

Ernie: I don’t want to people to get disappointed because after all he’s no super-human, he’s just an ordinary being who’s gonna try his best. And that’s what we need.

Me: That’s what we’re all hoping for.

Ernie: So, how are ya?

Me: I’m doing well today, how are you?

Ernie: Well a couple of more days and I’ll be 92 years old!

Me: I heard about that – you’ve got a birthday coming up this weekend! Happy Birthday!

Ernie: Thank you, sir.

Me: If you don’t mind, I’d like to talk about one of my favorite movie memories from when I was a little kid. It’s something you called “Yesterday’s soup warmed over, and not very good soup at that” in your autobiography.

Ernie: (Laughs)

Me: Do you know what movie I’m talking about?

Ernie: What picture is that?

Me: That’s Super Fuzz!

Ernie: (Loud laughter) Those crazy Italians, huh?

Me: Absolutely! This was one of my favorite movies.

Ernie: We had an awful lot of fun with it, but it was so hot in Miami we had to shoot at night! It was humid. Terrible! You couldn’t walk three steps without being soaked. You know, by all the humidity they had. So we had to shoot at night when it was comparatively comfortable. But I’ll tell you, that director was worse than any actor I’ve seen!

Me: Oh no! Not Sergio Corbucci!

Ernie: Yeah! The nicest guy you’d ever wanna meet. He was a sweetheart, but he’d come in whenever he wanted to, you know? We’d shoot and then that was it! (Laughs)

Me: How about Terrence Hill?

Ernie: Wonderful guy, the Italian with the American name. What was his name?

Me: aka Mario Girotti.

Ernie: That’s the one. He went by Terrence Hill in the United States, and I understand he’s still living up in Massachusetts somewhere.

Me: Still working hard, seems like he’d be a fun guy to work with.

Ernie: God bless him! He was a lot of fun to work with, though we didn’t say very much, ya know? Because he didn’t understand very much! But I was able to discuss things with him a little bit because I understand Italian pretty good. That’s one of those crazy things where every now and then some kid comes along and says, “Ya know something, the greatest picture you ever made was Super Fuzz!”

Me: I grew up on that movie and I still love it. One of your films I had a chance to see recently was Emperor of the North. You talk a little about that one in your book.

Ernie: Oh yeah!

Me: Great movie, but you say in your book that audiences didn’t seem to catch on at the time. Why do you think that is?

Ernie: I think it was because they were a little thrown off by the title. The actual title was “Emperor of the North Pole.” That’s the title that they give to the hobos that are traveling on the trains. Every year they meet, and they elect what they call “The Emperor of the North Pole,” which is King of Nothing, you know? And that’s the way it was supposed to come off. Well people didn’t understand the title, but when they saw the picture, boy there was a real difference. They’d say, “My goodness, this is a great piece of work!”

Me: It still holds up, definitely.

Ernie: Without a doubt. Bob Aldrich – just the most perfect guy you’d ever meet in your life – was the director. Of course we had done other things together, like The Dirty Dozen and Flight of the Phoenix - it was just a wonderful thing, to work with him. I’ll never forget, I had just finished The Poseidon Adventure on a Friday night, and I was told to report to Portland, Oregon on Monday morning, meet up with Bob Aldrich, and make that picture. So I went up there to Portland – I just had to pack like crazy and get up there! – and basically it was “Hi Ernie, how are ya?” I said, “Fine, sir.” He said, “Have you ever worked on a train before?” I said, “No, sir.” He said, “Well that one all the way back there is the caboose, and this one up front is the engine. You’ll be running back and forth, from the engine to the caboose, and that’s what you’re gonna be doing.” I said, “Yes, sir.” He says, “Go ahead and get dressed.” And as I started off he says “Oh, I remembered one thing: When you’re running on top of the train, you never look down.” I said “Like hell I won’t!”

Me: That’s a good way to lose your balance!

Ernie: I was like Jack Elam; I had one eye on the train and one eye on the ground!

Me: From a sinking ship to a speeding train!

Ernie: I almost had a bad accident when I was running down the line at the end of it and knocking them off. We were doing the scene, and they had a camera car on the road. Somehow or another, the camera car had stopped. So I leaned over between the two cars, and I’m hanging on the ladder. Someone leaned over and the doggone line caught up underneath the wheel and BOOM – I went down. I’m telling you, if it hadn’t been for that ladder, I’d have caught it real good and sure because that would’ve pulled me right down. I must’ve turned seventeen shades of green! (Laughs heartily)

Me: One of the other stories from your book that I thought was really fascinating is about how Ernest Hemmingway wanted you for The Old Man and the Sea.

Ernie: How ’bout that?

Me: That’s quite a compliment.

Ernie: I was playing golf with James Bacon, the Hollywood columnist, and this fella came across the gold club and said “Mr. Borgnine!” I said “Yeah.” He said, here’s a message. Jim and I looked at the message and it said “Standby, you’re going to relieve Spencer Tracy in ‘The Old Man and the Sea.’” I said they’ve gotta be kidding! They’re crazy! I can’t do that! I could have I suppose – I’m saying I couldn’t – but could you imagine relieving Spencer Tracy?

Me: Uh, no.

Ernie: (Laughs) When he came back, I had beaten him for the Academy Award. So I went up to knock on his door at 20th Century Fox. He looked at me and said “Hey, how are ya? I sent you a message and you never answered me!” And Katie Hepburn stuck her head out and said “Well he won the damn thing, what the hell does he got to answer to you for!” That was great. Such marvelous people in those days, just beautiful.

Me: One of my favorite filmmakers is John Carpenter…

Ernie: He’s a good old boy. I only had the opportunity to work for him once. I didn’t want to do that part to begin with, the part of the taxi cab driver.

Me: You say in your book that you could have done the role in your sleep.

Ernie: It’s like falling off a log, ya know? I said, “I’d like to try my hand at that warden role.” He said, “No, Lee Van Cleef has already got the warden job.” So I said, “OK, I’ll do it for ya.” So we did it, then comes the time when we go to see the picture at the Screen Actor’s Guild and the place was full because everybody loved John Carpenter. Well not a word was said all the way through, until that crack-up (when the cab crashes on the bridge – ed), and everybody went “Awwwwwwww.”

Me: Everybody loved cabbie.

Ernie: They couldn’t believe it. It was the only expression of feeling that they had though the whole picture – and it was a good picture, I thought!

Me: Oh yeah, Escape from New York is a blast! One of your lesser-known movies that I got to see recently was Ernest Borgnine on the Bus. Do you still have the bus?

Ernie: Oh no, no no. I sold it to a friend of mine. After I hit 89 I said, “That’s enough. I don’t want to get caught in betwixt and between and I thought it best to leave it at that,” you know? I’ve almost got a good mind to take one of those little RVs, but that big bus was about forty feet – it’s a corker, ya know? I used to drive it myself, every single mile of the way. I took it to Alaska and back; I took it everywhere! I saw just about everything there was to see, then I sold it to this buddy of mine. He patched it up and it’s still running good!

Me: It felt like you were a little bit ahead of the reality TV trend.

Ernie: Jeff (Krulik, director of Ernest on the Bus - ed) said, “Do you mind very much if I do a show on it.” I said, “Aw, come on. What do I want to get started on a show like that for? But once we did it, it was a lot of fun and we talked to an awful lot of people. For a while it was fun, but just for that one time! After that, things fell apart and it never did go any further. People still write to me and say how much they loved it.

Me: It’s a lot of fun to watch, and it seemed like it would’ve been fun to make. You talk a lot on your book about lessons learned in one place being applied elsewhere, and you also talk a lot about your military career. Do you feel like your military career helped you in your acting career, and how?

Ernie: I got to know people. I was in England one time and someone said, “Mr. Borgnine, where do you pick up your characters? I said, “Go over and sit on a park bench, you’ll see them all pass by. This is what I learned in the Navy. I took my character of “Fatso” Judson, and shaped him after a real fella I had known – Claude Andrew Babcock. He was a corker, that boy. When the cigar was low, you’re fine. When the cigar was up, you better watch out!

And with that, our interview was over. Having just read Ernie: The Autobiography, however, I know that the story of Claude Andrew Babcock doesn’t end there; Ernie once had an encounter with Babcock when the cigar was up — way up — and the outcome was nothing less than scorching. But who am I to give away the ending to one of Ernie’s best stories? In order to learn Babcock’s unique methods of motivating his fellow sailors, just head out to your local bookstore, buy a copy of Ernie: The Autobiography, and flip to page 34 — it’s well worth the money and the effort.

While you’re there, why not make your purchase complete by strolling over to the DVD section and picking up a copy of Super Fuzz?

Happy 92nd birthday, Ernie, and thanks for giving us some of our favorite movie memories.