Harvey Keitel

dedication

To my brother and sister, Richard and Julie

contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Introduction

Prologue

Harvey Keitel: The Art of Darkness

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Harvey Keitel Filmography

Index

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Other Books By

About the Publisher

introduction

Harvey Keitel is a tough interview. Ask anyone who’s tried it. It’s not that he won’t talk to you. It’s just that, for the most part, he will only talk about what he wants to talk about, no matter what you ask him.

The first time I met him, in October 1994, he started by telling me why he didn’t want to discuss the character he played in the film he was there to promote because ‘I’d like your readers to see the film with their own hearts, to see it without my influence.’

Neither did he want to discuss his work methods or his personal life. Nor would he talk about the taboos on male frontal nudity in films – ‘I wouldn’t know because I’ve never done a nude scene.’ All evidence to the contrary.

Instead, he wanted to discuss how he had discovered the joys of reading as a young man in the Marines, when, out of boredom, he picked up a book of Greek mythology and transformed his life. And to complain that ‘we’ve lost the art of story-telling for the most part. We’ve lost the art of sitting around the table and sharing stories about life. We’ve lost the art of the caveman who painted on walls to express his own fears and desires.’

Most of all, he wanted to discuss the journey inward, the journey to self-knowledge that drives him onward as an actor and as a man. It was the kind of discussion that could have sounded pretentious; well, actually, it did sound pretentious. But Keitel also made it sound heartfelt:

I still struggle at times not to escape from the inward journey. I can never weigh for you how hard that is, the temptation away from doing what is right. The problem is we give short shrift too often to the devil in us. We shun it instead of making its voice divine and accepting our goodness. The problem is in accepting the dark side. People don’t understand that they can accept it – but they don’t have to act on it. There are ways of expressing the dark side without hurting anyone. It can take a lifetime to learn – but it doesn’t have to.

Harvey Keitel’s journey to self-knowledge and his career as an actor have both been bumpy, sometimes frustrating trips, that eventually led to creative breakthroughs and newfound success in the 1990s.

He came to acting late – in his mid twenties – and was already in his thirties when he had his first burst of fame in Mean Streets. But subsequently he couldn’t find parts worthy of his talents, playing colorful but small character roles before suffering a kind of career meltdown in the late 1970s that lasted, more or less, through the 1980s. Then, in 1991 and 1992, Keitel was reborn as the risk-taking king of the American (and, indeed, the international) independent film scene.

When I started this book, I assumed I understood Keitel’s career, having followed it since he emerged in Mean Streets in 1973, the same year I left college and started working professionally as an entertainment writer and critic (after several years of practicing in college). Acting, as it turned out, was an escape from a life so unsatisfying that Keitel had sought refuge in work as a court stenographer, where he could sit without speaking or being spoken to for days at a time. Yet that proved to be the opposite of what he wanted and needed: the ability to explore, understand and express the riot of emotions roiling within him.

To chronicle Keitel’s career required watching close to sixty of his films. Though I’d seen most of them when they originally came out, I doubt that even Harvey has seen all of them; many of the lesser outings – the ones he made in the deep, dark eighties with directors no one will ever hear of – are impossible to find on video in the States.

Watching as many as I did, however, was a revelation and an education. The young Keitel of Mean Streets or Blue Collar was so energized, his potential practically oozing out of his ears, yet with an edge of desperation – he was, after all, almost thirty-five when Mean Streets came out. He was playing characters so feverishly caught up in their own lives that he seemed to give off sparks – he created friction and electricity just by walking through life.

Compare that with the older, sadder, more confident Keitel of Reservoir Dogs or Smoke: here are characters who have lived long enough to know which lines they will and won’t cross – and what each of them costs. That smooth, slightly wolflike face has gained wrinkles and lines, making its planes and valleys a landscape of unexpressed emotion. And his always forceful physique has, if anything, become even more solid and formidable.

I’ve gained what is probably a permanent appreciation for Keitel the actor and the way he has grown and achieved mastery of his craft over the last twenty-plus years. To my mind, there is no one else working today who has the same courage and daring as an actor, the same restless urge to explore uncharted territory of the human soul. No matter how unworthy of his talents a movie might be (and his taste certainly isn’t flawless), you can trust him to bring everything he has to whatever role he’s playing.

To get a better idea about Keitel’s career, I talked to as many of his friends and colleagues as I could, some of whom I can thank by name, some of whom I can’t. But I would like to acknowledge, in no particular order:

Ulu Grosbard, Mike Kusley, Yaphet Kotto, Howard Bershod, Paul Lynch, Gina Richer, John Badham, Anthony Harvey, Chuck Patterson, Stockard Channing, John Sayles, Mike Moder, David Dukes, Michael Dinner, James Gammon, Joel Tuber, Arvin Brown, Tom Reilly, Ian Bryce, John Fiedler, Steve Rotter, Peter Medak, John Pierson, David Proval, Matthew Carlisle, Harry Ufland, Ron Silver, Steve Brenner, Joel Schumacher, Peter Scarlet, Stuart Cotton, Arthur Brook, Giancarlo Esposito, Marc Urman, Ann Wedgworth, Ernie Martin, James Toback, Allen Garfield, Martin Sheen, Ellen Burstyn, Bertrand Tavernier, Tom Davis, David Sosna, Zina Bethune, Jack Mathews, Roger Ebert, Bruce Williamson, Joe Queenan, Harlan Jacobson, Peter Travers, Janet Maslin, Amelia Kassel, Marlin Hopkins, Cynthia Kirk, Andy Shearer, Jeremy Walker, Marian Koltai-Levine, Susan Kaplan, Jennifer Bretton, Marian Billings, Elizabeth Pettit, Scott Siegel, the San Francisco International Film Festival, The Charlie Rose Show, the New York Public Library, the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center, the White Plains Library, and video stores too numerous to mention.

I also want to thank Alan Rudolph, who didn’t ask whether the book was authorized until midway through the interview, and then kept talking provided I mentioned the circumstances.

My gratitude to Dr Emily Stein, my favorite expert.

A big ‘thanks for listening’ to my colleagues Ross Priel, Georgette Gouveia, Barbara Nachman, Mary Dolan, Elaine Gross, Bill Varner and Ed Tagliaferri.

An added thank you to my friends Larry Sutin and Joey Morris, who provided counsel, humor and the occasional advice to ‘Stop whining.’

Finally, all my love and gratitude to my wife, Kim, and my sons, Jacob and Caleb, for giving me their considerable support and understanding while I was writing this book.

‘Sometimes a person has to go a very long distance out of his way to come back a short distance correctly.’

Edward Albee, The Zoo Story

prologue

Step off the Number 4 subway at the Eastern Parkway stop in Brooklyn, climb the stairs out of the station and hang a quick left. Suddenly you’ve escaped out of the crush of New York and into Eden: the Brooklyn Botanic Garden.

On this particular Sunday, a week before Father’s Day 1996, the garden is suffering from the greenhouse effect as a gaggle of people elbow each other in heat and humidity that have both hit eighty-five, trying to stake out their little piece of paradise on the garden’s Celebrity Path. Though the weather is sticky as overcooked rice, many of them are dolled up: suits and dresses and pantyhose – the whole Sunday-best rigmarole. They are milling with a certain impatience.

Yes, they’ve already spotted actor Fyvush Finkel among the assembled notables. The sight of jazz legend Max Roach, resplendent in a black suit and shirt and red tie, sends a shudder of recognition through the few African-Americans in the largely white crowd. Everyone perks up a little at the appearance of Daniel Benzali, late of TV’s Murder One, bald head reflecting his blindingly white double-breasted summer suit (worn with white sneakers). But he’s not the one they’re here to see.

Then the crowd parts and Harvey Keitel joins the procession, his ten-year-old daughter Stella in tow. His hair longish and dark, shot through with gray, his face deeply tanned, he looks fit and natty in charcoal and black, his sportcoat and open-neck shirt complemented by sandals and a small gray suede bag with a knit strap.

The power surge through the crowd is almost noticeable. Harvey Keitel is here – the movie star. The Brooklyn movie star.

Suddenly this unmotivated throng has a purpose. Now they’re ready: ‘Welcome Back to Brooklyn’ day can begin.

A few determined members of the public have wormed their way into this invitation-only ceremony, at which Keitel, Roach, Benzali and two others are being inducted into the Celebrity Path in the Botanic Garden. The Celebrity Path, an idyllic trail through shady pines near a lake, consists of flagstones bearing the carved names of prominent Brooklynites.

The press has been invited and has responded with a slightly pushy band of photographers and cameramen, battling for position around the edges of the crowd as the official procession begins up the narrow pathway. Led by a pompous fellow in a bad straw hat and what looks like a shepherd’s crook, the caterpillar-like procession of honorees, their families, the press, and civilians who have slipped past the lax security works its way up the path.

It inches its way along, in part because Mary Tyler Moore, who is being crowned Queen of Brooklyn for the day, is on crutches. But there’s also the matter of stopping at each flagstone for an annual ceremonial reading of the names.

‘Walt Whitman!’ the man with the shepherd’s staff calls out, before taking two baby steps to the next stone. ‘The Ritz Brothers!’ he announces, leaving one to ponder the range of vision possessed by the selection committee.

Holding hands with his daughter, a slim and pretty girl with her father’s piercing eyes (in gimlet), Keitel moves with the crowd, trying not to be bothered by all the cameras, the photographers now snapping pictures of his little girl, the cameras constantly clicking at him. His shirt and pants are black, soaking up heat like solar panels; the only cooling effect comes from the sockless sandals he’s affected for this walk in the park with a few hundred onlookers pressing closely in on him.

Then, with a final flourish – ‘Floyd Patterson!’ – the procession stops at Keitel’s new marker.

‘Harvey Keitel – one of our inductees,’ the man with the shepherd’s crook enunciates and Keitel steps forward. He looks down at his name chiseled in capital letters in the smooth piece of paving.

After a moment of cameras clicking it becomes obvious that he is expected to say something.

‘I’m honored to be included in this walkway,’ he says, not quite meeting the eyes of the circle closing in around him, ‘and I thank you for having me here today.’

There is a smattering of applause and then it’s time to move on to the next stone – ‘Gil Hodges!’ – as Keitel and Stella fade back into the crowd.

As the procession gathers around the stone of another inductee – early sixties New York radio legend ‘Cousin Brucie’ Morrow – Keitel stops at a marker and stoops down. The stone is that of Harry Houdini, whom Keitel is getting ready to play in a film for Paramount, Illumination. He has already begun doing copious homework, sometimes phoning his researcher at midnight with new ideas he’d like to look into. All in preparation for a portrayal of the great escape artist and mama’s boy who spent half his life debunking mediums and spiritualists – and the other half seeking a way to contact his mother in the next world.

He touches the stone, then kisses his hand and offers it with a smile to Stella, for her kiss as well. One stone further and he stops again: ‘Look – Edward Everett Horton!’ he says to his daughter with genuine glee. ‘The Mad Hatter in Alice in Wonderland!’

The procession ahead of them comes to a conclusion, stranding the crowd on a narrow path on a peninsula in the lake. Everyone must now turn around to return to a small amphitheater overlooking the water.

There, Keitel finds himself perched on a folding chair on the edge of the improvised stage, tapping his foot, waiting for the event to begin. Max Roach comes and sits next to him, and Cousin Brucie, his hairpiece looking distinctly younger than anyone on the stage, sits down next to him.

Cousin Brucie leans over to Keitel and Roach and says, ‘Isn’t it strange to think that that stone will be here after we’re gone?’ as though he had only this second discovered his own mortality.

If anything, for Keitel, the stone symbolized more about how far he had come since he was the kid who’d managed to make himself unwanted at two Brooklyn high schools, the kid whose greatest aspiration was his own stick at the poolroom, the kid who, out of simple macho boredom, quit high school altogether at seventeen and joined the Marines to escape from Brighton Beach.

To be here in Brooklyn was an honor he couldn’t ignore. Still, the photographers are beginning to get on his nerves. Sitting on the folding chair in the cramped amphitheater, he can feel the lenses pointing at him as Stella crawls into his lap and, at age ten, begins sucking her thumb.

Keitel scans the crowd. He spots his older brother, Gerry, and several old friends, who’ve come to keep him company, to celebrate, and to see their friend and brother receive recognition from the borough where he grew up.

Stella leans against him, her thumb still in her mouth, watching with bored eyes as Daniel Benzali gets up to receive the medal signifying his placement in the Celebrity Path from Borough President Howard Golden. Her free hand pinches her father’s ear between thumb and forefinger, as Keitel affects a look of comic pain.

Then Golden begins talking about Keitel and mentions Smoke – the Wayne Wang film in which Keitel plays Auggie Wren, the owner of a Brooklyn smoke shop. The film has been adopted as an official Brooklyn film when, in fact, it is Blue in the Face, Smoke’s rowdier, less self-satisfied companion film, that repeatedly announces its love for all things Brooklyn. Be that as it may, Smoke is the film Keitel is associated with on this day of accolades – because it’s about Brooklyn and because it’s more socially acceptable than, say, Bad Lieutenant or Reservoir Dogs.

‘… Our next honoree, Harvey Keitel.’

Keitel gets up and Golden shakes his hand. There’s the grip-and-grin moment for the cameras, which snap and whir furiously – the two men shaking hands while Golden holds the medal up between them. Then, as he starts to give it to Keitel, the hand-over is muffed and the bronze medal falls to the flagstones with a clang.

‘Ooooh,’ says the assembled group, but Keitel saves the moment, picking up the medal and holding it aloft to show it’s unharmed. Then he kisses it and offers it to God.

‘Remember that?’ he says of the gesture. He smiles broadly. ‘I think of the words of that Sinatra song: “The house that I lived in, the people I knew.” The guy in the poolroom was named Charlie. I remember Mr Levy, the tailor. And my friends, Howie Weinberg and Carl Platt – we joined the Marines together.

‘All those people I grew up with, my buddies, my brother. We carved our names in cement all over Brooklyn, notched it in trees and poolrooms. I’m pleased to be here. Thank you.’

Even as Golden is introducing Max Roach, Keitel is spirited away to the fragrance garden by one of the event’s press flacks for a stand-up interview with New York’s Fox-TV affiliate. As he stands uncomfortably next to a smiling blonde, mouthing the necessary niceties (‘I’ve always loved Brooklyn’), his group of friends have detached themselves from the crowd still watching the induction ceremonies and stand together: Platt, Weinberg, Gerald Keitel, Keitel’s long-time buddy Victor Argo (who appears in many of Keitel’s films), the women attached to each.

When Keitel finishes his TV interview, he and his friends wander back up the hill to the induction ceremony. As Keitel looks through a batch of pictures of one of his friends’ children, an autograph-seeker approaches, obviously prepared for this moment. He offers a color print of Keitel from Reservoir Dogs in a manila folder and Keitel signs it.

‘Can I take a picture with you?’ the fan says and, as Keitel says, ‘Well …’ the thin, T-shirted young man jumps next to Keitel, throws an arm around his shoulder and smiles for a friend, who takes a flash picture.

The flash functions as a signal to the half-dozen or so other fans lurking in the fringe of the crowd near Keitel and his friends. Emboldened, they approach him in twos and threes, asking for an autograph and a picture. He obliges, once, twice – then finally frowns and says to the next request, ‘Look, I think that’s enough of that.’ The frown hits the kid like a bolt and the edge in Keitel’s voice is unmistakable. Time to back off.

Yet, moments later, two aging women, husky and begowned, interrupt his attention to the ceremony for an autograph. Without even asking, one stands next to him while he’s signing and the other quickly snaps a picture. Keitel can’t believe the chutzpah, but all he can do is smile, shrug and look up at the heavens, as if to say, ‘Isn’t anybody listening to me?’

He pointedly turns back to his friends and begins to discuss plans for later. The combination of the heat and the crowd has made everyone edgy; they’d just as soon cut out now and escape from this whole scene to someone’s house where they can kick back and talk about old times.

But obligations must be met. There’s still the coronation ceremony for Mary Tyler Moore as Queen of Brooklyn before several hundred people in the rose garden. Keitel and his new colleagues from the Celebrity Path will be introduced and then spend the rest of the ceremony sitting on a platform under an unseasonably intense sun. The applause for Keitel will be the loudest of the day, louder even than for Queen MTM.

‘I still have to do this other thing – then we can leave,’ Keitel says, taking Stella’s hand as the crowd begins to drift toward the staging area for the rose garden coronation.

Then he weighs the chunky medal in his hand, looks at its image of the Brooklyn Bridge, hears his parents saying to him, ‘Harvey, be a mensch.’ He realizes how ungracious what he’s said might appear and smiles sheepishly. ‘I didn’t mean that like it sounded.’

1

How do you explain a nice Jewish boy from Brighton Beach, scion of an Orthodox Jewish family, quitting high school – turning his back on education – to join the Marines? It simply wasn’t done. As one long-time friend observed, ‘What kind of Jew goes into the Marines? And likes it!’

One seeking to rebel against and distance himself from a background he found oppressive and limiting. One who could see that his current form of rebellion – hanging out in the poolroom with his friends – was a dead end. But one who wound up substituting one rigid system of behavior (that of the United States Marine Corps) for another (Orthodox Judaism).

Keitel’s parents had escaped the rising tide of anti-Semitism in Europe, emigrating to New York where they settled in the Brighton Beach section of Brooklyn. His father, who was from Poland, worked as a hatmaker and a garment worker, meager wages on which to raise a growing family. His mother, who had come from Romania, supplemented the family income by working at a luncheonette.

When Harvey was born on May 13, 1939, he was the youngest of three children, with an older brother and sister. The family all lived in a small apartment in Brighton Beach on Avenue X and Brighton Beach Avenue.