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STERLING HAYDEN HAD NOT MADE A FILM SINCE TEN DAYS TO TULARA in 1958. Things were about to change significantly.
Hayden first worked with director Stanley Kubrick in 1956, starring in The Killing. This was Kubrick’s first full-length feature film shot with a professional cast and crew.1 Kubrick wanted to have Hayden star in the movie, and Hayden was impressed with the young director. He pulled some strings for Kubrick, helping him to obtain financing for the film project and agreed to take a lesser salary to enable Kubrick to make the film.2 The Killing received good reviews from the critics upon its release and today is considered a film noir classic. Kubrick rose to Hollywood prominence with his next two films, Paths of Glory and Spartacus. These films cemented his reputation as filmdom’s most creative young genius, despite the mediocre performance of his subsequent film, Lolita. For his next film project, he envisioned Sterling Hayden appearing in one of the key roles.
Kubrick had read author Peter George’s 1958 Cold War thriller Red Alert and began work to bring it to the screen. Shortly after beginning work on the screenplay, he got the idea to turn the story into a dark, satirical vision of the Cold War—in essence, a black comedy. After hiring Terry Southern to assist him in writing the screenplay, Kubrick obtained the necessary financing and began the casting process. Peter Sellers was the choice to star in the proposed film, now titled Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. Sellers would play three roles in the film: The president of the United States, a Royal Air Force group captain, and the title role of the ex-Nazi scientist, Dr. Strangelove.
The second key role was played by dramatic actor George C. Scott. Portraying Gen. Buck Turgidson, Scott delivered an uncharacteristically hilarious and manic performance that the critics highly praised.
The other key role was that of Gen. Jack D. Ripper, a US Air Force brigadier general and commanding officer of a Strategic Air Command base. Ripper, insanely obsessed with the notion that the Soviet Union was attempting to conquer the West by fluorinating the water supply, orders several B-52 bombers to drop nuclear bombs on the Russians. For this role, Kubrick convinced Hayden to return to the screen for the first time in nearly six years. Filming in England during the latter half of 1963, Hayden delivered a performance that redefined him as a stellar character actor and became the first of several superb post-Wanderer performances that he would deliver. Critics applauded him for his cigar-chomping portrayal of the lunatic general.
The scene where he lectures Peter Sellers (as RAF group captain Mandrake) on the communist plot to “sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids,” and to cause “loss of essence,” remains hilarious to watch to this day. It is difficult to believe that Hayden still, at that time, remained very uncomfortable in front of the camera. His many years away from the camera no doubt contributed to his discomfort. It all came to a head during the filming of this particular scene with Sellers.
Although the number of takes would vary somewhat depending on whenever Hayden would relate the story, he had an extremely difficult time with the filming of that specific scene. It required thirty-seven takes to get the scene done properly. “That story has become a constant in my repertoire. But it’s also unassailable. Because what turned out to be Jack D. Ripper’s performance, particularly in that long scene with Peter Sellers off-camera, was an actor fighting to survive. And I just got worse and worse and worse, which is what inspired Stanley Kubrick to say that beautiful thing to me: ‘The terror in your eyes may be the quality that one wants in Ripper.’ But I would suggest to you that few things on this earth are as pathetic as an actor out of control, which I was.”3
Dr. Strangelove was released in January 1964 to largely positive reviews. Prominent New York Times film critic Bosley Crowther wrote: “It is all right to show the general who starts this wild foray as a communist-hating madman, convinced that a ‘Red conspiracy’ is fluorinating our water to pollute our precious body fluids. That is pointed satire, and Sterling Hayden plays the role with just a right blend of wackiness and meanness to give the character significance.”4
Dr. Strangelove proved to be a sort of renaissance for Hayden, who seemed to have re-created himself as character actor. As he approached the age of fifty, the years of smoking and alcohol abuse had already taken a toll on his matinee idol looks. Still handsome, he now was a more grizzled version of his former self who looked somewhat older that his actual age. During the coming years, he would find a most unusual treatment for both his uneasiness in front of the camera, as well as his alcoholism.
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In 1965, Sterling and Kitty Hayden were traveling to across the country aboard the Burlington Zephyr when the train made its scheduled stop in Chicago. As they waited, a vice president of the Burlington Railroad came aboard, looking for another railroad executive. Unable to find him, he recognized Hayden and shortly thereafter the men were enjoying drinks together. Hayden mentioned that he would like to buy a caboose to restore and use as an office. The VP responded that it would be possible to buy a business car, as the railroad would occasionally sell off some of its properties. Since he was broke at the time, Hayden declined to make an offer.
About three weeks later, Hayden received a package from the railroad. It contained several photographs of a 1890s Pullman car that was currently unused in a railway roundhouse in Galesburg, Illinois. It was luxuriously built, featuring mahogany paneling inside, brass beds, and a galley. It was for sale and the railroad was asking $2,000 for it. Hayden couldn’t resist; he immediately purchased the car.
Attached to a mile-and-a-quarter-long railroad train, Hayden and his friends Billy Pearson and Louis Vogler rode the car back from Galesburg to Oakland, California, the three of them drinking the entire time. From there the car was transported to Sausalito. For the next several years, Hayden would be using it as his office where he worked on his newest writing project: a novel.
The Hayden family had moved back east in 1965, renting a house in Redding, Connecticut, on the advice of Kitty’s sister. Once again, Sterling was unhappy with it and roughly six months later, he uprooted the family and they moved back to the San Francisco area. Kitty bought them a house in the Pacific Heights section of the city. This, too, did not please her husband as he felt it was too high-scale for his tastes. By then, he was drinking heavily and spending most of his days writing in his railroad car.
Less than two years before his death, Hayden reflected on his railroad car. In a diary entry dated November 9, 1984, he wrote: “And it’s coming back to me, just how it felt. 16 years & 7 months ago. That magical afternoon … in this old private railroad car: Burlington Northern No. 93. Built in Burlington Yards-1890. For some forgotten wheel (A vice Pres. Or a Division superintendent). Oh the magic of that car! A schooner of the rails. Iron lined rail.”5
In 1968, he gave his beloved railroad car to his daughter Gretchen but soon after it was confiscated by the Internal Revenue Service to pay off her father’s federal tax debt.