I knew that I could make it, I knew the sky would clear
The boulevard would dry a spot and my star would appear
Shining on the footprints standing near
When you’ve reached the top
And the gold’s rubbed off the chrome
There’s no way to get back home
—“Every Time It Rains” (Thornton/Andrew)
COMING UP, I HAD NOTHING, YET I ALWAYS THOUGHT I HAD A SHOT. I always somehow accomplished the things I set out to accomplish, even on a small scale, so I didn’t really think that you couldn’t do shit. I got in a band that had regional success. I played baseball and became a very good pitcher. Part of it was ignorance—the fact that I didn’t know any better—but whatever the case, I had belief in my ability. I never had belief in big success, but I had belief in moderate success. I never thought I was going to be a movie star, but I always thought, I’m good enough that I’m going to have a career. I thought I was going to be one of those guys you’d see in the old movies who was, like, the fifth guy from the left—that’s who I thought I was going to be. I thought I might be Harry Dean Stanton. Shit, when Jeb Rosebrook, the guy who wrote Junior Bonner and produced the TV show I was on, The Outsiders, said, “You know who you are? You’re Warren Oates,” I was like, “Wow, what a compliment!” I never knew I’d become a movie star. When I started acting, my goal was to become a great character actor. That’s all I ever thought I would be, or ever wanted to be. The other stuff just happened.
When I was twenty-nine, broke, and getting close to my first Saturn return, if you follow astrology, there was a fourth thing in this spooky through line that ran through my early days: Maudie Treadway at sixteen; Teddy Wilburn at twenty-four; John Widlock at twenty-five. And at thirty, it was Billy Wilder.
A friend of mine was working for one of these catering companies that do big parties for rich folks. I needed a job, so this guy asked if I could come work for a Christmas Eve party in Bel Air. I had worked in restaurants, but I only washed dishes, made pizzas, and stocked the salad bar. I tended bar at Shakey’s, but all they had was beer and wine, so I didn’t even know how to make a fucking drink. “I can’t be a waiter,” I said.
He said, “Look, do you have a tuxedo?” I said, “Do I have a tuxedo? No, I don’t have a fucking tuxedo.” So he gave me a tuxedo. He was like six-four, and I had to pin the sleeves and the pants up on this thing, but I drove over to Stone Canyon Road to be a waiter for a rich person’s party on Christmas Eve.
I get there and they put me in charge of passing around little fish-head hors d’oeuvres and shit. Doesn’t take me long to notice that Debbie Reynolds is over there, Dan Aykroyd and his wife, Donna Dixon, are over there, Dudley Moore is playing the piano, and there’s Sammy Cahn, the old songwriter, talking to some little old short dude with a German accent. I didn’t know who the dude was, but he was in good company.
Turns out it’s Stanley Donen’s party. Stanley Donen directed Singin’ in the Rain, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, all big MGM musicals. I finally got to eat at Dan Tana’s one night with a guy who wanted Tom and me to write a screenplay, and I thought, Wow, I hit the big time! because I ate at Dan Tana’s, and here I am passing out fucking hors d’oeuvres at Stanley Donen’s house.
While I was passing out the fish heads, I went over by this fireplace thing and started talking to the little old German cat. He and some guy were talking about the old days, saying stuff like, “Yeah, I’ll never forget, I was with Jimmy Durante …” when the German guy says to me, “So you wanna be an actor?” I wasn’t clued in yet to how actors are waiters and I thought he had ESP, so I said, “Yeah, I do, I do want to be an actor, how did you know that?” And he goes, “Well, all you guys want to be actors. Here’s the thing. You’re never gonna make it.” And I go, “Well, jeez, thanks a lot, thanks a lot.” He says, “You know, you’re too handsome to be a character actor and too ugly to be a movie star.” I say, “Well, what can I do then?” And he says, “Well, can you write?” And I say, “Yeah, actually, I got a few screenplays.” He says, “Actors are a dime a dozen in this place. They need good writers. So write your own stuff and create your own characters.”
Then the boss guy comes over and chews my ass out for talking to one of the guests, and the little German guy tells him to go somewhere else. “I’m talking to this guy,” he says. The boss guy walks away, and the German guy goes, “Look, writing is a real honest profession in a lot of ways. Some writers are full of it, but the great thing about them, even when they’re writing stuff that is a bunch of shit, is they’re interesting.” Then he goes, “You got a life that’s been interesting?”
“Yeah, it’s been interesting so far.”
“Well, write about it. Write about your interesting life, and maybe one of these days somebody else might think it’s interesting too, and if you still want to be an actor, maybe you can be in whatever it is. If somebody buys it anyway.”
This cat is really funny and really nice to me. I don’t feel like a waiter with this guy. So I go back up to refill my little tray of fried fish heads, and one of these actor types who’s working at the bar says, “What’d he say to you?” And I say, “Who?” and he says, “Billy Wilder.” I say, “Billy Wilder?” And he says, “That little guy you were talking to over there, that’s Billy Wilder.” And I go, “The guy who directed Jack Lemmon and those cats?” He’s like, “Yeah.” And I’m like, “Well, if I had known that I would’ve probably left and not said anything to him.” Once again, my ignorance gives way for me to not just pack it up. I’m not including everything Mr. Wilder said, but it changed my life in so many ways.
After that I started writing Karl and doing a one-man show at the theater where I did all my own characters, wrote all my own shit. I was later discovered out of the theater by casting director Fred Roos, who I owe and admire forever.
YEARS LATER, AFTER I’D DONE SLING BLADE AND BECOME AN OVERNIGHT deal or whatever, I got a call from Billy Wilder saying he wanted me to have lunch with him in his office, right down here on Beverly Drive. I had just been nominated for two Academy Awards for the movie, and now Billy Wilder wanted to have lunch with me. So he gets me down to his office, and he orders sandwiches from Nate and Al’s Deli, and he and I have sandwiches. From Nate and Al’s. In Billy Wilder’s office.
I’m sitting there having a turkey sandwich—with Billy Wilder—and he says, “So, I read this interview you did where it talked about how I had given you advice and how I was so nice to you when you were a waiter. This thing, it really moved me.” That’s why he called me down there. He had seen this interview with me saying this about him. Then he goes, “I don’t remember a fucking bit about that, but it’s a great story, and I’m glad I was able to give you some helpful advice.” And he reminds me again, “I don’t remember you from Adam, of course.” And I say, “Yeah, that’s okay.”
Then he says, “I’ve got a book I want to sign for you,” and he pulls a copy of the Sling Blade book of the screenplay out of his bookshelf. He signs it to me, “To Billy Bob, from a big fan—Billy Wilder.” That was pretty wild.
Two directors were very nice to me. He was one, and then there was Stanley Kramer. The house I live in now was actually Stanley Kramer’s house in the late fifties, early sixties, when he made It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World and all those movies. Kramer took me under his wing, and to this day I’m good friends with his daughters and his widow. Stanley was a great man. Mr. Wilder was a great man. They both gave me hope and the benefit of their wisdom.