Slant is running my interview with Peter Gallagher on the twisty-turny ride of his life from 0 to 60, especially his time On the Twentieth Century.
Here's the first question and answer and a link to the whole shebang:
The list of your co-stars and directors is staggering. Who haven't you worked with?
I've been very lucky to work with people who were part of my mythology. I worked with James Cagney on the last thing he did. I would have been happy to play a hat rack. My mother went to college with his sister, Jean. Art Carney was in the movie too. My uncle used to be a janitor's assistant at the local New Rochelle bank where Art's dad would bring him in to tap dance at the Christmas parties. I walked into the first day of rehearsal to Cagney's suite at the Hotel Carlyle and he looked up at me and said, "Black Irish." At the end of the day he said, "Gallagher, I want you to meet my wife, Billie, but first we've got to find her." I got behind his wheelchair and we went searching the apartment. "Oh, Billie. Billie." And there she was hiding behind the curtains. This kind of madness and inclusion did my heart good because, if these guys were talking to me, what could be so bad?
Thanks very much Larry for the read and the compliment! I found him remarkably, disarmingly honest. The charm was less of a surprise but certainly welcome.
Thanks for the kind words Ol Blue Eyes (Sinatra took a look at my long hair when I was a very little kid and reprimanded my mother for raising a hippy, long after the hippie era) and ScottyDoesn'tKnow2. I'm embarrassed about that typo Scotty; it will be corrected this morning.
I wants on them froggy lips and I wants on them now!!
An ode to Peter Gallagher's lips:
TROUTY MOUTH
Guppy Face, Trouty Mouth Is that how people's lips look where you come from in the South ? Grouper Mouth, Froggy Lips I love suckin' on those salamander lips Wanna put a fish hook in those lips so cherry red If you tried hard enough you could suck a baby's head Wooh!