Dear Tony (or since we're both from da Bronx, can I call you Bernie? OK, split the difference—Mr. Schwartz),
So you'll be 80 on June 3. That's a lot of melted candle wax on the cake frosting, but you wear the years well, you still-randy, grandly entertaining dandy, you.
You may not remember me, Mr. C—a couple of years ago I hung out with you and the fifth missus at your home and around town for a profile that appeared in this publication.
But I remember you. What I most remember—and more importantly, appreciate—is the man, not the movie star. Not that the latter distinction could ever fade to black.
True, most of the Adam Sandler faithful are probably too busy teething to scope out your legendary work: teetering on heels in drag with Jack Lemmon and charming the panties off Marilyn in Some Like It Hot (the American Film Institute's funniest film of all-time); freezing our hearts in our chests as monstrous Albert DeSalvo, a.k.a., The Boston Strangler; chained to Sidney Poitier and on the run (earning an Oscar nod en route) in The Defiant Ones; inhabiting the mesmerizing prestidigitator in Houdini; portraying a sniveling flack to Burt Lancaster's cruel columnist in the brilliantly corrosive Sweet Smell of Success; doing Sin City suave like no one else can as one of our best TV ambassadors in Vega$. (Lest I flog myself later for an egregious omission, I should also invoke the memory of "Stoney Curtis" on that immortal episode of The Flintstones.)
And tons of titles beyond. Nothing dims that kind of star wattage. It forever shimmers on screen, an indestructible testament to talent, never farther away than a local channel, cable box, satellite dish or neighborhood Blockbuster for generations to come.
But Tony, babe, there's nothing quite like The Experience Of You In Person—a dizzying cocktail of childlike exuberance, startling candor, salty asides, casual profanity, oddly endearing vanity, artistic soulfulness and a continental courtliness that renders that foghorn blast of a voice the very essence of elegance. (The storied Bronx-bred honk—the one that traveled all the way to Hollywood without ever leaving the Grand Concourse subway station, the one I'd like fed to me intravenously when I lapse into stage-4 homesickness—has lost none of its stickball-in-the-street nobility.)
You're a unique creation by anyone's standards, Tony. Yet it's your rule-busting ballsy-ness, your willingness to play a real-life Defiant One—to buck The System, conquer The System, and tell The System in which orifice it should insert its own crappola—that earns my respect.
That Nooo-Yaaawk-ese you could slice with a switchblade overwhelmingly argued against your screen success on any sizable scale. You were Tinseltown-gorgeous, no question: a stop-'em-dead-in-their-Guccis handsomeness. But that only handed critics yet another club with which to bludgeon you, claiming you were just pretty-boy tabloid bait, a cut-rate talent with a beefcake body and cheesecake face that should rarely open its mouth, but simply twinkle its eyes to lure a few extra box-office beans out of box-office bombs.
So The System—dismissive critics, assembly line-minded studio execs—said.
Screw The System. You survived.
And when, in its wisdom, The System—the myopic suits of Universal Studios who owned your contract—were content to dead-end you by sticking you in nowhere roles in forgettable films, you fought to be loaned out to other studios, where you escaped to a greater range of opportunities, more than The System ever thought possible, honing your skills all the while.
Screw The System. You revived.
At the height of your fame, The System sold you as a movie star. But you proved yourself an actor.
Screw The System. You thrived.
And when you heeded the words of your idol (and Operation: Petticoat co-star) Cary Grant, who cautioned you not to "grow old on the screen," you walked away from Hollywood, the home of The System—something even its discarded human detritus rarely does, their lives so thoroughly intertwined with The System—to settle in our city. Now you lend your colorfully expansive persona to the landscapes of Las Vegas, both cultural (lecturing to UNLV students, exhibiting your paintings, crafting your poetry) and social (wining and dining and clubbing and kibitzing, bouncing up, down and around the Strip, and in and out of gossip columns).
Screw The System. You defied.
You never sacrificed the gift of individuality for the comfort of conformity, never accepted the dictums of The Company—even the world's Most Glamorous Company—as unquestioned gospel. You've always known, Tony, the vital truth of a timeless adage: It is better that a man should die on his feet than live on his knees. You'll never be reduced to the former, and we hope you won't accede to the latter for years to come.
As you told me, in all your ingratiating immodesty, when last we met: "Look how great I'm doing! I've never looked better in my life. Everywhere I go people just get stunned when they see me. They're so nice to me, I'm so privileged. ... And I'm the handsomest of men. What have I got to complain about?"
If I may speak not only for Las Vegas, but on behalf of that fabled borough—from the concourse to the zoo, from Arthur Avenue to Fordham Road, from Riverdale to the No. 6 train, from Hunts Point to Yankee Stadium—happy 80th, Mr. C., from one Bronx bum to another.
Sincerely,
Steve Bornfeld