From Kennedy to Clinton, Martin Sheen has lived it
By Tom Wright
HOLLYWOOD, CA (Hollywood Today) 6/28/07 — “I love my country enough to suffer its wrath” said actor/activist Martin Sheen, who said that he has been arrested over 70 times, mainly for liberal protests over his beliefs.
Sheen considers himself a storyteller, and Hollywood Today lets him tell his incredible life story, from the days of “Apocalypse Now” to playing the enduring president on “West Wing” to present day.
For instance, Martin’s principles led him to be one of 22 people arrested for crossing over a line established by the Air Force in an anti-militarization protest at California’s Vandenberg Air Force base in October 2000. He was charged with trespassing.
But his story starts with the Rev. Martin Luther King.
“In 1965, I was on Broadway at that time doing a play and Selma, Alabama erupted, and we wanted so desperately to answer that, and so we created a show on Broadway,that is all the people on Broadway called Broadway Answers Selma. And it was a huge benefit on one of our dark nights and it was hosted by Sammy Davis Jr., who was on Broadway at that time during Golden Boy. I was doing a drama, you know most of the people in the show were singers and dancers, and comics and so forth. So I was just asked to be backstage, be present to people, make sure they got a chair to sit in during the show, and so forth. And I was happy as Larry to do that. And early in the first act, Sammy Davis asked Rev. King to stand up, I didn’t know he was in the house. And Rev. King is there in the back. Oh my god, there he is, and they wouldn’t let him sit down, I mean the ovation was just literally endless. I’m watching this. And okay finally, we let him go and as actress have a want to do this show went over, windbag, you have to get a hook to get him off the stage, you know everybody wanted to do their bits and pieces; and so the show was dragging on and on and on, and I was in backstage, and I have just gotten and really dropped some names,
“There was Barbara Streisand, I’m standing there, and Sammy Davis was on stage doing a number, and the light came backstage and flowed to this area here just from here that console, and I just casually say, oh my god I looked back and Rev. King was standing there alone, no bodyguard, nobody around him, nothing. And I looked at him and I thought, oh my god, it’s himself, and my heart started pounding, and I thought, I can’t believe his stature, I was embarrassed because I was taller than he, I though Rev. King had to be 8 feet tall, but no he was small, and very shy. And I thought, I must get the blessing, oh you mustn’t bother him, don’t, yeah, I just shake his hand, just thank him for being who he is, for doing what he is doing, how much he meant, these thoughts went through for full 2 minutes, and I didn’t have the courage to just reach out and shake his hand, just to thank him, just to touch him. I didn’t do it and regretted it all my life.
“’We are not asked to be successful, we are asked to be faithful, we are not asked to do great things. We’re asked to do all things with great love and that’s the difference’. That’s not my quote, that’s Mother Teresa’s, Sheen said.
Sheen has reached out to many through his films and T.V. series, he has reached a point in his life that he must “use his voice and take a stand again against this administration madness. I do what I do in the area of peace and social justice or activism for my own sake. I do it because I cannot not do it, and be who I’m or who I want to become”. It’s my way of trying to unite the will of the spirit to the work of the flash, where I can win my own personal freedom. And I think, that you know you have to explore that area no matter whether you have a public persona or not, you cannot not do the thing that you are founded on, you know, you are the only one you have to live with, you know when you are telling the truth and you know when you are slacking, you know that you could have an effect on other people’s lives, but you can’t count on that, You have to have an effect on your own life, I am the only one that I can change. In all the years that I’ve been active, nothing has changed. On the contrary, it’s gotten far worse. But, we are not asked to be successful, we are asked to be faithful, we are not asked to do great things, we’re asked to do all things with great love and that’s the difference. The problem with today’s media image really is that, the celebrity is mistaken for credibility and you know that’s the fallacy, you know we are media stars, we are not expert in anything you know. And for the most part, we represent and speak for you know American business you know corporate America, and something happens when you do not speak for corporate America and you begin to speak for your self, for the community, for you own salvation, for lack of a better term, but then everything changes, because you are not always going to be on the side that’s winning, that’s when it gets interesting, you know.
“It gets scary. You know my experience with opposing the invasion of Iraq is a very good example of how you can be perceived as being unpatriotic, when in reality you love your country enough to risk it’s wrath by telling the truth about what’s going down, and that’s that thing about being on the side that’s winning, you are not, you going to be on that side that’s not winning, not loosing, but not winning. Do you know the difference? Yeah, and let me just tell you the little kind of thought I have on that. During the height of the protests, opposed to the invasion and the early part of that war, and mind you the country was 70 percent behind the administration, and we knew very clearly that it was a big mistake, we were opening the gates of hell and we were going to sacrifice a lot of our young people, not to mention how many hundred and thousands of Iraqis and destroyed their country, we saw it coming very clearly. But if we start to be unpatriotic, now there the group called the Dixie Chicks had made a remark on stage, I think in London when they were on tour, saying how embarrassed they were to be from the same state as their president. As a result, they were thrashed and threatened and dates were cancelled and the certain communities burned there records and they took an awful beating.
“Now, if you are Mr. Bush, you are going to respond one of two ways, he responded by letting them swing in the wind, if he had really been what he claimed to be, a Christian or someone with any measure of humanity or heart, he would have said, oh my my this is all for what happening to those girls, I love their music, in fact I’m going to invite them to come down to the ranch for my next barbecue, and if they don’t come, because they disagree with my politics, I’ll play their music night and day because I love them. Now that’s a human being, someone who does not take your opposition to them personally, but realizes that it is a political move. This administration used the military to advance a political agenda, that’s what it’s taken. The military is finally waking up to this, and that’s what going to make the changes, you know you are going to get people who are just going to refuse to fight, because it’s for this man’s agenda, and nothing to do with Al Qaeda. In the beginning, it is does now, but not in the beginning, we relied to hand hustled, and the only one in that administration had any credibility at all was Colin Powell, he is from the previous administration, he is the only one who was ever in the area, he was a general, he was the last one they told and they used him to credit their own agenda. And of course in the second administration he resigned, how could he not? They had used him. And that’s what has happened to our country. Now the pendulum has swung back, it’s now 70% against or thereabout 70% and 30% in favor of this administration and its agenda. So, I was there when the pendulum hit the other side, you know and yet the only time I feel comfortable is when I’m uncomfortable, when I know that I have told the truth from my own personal experience, when I’ve taken what was coming down as a result of telling the truth. I could not not do that thing, and be myself, I couldn’t betray Bartlet , in fact large reason I was given the play Bartlet and West Wing is because where I came from before, it was no accident that they chose me to play that part. You know it is because they knew that I had some measure of credibility, that I was not going to do something because I wanted to be on the side that was winning, I just wanted to be on the side that was human, that was nonviolent, that was honest; and I would be the only one that could determine what side that was. And so, I learned to live with myself, but I’ve been doing this all of my life, not always in the public view, but you know as a child, I started caddying at a exclusive all white upper class country club in Dayton, Ohio.
“And I was one of nine boys and one girl, my mother had, both my parents were immigrant from Spain and Ireland, and my mother had twelve pregnancies, ten survived, nine boys one girl, all of brothers, I’m the seventh son. And all the lads in front of me had gone to caddy, you know and then from there they went to the military mostly. That’s what poor families did, my dad was a factory worker, so I fell into this line, I started caddying when I was 9 years old. It was considered industrious and you know character building, today it would be considered child labor, you know child abuse even, towing bags for these people. I gradually matured, and I caddied for 9 years, the second longest job I had was with West Wing, 7 years, but my first longest job was as a caddy in a private club. This club was racist, they were anti-Semitic, they didn’t think of themselves as being that. They were upholding pillars of the community, they were doctors, and lawyers, and businessman and they had reputations and all. And yet with us, we were servants, they used language and expressed behavior, then I found embarrassing and obscene. To this day, I won’t use the ‘F’ word because they used it; and I didn’t want to be like them, they were not my heroes. To this day I cant belong to a private club because of them, you know the first black man I ever saw hit a golf ball Joe Louis, and he was the retired heavyweight champion of the world, and they said he it touring, he couldn’t play at a private club. We went to public course to watch him give an given exhibition, we were stunned, it was Joe Louis hitting a golf ball 300 yards, he became a tremendous amateur golfer, could not play at private clubs. You know, so when the Tiger came on the scene I thought I’d I never see this in my lifetime.
“You don’t know what it meant to see this kid plat at clubs. Even today he cant belong to you know, but he owns them, all of them. So that’s where I come from, and I own those experiences to the depth of my being. I started a caddy union, when I was 14 years old, and I went out on strike. And it lasted 48 hours, they fired me, you know, and it was one of the first times I heard the term private property. I said what’s the problem here, they said you’re on private property. I said I caddy, I have been caddying here for five years, you are on private property. I had to leave the ground, can you imagine? So, I was educated about the culture and I was given a choice, what side do you want to go down on, what you want to live? Do you want to be like these guys, oh my, my, my, and every now and then there would be somebody in the club you know that was a good and descent person, but the majority of them were a reflection of each other. There was no heroism there, you know and I’ve often said, and it’s my theory, and I’m absolutely certain from my point of view that it’s right. That all the people around Bush, all of them, with the exception of Colin Powell, all those people sitting around, you know planning war, all despised each other, because there was no one at that table with the exception of Colin Powell that they could aspire to be, that was better than them, that said you can do better than this, you know what I’m saying.
“They all saw the worst part of themselves reflected in each other, and they hated each other. That’s my theory, and I think it’s proven out, they despised each other, because no one demanded that they be better then what they were. They all fell in line just like the country, they wanted to be on the side that was winning, not on this side that was right. It has to cost you something personally, if it doesn’t cost you personally, you have to question it’s value, and if it’s not personal, it’s impersonal, if it’s impersonal who cares, not going to make any difference with anyone. And yet, you have to do it for yourself, you can’t worry about anybody watching or whether you making the right move, if it’s morally right, and you feel comfortable, and you can take what’s coming, you know, you are going to get tough, and you earn the right to be yourself. You know, and don’t brag about it, you know just keep walking and just keep serving, because that is how you become free.
Sheen frequently plays a Presidential or political character involved in the White House. In The West Wing, he won the Emmy for Outstanding Actor in a Television Series, he also played President John Kennedy in “The Missiles of October” and was in “Bobby.” Who would ever forget Martin Sheen in “Apocalypse Now” during the on-going Vietnam War, Captain Willard is sent on a dangerous mission into Cambodia to assassinate a renegade Green Beret who has set himself up as a God among a local tribe. About the movie he said “This film is not about Vietnam, it is Vietnam!” what he means is that this film is about madness and not the war.”
And to this day he campaigns against the madness.