Gerald McRaney
How did you get involved with Dividing the Estate?
Elizabeth [Ashley] and I have a mutual friend who kept telling her, “Mac really wants to do a play.” Elizabeth would ask me and it wouldn’t work out because I was already employed. This time, I was available. Also, Wendy Phillips, who was my leading lady in a TV show called Promised Land, is Hallie Foote’s best friend. She got in touch with me about this play, then Mr. Foote called me himself. When you get a call from Horton Foote asking you to do something, you do it! I couldn’t believe my luck.
And now you’re finally making your Broadway debut.
Yes, and it’s the most exciting thing I’ve ever done. It’s put me back in touch with why I got into acting to begin with. Delta [Burke, McRaney’s wife] is here through the holidays, and it is the sweetest feeling to get dressed in the morning, kiss my wife good-bye, go to the theater to do my matinee and know that she’s going to be there when I come back.
Does it feel different than going to work as the star of a TV show?
Totally. Obviously Mr. Foote’s work is phenomenal. But in the theater, after the rehearsals are over, after all the notes have been given and the director has done his thing, the curtain goes up and it’s up to you. That’s where you succeed or fail as an actor. You can do almost limitless takes in a movie or a TV show, and with a skillful director and editor, you can pretty much make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. I’ve worked with an awful lot of sow’s ears, so I know. Here, you’re on your own. You can either act or you can’t act, and that’s what I love about this. And what a great company!
You directed Elizabeth Ashley in a TV movie, right?
Yes, in a movie of the week [Love and Curses and All That Jazz in 1991] that Delta and I produced together. That’s a job I’ll never try again—executive produce, direct and star…
…in a show with your wife and Elizabeth Ashley!
Yeah! [Laughs.] But we had a ball. Elizabeth found a kindred spirit in Delta, and that sort of led to this.
You’re obviously not afraid of strong women.
Oh, hell no. Why would you want to have anything to do with a doormat? It’s dull. It’s boring. And I love working with my wife. We, unlike a lot of people, do best when we’re together 24 hours a day.
How would you describe Lewis, the alcoholic son you play in Dividing the Estate? You don’t seem to have much in common with him.
There are aspects of Lewis that are in all of us. We all have our weak moments; Lewis has a weak life [laughs]. I don’t know if you noticed this, but throughout the play it refers to my father dying at a relatively young age, [Lewis’ nephew] Son’s father dying—I think this property, this estate, has killed off a lot of the males in this family, trying to keep it in one piece. Lewis just said, “To hell with that.” As a result, he doesn’t quite fit into what’s expected of him. But who would want to?
But he’s still living with his mama; he doesn’t have a job. It’s a uniquely southern situation, isn’t it?
Oh, I don’t know. My oldest daughter is married to a great guy, with three children; they’re very successful in what they chose to do with their lives, but she has friends who are still trying to figure out what they want to do when they grow up.
How old is she?
42.
Good lord!
I swear to god there are people she went to high school and college with who don’t have it figured out yet. So I don’t think it’s uniquely southern, it’s just that when southern people do something, we’re a hell of a lot more dramatic and flamboyant about it. If we’re going to fail, we’re going to fail badly. I know so many guys like this. It’s sad. I’m kin to some of them [laughs].
What’s special about Horton Foote’s writing? It’s so straightforward on one level.
That’s the sneaky part. In the beginning, the play seems almost mundane. Its mundaneness pulls you in, and before you realize it, you’re totally captivated by this family and what’s going on. A lot of people compare his work to Chekhov, but in a strange way there’s some Hemingway in there too. There’s the directness of Hemingway and the poetry of Chekhov, but it’s all so simply stated that it’s just perfect. Everything is as it seems and nothing is as it seems.
There are 13 characters, and all of them are vividly presented.
And each one has a separate voice. I’ve seen an awful lot of writing where you say, “Okay, the storytelling is terrific, the subject matter is terrific, but don’t they all sound the same?” Everybody in this play has their own distinct voice and syntax, and that’s a gift of damn good playwriting.
Your reviews were excellent. Did you read them?
Normally I don’t, but I did read some that people sent me. [Director] Michael Wilson saw something in me that he knew how exploit for the purposes of this play and he did a damn good job of it. I’m not trying to be overly modest—I think I’m a good actor—but a lot of things have to come together for a play to work. The writing is so essential here. With a TV script, I’ve seen everybody including the plumber give notes. When you do a TV comedy, you can’t swing a dead cat without hitting a network executive. None of them have ever been near a stage, and yet they’re all experts at writing a script. It’s insane! Here, you will respect the writer’s work, and you will stick to the text.
You’ve had a 25-year run on television, basically going from one series to the next. How do you account for your longevity?
Luck, mostly. When we started Simon & Simon, people would offer me star money to do a movie of the week on my time off, playing a character remarkably like the one I was playing in the series. Purposely, I would take less money to do something 180 degrees different. I’ve known actors who have played something three or four years on a series and people don’t think they can do anything else.
That might have been a problem for Delta, because she played such a distinctive character [on Designing Women].
People got so enamored of Suzanne Sugarbaker, they think that’s who Delta Burke is. And she’s not. I would love to see her do more really dramatic work. She’s damn good at it.
I’d forgotten that your wedding to Delta was on the cover of People magazine.
The reason we did that was to head off some of the interest in us. People were trying to sneak into our wedding left and right. We had a security team that did a very good job, but we invited a photographer from People, figuring that if the pictures got out in a decent way, it would satisfy people’s curiosity and that would be the end of it. Of course we didn’t have the good sense to make any money at it! [Laughs.]
And now your 20th wedding anniversary is coming up.
We did a renewal ceremony last year down in Florida on the 20th anniversary of our having met. We rented a house on Captiva Island and invited friends and family from Florida and Mississippi. My grandson was my best man, my oldest granddaughter was Delta’s maid of honor and the youngest one was the shell girl; it was on the beach so she scattered shells instead of flowers. We renewed our vows with stuff we had written for each other and had a magnificent dinner under the stars.
How do you feel about personal things, such as illness, being made public? [Last February, Burke discussed her hospitalization for depression.]
As far as people wanting to know “Are you sick? What kind of sick? Are your children sick?”—give me a break! There are things that are private. I understand [actors] getting bent out of shape with people trying to get photographs of their children. There’s too much risk of kidnapping. I signed on for this; my kid didn’t. And the paparazzi will not leave you alone. Back when Delta and I were hot, they used to follow us home. One guy talked his way into our house. The maid thought he was a friend of mine because he had a southern accent. He came back later when I was home—and it’s amazing how quickly a 12-gauge shotgun can convince somebody that they’ve made a mistake.
Speaking of shotguns, you host a TV show named after one [The World of Beretta].
Well, they sponsor it. And they send me all around the world big-game hunting. I conned my way into somebody paying me to do what I used to spend a fortune doing on my own.
What do you hunt?
When we finish the play, I’m supposed to down to Georgia with my son-in-law and my oldest grandson and go quail hunting. Back in June, I was in Namibia hunting leopard. I’ve hunted Kodiak bear in Alaska. I didn’t get a bear; none of them were mature enough. I did get a big leopard that’s supposed to be coming in any day now.
Where do you display the animals you’ve had mounted?
Most are in storage because we don’t have a big enough house. Some are in my house in L.A.: elk, red stag, an African antelope, a cape buffalo…
Does Delta mind seeing all these creatures?
She doesn’t object as vehemently as she used to. She intellectually understands the reasons for hunting—the game management aspect—but emotionally, she simply cannot go there.
What’s it like being a conservative in a liberal industry?
It’s strange in a certain way, but I’m also not that social a creature in terms of Hollywood, so if there’s been any ostracizing, I haven’t noticed it. The handful of liberal friends I have are intelligent people and we can sit and have discussions as we swap drinks, and that’s fine. The people I dislike keeping company with are the ones on either end of the spectrum who do things in a knee-jerk fashion and have no idea in hell what they’re talking about. I don’t care for that, even if they agree with me.
When you picked up and moved from New Orleans to L.A. in the late 60s, did you expect to become a TV star?
No! Guys who are 23 years old and already losing their hair are not going to be stars. I’m not a leading man and never have been. I thought I was going to be—and I think I’ve succeeded in this—a character actor who happens to get leads. I’m very pleased with the way my career has turned out. I take it as a compliment when people don’t know my name but know the character I played.
See Gerald McRaney in Dividing the Estate at the Booth Theatre.