John Garfield - Bits and Pieces

Earlier tonight I read a book review of Thomas Pynchon's Inherent Vice and learned that Pynchon's hero-protagonist, PI Larry "Doc" Sportello, is "obsessed with" John Garfield. This reminded me I'd better hurry up and finish this blog entry. I haven't read Vice yet but I've been reading about it courtesy of Dave Monroe's forwards from Pynchon-L for some time now and I added my name to the library's hold list about a week ago.

What prompted this entry which I began about 6 weeks ago was a bit of info I learned in the course of some reading I've been doing. John Garfield lost the lead in Golden Boy to Luther Adler. I've been a fan of Garfield's for decades but lately have been seeing more of Adler in the film noir classic, D.O.A., and in several appearances on the tv series, Naked City. The idea of the first Method actor to become a Hollywood star (and perhaps Hollywood's first real reel rebel) and the scion of the First Family of Yiddish Theater competing for the same part back in the 1930's strikes me as more than a little odd.

According to wikipedia, John Garfield was born Jacob Julius Garfinkle. The son of immigrant parents, David and Hannah Garfinkle, he lived in the Sea Gate section of Brooklyn until his mother's death. Deeply troubled by this loss, young Julie (his lifelong name to family and friends) Garfinkle was sent to P.S. 45 in the Bronx where he came to the attention of the school's principal, noted educator Angelo Patri. Garfield credits Patri with introducing him to theater and the possibility of an acting career.

Although it was taken about a decade later, chances are the school's appearance would not have changed too much so check out http://bronxboard.com/pgal.php?p=20 for a thumbnail image of (a photo of the White Castle hamburger place on Fordham Road at Lorillard Place in 1938 with) a portion of P.S. 45 visible on the right contributed by Charles A. Warren. Click on it for a larger image. Also, in an entry on the Bronx Board site, http://bronxboard.com/diary/diary.php?f=Streams%20of%20Neighborhood%20Memories, Gene Ret describes P.S. 45, Paul Hoffman Junior High School and the Belmont neighborhood. Hopefully some of Mr. Ret's good memories of the neighborhood were shared by John Garfield.

After high school and a brief flirtation with professional theater, John Garfield spent a year and some as a hobo, hitching rides by car and freight train across the country, an experience he shared with writer Dale Wasserman and countless other Americans during the early years of the Great Depression. Garfield's stories of life on the road eventually became part of the inspiration for Preston Sturges' Sullivan's Travels.

Eventually, Garfield returned to New York and found a home with the Theater Group until that part written for him - Joe Bonaparte in Clifford Odets' Golden Boy - went to Luther Adler instead. Discouraged, Garfield accepted an offer he'd received from the Warner Bros. Studio and moved to Hollywood. Broadway's loss was America's gain as millions got a chance to see Garfield on the silver screen and people like me got to see him on tv a couple of decades later, not to mention on video tapes, dvd's and youtube a few more decades late. In 1960 or thereabout I told my mother all about this great actor I'd just seen in a 1943 movie shown on tv - Destination Tokyo. She laughed and told me she never missed a John Garfield movie when they were released back when she was in school or working in Manhattan. My daughter's a John Garfield fan, too.

Fact-checking some of the info above, I found a website with a detailed biography, filmography, family photos and other nice features: http://www.themave.com/Garfield/index.htm