Michael Moriarty on New York and Co. with Leonard Lopate - June 20, 1997

[Note: This was transcribed from a tape sent to me by an MMUUUHP visitor. THANK YOU! I had some difficulties transcribing this because ... people do not speak in complete sentences and neither do they take turns! They overlap speaking and sometimes I could not distinguish what was being said. Also, some of the names were unfamiliar to me, so I'm not sure about some of those. I hope you enjoy it, inspite of my flawed transcription.]

Hello, my name is Ethan Hawke and you're listening to New York and Co., with Leonard Lopate on WNYC AM 820.

LL: Michael Moriarty is most famous for his acting career where he's won two Emmy awards, a Golden Globe, a Drama Desk and a Tony to name a few. He's also a Fulbright Scholar. The author of three plays, a composer and performer of Jazz and classical music. Really something of a Renaissance Man. But Mr. Moriarty will be the first to point out that in no way does this indicate that we are living in an age of enlightenment.

MM: [chuckles]

LL: Because of his stance on censorship and his fight with Attorney General Janet Reno he left the WNY - or the NBC network drama Law & Order. He's even moved out of the country. But now, add to his list of accomplishments a new novel, The Voyeur: A J.C. Kaminer Mystery ...

MM: A very harmless, very un-controversial, very safe...

LL: ... non-political novel published by Simon & Schuster. Welcome to New York and Company. You also have published in Canada something more controversial The Gift of Stern Angels.

MM: Yes

LL: Which tells the story...

MM: It tells the story of my life a year after I encountered Janet Reno with the other network CEOs. And, uh, how it changed my life, changed my entire personality the way ... I became a warrior for the first amendment.

LL: But moved out of the country. Moved up in Canada

MM: Yes I ended up... this only covers the first year and then in the next 2 1/2 years, I finally decided I had to leave the United States.

LL: But you must be very used to Canada, after all, half the movies of the week and mini-series that are supposed to take place in New York and Chicago and Los Angeles are shot in Toronto, aren't they?

MM: You're absolutely right. I've shot up in Toronto, and I've shot in Vancouver, and in Halifax. However, when you seek residency you really come into the heart and arms of the people and you ask them to love you, including the government. Which is a frightening thought. But I have to pass the test and I'm applying and I would like to be ... It's equivalent of the green card up there in Canada.

LL: A reader of this book could make the argument that the real love story here is between the main character and New York City. So I'm sensing that on some level you're missing it here.

MM: Yes, you're absolutely right and I didn't... I was with my fiancee and she saw me getting a little misty eyed when I came back .. I've been in the city a week I hadn't been here in many months. And I got very, very nostalgic about all the old places I went to and all my old friends from my neighborhood. Yea, I-I miss New York sure I do but I also don't want to live in a country under the Clintons. I just don't want to do it.

LL: Because of what happened in Waco?

MM: No, No, there's a million things involved. But I just can't live in a place where dishonesty and lying and obstruction of justice is qualee overlooked and honesty is a liability. That's what I faced. Honesty is a liability.

LL: And you said that we are living in another McCarthy era.

MM: Well, under her, I mean her attitude ... I brought it up only because her ... Her attitude in the meeting was absolutely contemptuous. Every move that McCarthy made when he attacked ... used the House on un-American Committee was the same gestures, same contempt, same treatment of other people - as if they're criminals. She treated everybody in that room as if they were accessories to drive by shootings. Which they're not.

LL: Um, Um On the other hand, what's your feeling about the defense, I know we're going far astray but we still have time to get back to this book. The defense for Timothy McVey that's says he's kind of driven to it by what happened in Waco?

MM: Well, well, I can't accept that. I mean I don't believe that bombs solve anything. I think under what people think is increasing tyranny ... Men do have two alternative, bombs or bar stools. I pick bar stools in Canada. And I find I'm much happier and I have a new life. But my feeling about the McVey issue is that the jury turned into Jack Ruby. There's things going on ... what happened there that people don't know about and you're going to kill the messenger? Keep him in jail, make him talk. Have him finally confess. I'd have a nice punishment for him. Every two hours, every morning all the victims, the families of the victims would indeed do two hour tapes that he would have to listen to every morning of the kind of pain, the kind of agony he put them through and that would be ... put him in a jail and have him listen to those voices for two hours every day.

LL: I'm still curious about why you would leave a TV show that was held up as an example of the finest TV does in America. I mean it really gave you a window into the American conscience, didn't it?

MM: It gave me an experience into the minds of the American criminal justice system. Which I think is the most ailing thing around the world. But when you find the producers and the boss of the boss is behaving in a way... which has nothing to do with law and order, nothing to do with honesty, nothing to do with an understanding of the Constitution and how she was breaking it. Then I say there's got to be some hypocrisy involved in here if the very producers of a law and order program don't know there own constitution.

LL: Did you ever propose writing a show that might deal with those kinds of themes?

MM: Uh, no...

LL: I know, you worked on, you wrote shows didn't you?

MM: Uh, no, I only wrote about my own character. I didn't involve myself with the show. I just began to know Ben Stone better than anyone knew him. So I guess that anything that affected my character, I controlled.

LL: Do you watch it these days, now that Sam Waterston has taken over.

MM: No, no it's part of the past. I'm on to new horizons ... and much greater love, yes, much greater love up in Canada.

LL: Well, after you left Law & Order did you feel you were frozen out of the industry here?

MM: Yes, I certainly was. I mean, I finally learned the loose canon and the big mouth which I am, I can't keep my mouth shut. Yes, indeed they blackl... they, huh, it's called constructive termination.

LL: You were in one film right? Courage Under Fire.

MM: Well, yes, since then. And Ed Zwick had to fight 20th Century to get me. But my work since then has been in Canada. And I'm terribly grateful to Canada, it's kept me alive. They performed my symphony up there. I did my one man show up there. I'm having this book published up there. I've done four films up there. They've opened their arms to me in the most awesome way and made me one of the happiest men I know.

LL: Ummm, Courage Under Fire was just an odd situation. You're willing to work back in the United States?

MM: Oh, yea!

LL: ...Canada and come here and talk about your book.

MM: Oh yea, somebody said that indeed that if I ... that it's hypocritical for me to come down here if I'm offered any kind of job... But I didn't ... I left America not 'cuz I didn't want to earn a living here. I left because I didn't want to pick up a gun. I didn't want myself to get involved with any kind of mil... connections with people who were rabid in the wrong way and picking the wrong solution. The solution is non-violent protest. You can not get yourself involved with weapons like that and assume you can beat the federal government of the United States. It's stupid, self-defeating and evil ultimately.

LL: The uh, J. C Kaminer, the main character in this book is a psychologist who doesn't ...

MM: A psychiatrist.

LL: A psychiatrist, so that means he has a medical degree.

MM: Yes, he is a medical doctor ...

LL: He doesn't believe in insanity. Kind of like, is it Thomas Szasz?

MM: Yes, it's Thomas Szasz doesn't believe in insanity. He doesn't particularly like the institutions for the insane because he knows that they are frequently more inhumane than the prisons. He'd rather see a crazy man go to jail than lock him up in a nut house. I tend to agree with him.

LL: I've always been curious as to what Thomas Szasz might feel about those people you see on the streets who you see screaming in the middle of the night, people who talk to themselves, people who stab themselves.

MM: Well, I live in a very busy neighborhood. I have friends, homeless friends, who uh, they do tend to quietly mumble to themselves when they have a bottle of beer in their hands. I tend to do that in a bar myself. I do know there are ladies who don't scream. The craziest lady I ever met lived in our apartment building. She wasn't homeless and on the street. She's the only case of an apparent schizophrenic that did disturb the peace and that's an issue of disturbing the peace. And if they want to involve a new law about it... But let me tell you about this one... when Mayor Rudolph Guiliani went into office. After the first two months, every three months at 3 a.m. in the morning police bullhorns woke the entire block up by pulling cars over for traffic tickets - at 3 a.m.! Come racing out of ... and it happened regularly, once every two months. The point was not the traffic ticket. The point was Rudy's men are in town. And ... but to wake ... that's disturbing the peace...

LL: That's a symbolic act, you're saying...

MM: Yes, it's a message. Word from down town that things are being hit hard and even if it's innocent ears involved in listening to it we want you to get the message that we're getting tough.

LL: I can't believe that Canada is so utopian that this sort of thing doesn't happen there as well ... politicians are politicians...

MM: That I understand. I met one of my favorites, a guy named Jeremy Aikins, who ran the NDP who was a totally dedicated socialist and finally woke up to how many lies and what the problems are ... and now he writes about individual freedom. He could be a Libertarian, though.

LL: In Canada, as I understand it the constitution actually has censorship built into it. It doesn't have a first amendment. For example there's uh.... pornog...

MM: There's no Bill of Rights!

LL: Yea, So actually freedoms are much more limited in Canada than they are here.

MM: On paper they are but they do have a viable 5 party system up there. Where the heat of the debate in Parliament is much more possible for change. The reform movement under Preston Manning has done much better than Ross Perot tried to do a few years ago when he tried to create something called the third party. We are desperate for a third party in this country that's viable. And the Fourth estate and everyone else tried to brand Ross Perot as a crazy and a nut but I met ... I saw his wife on television and I said if that woman can live with that man... The man can't be paranoid and he can't be crazy and raise his children and run a good business. He could be a very efficient president.

LL: So you liked him but you're a Libertarian and he's a kind of authoritarian.

MM: I'm not an official Libertarian. I'm a man who basically has an individual, I'd be an Independent. I think ... I'd vote for the man who I thought could do the best job in the case of the debt. The man who could have taken care of this debt and we're still sweeping it under the carpet. You could not sell the geographic United States and pay off the debt. Now everybody's talking about balanced budget. That's like Archie Bunker and Ralph Kramden sitting around a bar saying if we just stop our beer we'd be able to pay the interest on Trump Tower. This is a huge, massive debt and nobody ... it's just not even brought up again.

LL: In fact we're talking more tax cuts, aren't we? But ... Are you for those tax cuts?

MM: The first think I'm in for is dealing with the debt. Asking America to take a hard look, that Ross Perot wanted them to ... Now they don't want any more infomercials so they don't want to hear about the debt. They want to hear about the lies that Bill Clinton says. They don't want to hear about things, they're heads in the sand. That's why I live in Canada. I don't want to sit and watch people put their heads in the sand.

LL: This book suggests that you don't go along with the decision in the O.J. Simpson, you go along with the jury's decision but not the decision of most people...

MM: No, no, no, well, this I wrote before the O.J. Simpson thing ever happened. This is not...

LL: I know you say at the beginning that this is not.

MM: No, no I gave this to uh, "In the fall of 1993 I presented this fable of mine to Charles Adams of Simon & Schuster. On June 12. 1994, Nicole Brown Simpson was found stabbed to death on the lawn of her Beverly Hills home. Is my story prescience and prophecy? Or merely the self-fulfilling voyeurism of an entire nation?" I find it very quite odd, frightening in a way that I chose that theme, interracial marriage and what had happened after that and the obsession America Voyeuristically took of that case. In terms of my story there are very many tales that are not at all like the Simpson marriage, not at all like the death.

LL: You have another theme in here, incest, that is something that has suddenly taken hold in this country in books like The Kiss

MM: And a play that's, I think, off Broadway. It is indeed a very frightening, dark and deeply troubling part of the history of Greek drama is all about incest. Oedipus marries his mother and then blinds himself because of the evil of it. But...

LL: Electra is also another case.

MM: Yes in love with her father, Aggamemnon. So, these themes are constantly run through the human heart. They really are things that exist in all of our voyeurism. Occasionally the playwrights and the authors pick it up. That's one theme in the book that people have to look at.

LL: We'll come back to that theme and the others and whether this book is the beginning of series of J. C. Kaminer mysteries after we take a little break here.... You're listening to radio New York WNYC. I'm Leonard Lopate. My show... my guest is Michael Moriarty. His first novel is The Voyeur it's published by Simon & Schuster ...

music into

LL: We're back with Michael Moriarty and he has two books just out. One published in this country by Simon & Schuster A J. C. Kaminer mystery called The Voyeur and one published only in Canada by a publisher called Exile Editions. And this one is The Gift of Stern Angels. And this book you say can't be published in the US?

MM: Well, I asked Simon & Schuster and Charles Adams said it's just too angry so I don't know how many publishers would say the same thing. I just knew ... I'm very grateful to be published in Canada. And I think it's appropriate to be called Exile Editions.

LL: Why is it so angry? What actually happened in that meeting with Janet Reno?

MM: I would say I, in probably 24 hours, turned from a knee-jerk liberal to a raging individualist. And I'm not a Libertarian. The Libertarian party asked me to kind of run on some of their tickets - I didn't want to be a part of a party.

LL: They asked Howard Stern to run as well.

MM: Yes, and he probably would have done a lot better. Except he didn't want to reveal how much money he makes. Which is interesting, now everybody wants to know how much money he makes. But I just went in the most frightening way from a knee-jerk liberal to everything my father believed in. My father was an Ayn Rand independent man who believed in individual resources and responsibility. And I suddenly felt my father erupting in me. At a speed that was rather staggering.

LL: Because of what you saw on television during the Waco...?

MM: No, because of what I had experienced... well that had been the background, I mean that certainly fed my fuel. Somebody who has 80 deaths for manslaughter on her back, treats me like I'm an accessory to drive-by shootings. It's a very strange thing to experience, that kind of arrogance. And absolute lack of respect. You know, all men are created equal... Particularly if they haven't broken any crimes. To explain the anger, it happened so fast it almost vomited out of me. And I don't take it back. It's a period of my life... I'm trying to deal with my anger and quiet it.

LL: Now there are many different ways of interpreting what happened in Waco. Some people think that the fires were set by the Branch Davidians themselves that they had been warned and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. In the end your response to it, has often, has to do with how you come to the story in the first place.

MM: Yes, but I did see tapes where I firmly believe and so do members of the government that flame-throwing tank down there and you see the flames out of the barrel when they pull it out of the outside... On any level it is a reckless disregard.

LL: So how did you wind up meeting with Janet Reno in any case? After all, a lot of Americans were really upset about what happened but they didn't get a visit to the White House.

MM: Well, you know I was upset and I understood it and I took the governments description of Waco. But then Dick Wolf comes up to me and says "Michael, we'd like for you to go down and meet Janet Reno." And I said "Is this some kind of stupid photo-op, D.A. meets the Attorney General?" And he said, "No, if she gets her way, shows like Law & Order could go off the air." So I said I'd better get down there. And then before I know it, I'm in a meeting with eight CEOs, Janet Reno and her assistant. Which I find out later is why I was there, because her assistant wanted to meet me. And it changed my whole life, blew my career right out of the water but that's part of the irony of God's plan. I know I was sent there to bring this issue up. No legislation had been passed. She simply sat there and blackmailed the CEOs with the threat of unconstitutional legislation. That's what went on in the room. And her attitude began with the following sentence, "I find it hard to believe that anyone in the entertainment industry could shed a tear over anything." And then she said, "I know Murder, She Wrote has no violent images but they talk about nothing but violence." Now that is a pure attack on language not images. Words like murder weapon, and suspect are a threat to the children of America. I don't agree with that.

LL: Is this at all during the time when they were talking about setting up some type of rating system?

MM: This came on the heels of her... she threw the gauntlet down and a torpedo across the front of television ... when she appeared in front of the Commerce Committee on Oct. 18, 1993 and made that threat. All she could say with these studies, which I don't believe, is another issue entirely. The lies in the studies, the psychological studies the effect of television on youth and whatnot. I know why there was violence in America in the 1980s. It has to do with setting up our children in a black market called drugs ... And that's why they had drive-by shootings and that's how the could afford their bomber jackets and their cars. That's the central problem of violence among children in America.

LL: Why violence has gone down to some degree...change in attitudes about drugs. It also has to do with demographics and all sorts of other things.

MM: It also has to do with the police.. If they want things quiet they let the drugs pass...It's very much under the control whether there's a violence out there or not.

LL: There's an irony here. You went down to Washington to defend a show that you have since left.

MM: The irony is that now I know it's not my job. As Howard Stern said when I was on his program, your boss and his boss should have stood up and not endured what went on in that room and they didn't do it. I can't work for a company where my boss and my boss' boss don't know how to stand up and protect them of their own self-respect let alone my own. So it just became inevitable. I couldn't hang around that!

LL: You told the Philadelphia Inquirer, "I consider drama my vocation its not a job, it's a calling and I take my art form very seriously. How dare anyone besmirch it and call it somehow responsible for the disease and outlaws in society." So there's nothing that ever goes too far?

MM: The issue of too far... yes, there are things that go too far. I mean actual murder in front of you? However, here's the other issue they attack the journalist as well. The journalist could no way have covered Vietnam as they did in the 60s if indeed this government got what they wanted. They couldn't show those awful summary executions on the streets of Saigon. They would not be allowed. They are too violent for our children therefore the truth of Vietnam never would have reached the United States of America. We never would have had our souls saved by the youth of America. So if you do it to journalists as well as artists ... to me it's reminiscent of the step a government takes... When a government attacks artists and journalist, watch out.

LL: It's really interesting that an anti-establishment presence like you has portrayed so many military men. In Courage Under Fire you played General Hershberg, in Hanoi Hilton you were Lt. Commander Michael Patrick Willliamson, in Full Fathom Five you were Capt. Peter McKenzie, in the movie of the week on the Korean air liner, you were Maj. Hank Daniels and in Last Detail you played a marine. You've also played a lot of elected officials. Governor of New Jersey in the Lindbergh movie. You played President Eisenhower. It's weird that you play these characters that seem so opposite of yourself. What kind of insight do you think you have in them?

MM: I was raised... I had a great education. I also had a personal experience with a marine major who taught me football - and was my coach. I also had a great deal of experience with the Jesuits. Now there's a highly disciplined little army. I did come out of a great education and I also admire men who are warriors. And I always have but I never knew I would personally become a warrior myself.

LL: And it's also the way you look. You look like a military man, if you want to...

MM: I do now, I didn't...

LL: You're a big, tall guy...

MM: I look more like it now after two and a half years of drinking and smoking and living the life of a warrior and being outspoken so I'm - I have a whole new set of roles now. America, when they see the Canadian product that will come down from up there, they'll be very surprised at the new Michael Moriarty. Courage Under Fire is just a glimpse of the kind of stuff that I'm doing now. I'm grateful.

LL: Are you back to smoking now?

MM: Yes and no. I'm just now back to trying to say no to it. Because I think I did it to get this voice that I have now. I like this voice now. It's very rough and very oozy and very sexy.

LL: Marvin from Manhattan.

Marvin: Michael, Michael I'm very disappointed. You disappeared from the scene and I didn't know where you were. You were one of my favorites. Moriarty was one of my very favorites because being the only Jew in the marine corps going back to W.W.II with a bunch of Irishmen, it was a great pleasure. But what happened to you? Why? To me Michael, it's running away. You're gone out of this country I mean, I could never do it. Never, never in a million years.

MM: But I'm not running away. My movies and my work ... I will still work in the States. My movies and work from Canada will go down there. I have these books... You'll be more in touch with who I am now...I'm on the Internet, I have two fan clubs on the internet, not one. There's an official and an unofficial, there's a home page of me. You've not lost touch. In fact I am more apparent and visible and naked to you now than I was before I met Janet Reno.,/p>

Marvin: Yea, but the simple fact of giving up your citizenship.

MM: No, but I haven't given up my citizenship. I'm seeking a Green Card in Canada. I'm not giving up my citizenship. Listen, I am an American until the day I die.

LL: Thank you for calling us Marvin. I noticed a lot of animal symbolism in this novel The Voyeur. Is this meant to evoke man's more primal nature something not normally associated with psychologist like your hero?

MM: I just find that's where we came from our primal history has been from the animal kingdom. Our nature is very animal and putting together the political stance I have. If you keep children ignorant of their own inner animal nature and their possibility for violence it will take them by surprise.

LL: Can I quote? "Marion Brockman has the disarming élan of an extremely aggressive gazelle. From somewhere within her doe brown eyes and almost fragile features there arises a very pantherlike confidence...." That's not a mixed metaphor! It's more like a mixed menagerie.

MM: Well, it is about the animal response he had to her... He had an affair with her 5 years previous and she drove him wonderfully crazy. On a very animal level, if you know what I mean.

LL: Then there's another one. Here's another one, "It is not forgiveness that I seek. It is the rampant advances of a heated tigress. Sex for me is based on fantasy and there could be nothing more fantastic than the thought of near death ecstasy from assailing an entire sorority house of lustful felines.

MM: [chuckling] Well, now you know where I stand.

LL: A lot of cats.

MM: Yes, and I had fun writing this because it had to do with parts of myself. I learned about myself in this book.

LL: You've also, you've written this with a lot of dialogue. Which I assume comes out of your experience as a playwright and as an actor. What kind of relationship do you think acting has to writing fiction?

MM: I think in the case of this book it had everything to do... I found a voice. I'll do a little of it: [in a slight southern accent] "Allow me to introduce myself: J. C. Kaminer. I have been variously described as a Renaissance man, a jack-of-all-trades and master of none, or a scatterbrain. Now you may determine for yourself which description best fits me. Personally I enjoy states of all three and wouldn't part with one of them since each afford infinite possibilities for adventure. 'The only people who get anyplace interesting,' said Henry David Thoreau, 'are the people who get lost.' Now I have only the barest navigational skills, so, I may have had the most interesting life in all of New York City. So on this island of lost souls, that, as is sometimes said, is sayin' something. However, to avoid any major geographic dislocation, I became a psychiatrist. This enables me to get lost in other people's lives, in the thickest undergrowth of other people's darker forests."

LL: You did that without looking at the book. You've memorized large passages.

MM: Uh, Yes, because indeed I found the voice. I found what I'm looking for. There is a Tennessee Williams to it, a Faulkner to it. There's a southern sense of a lilt and once I found that voice the words come by themselves and I don't have to go hustling for them.

LL: And do you think you'll put this into play form or into film form?

MM: Well, I'd like it in any kind of dramatized form. I think it would be a whale of a murder mystery play. I think it would be whale of a 2 hour movie of the week. But, uh, that remains to be seen.

LL: Another Michael this one from Manhattan is calling. Michael.

Michael: Mr. Moriarty there's something I've been wanting to ask you for years. In the beginning of Who'll Stop the Rain where you're playing John Converse ...

MM: Yes, sir.

Michael: There's a shot where you've just dodged some sort of incoming shell and you're walking toward the camera, holding your 35 mm camera, and this shutter goes through you. It's one of the most amazing, convincing, naturalistic things I've ever seen on film. I wonder if you'd remember how you managed how to do that?

MM: Ironically, I kind of remember that. If you want to see a moment I like... see Hanoi Hilton the best moment I have. And I got a letter from the daughter of a POW about how real and how powerful it was for her. When my character get to Walow Prison, they feed him dirty water with worms in it and little bits of chicken fat. And it's the most revolting thing but he can not do anything but eat it. And he weeps as he pours this awful gruel down his throat. So talking about some of my favorite moments, that was one of them. And about the Who'll Stop the Rain? I just knew it had to be big enough to motivate why I do what I do. Cuz I go...

LL: I guess he's interested in how you have that kind of control of your body.

MM: It's recall. If you memorize the story. And know what it has to do. That shutter has to tell the audience that I'm going off the deep end after this. And then I get myself involved in drugs in a terrible romp, I lose my best friend and I almost lose my wife.

LL: Thank you for calling us Michael. Talking about food, in this book we get an awful lot of berating of waiters. J.C. Kaminer really has problems with waiters. What's the matter with waiters?

MM: Ironically I'm doing things I've never done. I used to be a waiter. I'm the kindest, biggest tipping man because I worked for four years for O'Neal Brothers and I was a waiter myself. And I, in real life respect them... I think J.C. comes into circumstances when the food's not good enough he does take it out on the waiter.

LL: He should take it out on the chef, right?

MM: Yes, he should but if indeed the waiters a snob about food that's not that good? You do tend to take it out on the waiter.

LL: But you still think he's a likable guy, don't ya?

MM: I love J.C. Kaminer and I think the audience will too.

LL: And he's a real New Yorker. There's a lot of debating of the merits of New York's upper east side versus the upper west side.

MM: Yes, the difference is 5th Ave of course. But the east side is French and the west side is Italian. The east side is silk, the west side is tweed and denim.

LL: And I won't tell people whether the Black basketball player murdered his wife.

MM: Please don't do that!

LL: The book is called The Voyeur. It's Michael Moriarty's first published novel.. A J.C. Kaminer mystery which suggests that you plan to do more of these.

MM: Yes, I have one coming up now.

LL: It's published by Simon & Schuster. Thank you so much for stopping by on your way back to Canada.

MM: Thank you, Lenny