Jimmy Webb: From 'Phoenix' To 'Just Across The River'

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Jimmy Webb: From 'Phoenix' To 'Just Across The River'

DAVE DAVIES, host:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Dave Davies, in for Terry Gross.

Jimmy Webb was one of the most prolific and successful songwriters of
the 1960s and '70s. Glen Campbell had big hits with his songs "By the
Time I Get To Phoenix," "Wichita Lineman" and "Galveston." Webb's other
hits include "Didn't We," "Up, Up and Away," "The "Worst That Could
Happen" And "MacArthur Park," which was recorded by Richard Harris, The
Four Tops and Donna Summer to name just a few of the hundreds of
recordings of that tune.

Jimmy Webb has a new album of duets he recorded with some of the artists
he's written for over the years. Here he is with Linda Ronstadt. The
song is "All I Know."

(Soundbite of song, "All I Know")

Mr. TERRY WEBB (Singer) and Ms. LINDA RONSTADT (Singer): (Singing) I
bruise you, you bruise me. We both bruise so easily, too easily to let
it show. I love you, and it's all I know.

All my plans keep falling through. All my plans, they depend on you,
depend on you to help them grow. I love you, and it's all I know.

When the singer's gone let the song go on. It's a fine line between the
darkness and the dawn. They say in the darkest night, there's a light
beyond.

But the ending always comes at last.

DAVIES: Jimmy Webb and Linda Ronstadt from Webb's new album, called
"Just Across The River." Terry spoke to Jimmy Webb in 2004.

TERRY GROSS, host:

Let's talk about one of your best-known songs, and that is "By The Time
I Get To Phoenix." I was reading this is the third-most-performed song
in the last 50 years, according to BMI, who should know.

Wow. How did you write the song?

Mr. WEBB: Well, it's more of a song about something I wish I had done
than something I really did in that I did not get in my car and drive
back to Oklahoma to punish this young woman for not reciprocating my
love and affection.

In fact, a guy approached me one night after a concert, and he had a
map, and he had all the times, and he had a stopwatch, and he showed me
how it was impossible for me to drive from L.A. to Phoenix and then how
far it was to Albuquerque and then - in short, he told me: This song is
impossible.

And so it is. It's a kind of fantasy about something I wish I would have
done, and it sort of takes place in a twilight zone of reality.

May I hasten to add that I think that the appeal of the song lies in its
sort of succinct tale, its beginning, middle and end, and the fact that
it sort of has an O. Henry-esque twist at the end, which consists merely
of the guy saying: She didn't really think that I would go. But he did.
And, in fact, I didn't. I didn't go.

(Soundbite of music)

Mr. WEBB: I stayed for more punishment.

GROSS: Does the woman, or girl – I don't know how old you were – that
you wrote this for know that it was about her?

Mr. WEBB: Oh, yes, she does, and she's still – thankfully, she's very
much alive, and she's actually married into the Ronstadt clan. Her name
is Susan Ronstadt now. And she and I are very, very close friends. And
there were many, many songs that were inspired by her and came about as
a result of our, well, very young relationship.

High school, she was a high school sweetheart. We actually went to
Disneyland together on graduation night. And that picture still exists,
unfortunately. I was wearing the worst sort of plaid sports jacket you
have ever seen in your life.

(Soundbite of music)

GROSS: It sounds like this torch is still dimly burning.

(Soundbite of laughter)

Mr. WEBB: Well, listen. I believe that all torches are inextinguishable
to some degree, no matter human beings say about that subject. And I
just do believe that once that fire is kindled, it lasts forever. You do
love that person forever.

GROSS: Well, I think this would be a good time to hear the Glen Campbell
of "By the Time I Get To Phoenix," written by my guest, Jimmy Webb.

(Soundbite of song, "By the Time I Get To Phoenix")

Mr. GLEN CAMPBELL (Singer): (Singing) By the time I get to Phoenix,
she'll be rising. She'll find the note I left hanging on her door.
She'll laugh when she reads the part that says I'm leaving 'cause I've
left that girl so many times before.

By the time I make Albuquerque, she'll be working. She'll probably stop
at lunch and give me a call. But she'll just hear that phone keep on
ringing off the wall, that's all.

By the time I make Oklahoma, she'll be sleeping...

GROSS: "By The Time I Get To Phoenix" started a short series of place-
songs, you know, "Galveston," "Wichita Lineman." Did you start to think
that if you put a place name in the song, it would hit?

Mr. WEBB: No, it wasn't so much my doing as it was deliberate
manipulation on the part of A&R and the labels in their attempts to
engineer what we called in those days a follow-up record.

But I remember particularly the day that they called me about "Wichita"
and said: Glen's looking for a follow-up for "By The Time I Get To
Phoenix," but it's got to be a place. And I thought, well, okay. I
didn't particularly like that idea. I'm not someone who thinks that way
or creates that way.

But I'm a young songwriter, and I think I've got the chops to do it, and
I sit down, and I spent maybe an hour and 45 minutes or two hours
working on a song. I come up with a concept based on some memories I
have of some blue-collar guys working on telephone lines around Liberal,
Kansas, and the panhandle of Oklahoma, out there in the great kind of
land of no horizon.

And I called them up, and I said I've got a song over here, I said, but
I don't really think it's finished. And they said, well, send it over
anyway. And I sent it over, and they called me back in a state of
exaltation of what I had written. And they put it out, and it became
this huge hit.

And this song has had – people still tell me, and it bothers me a little
bit because when I was writing my book on songwriting, "Tunesmith," I
actually for the first time analyzed some of my songs, and I was really
shocked and appalled at what I found.

And one of the things that I found was that in Wichita linemen, there's
a line that goes like this: And I need you more than want you, and I
want you for all time. And the Wichita lineman is still on the line.

And the first thing I thought of when I read it is false rhyme. That's a
false rhyme.

GROSS: Oh, line and time.

Mr. WEBB: That's biggest, that's the most biggest, awfulest, dumbest,
most obvious false rhyme in history, and night after night, at
performance after performance, person after person comes up to me until
now, I'm talking about 100,000 people have walked up to me and said: You
know, the greatest line you ever wrote, I need you more than want you,
and I want you for all time, you know?

And so, I don't know how to explain that. I wouldn't have - had I known
what I was doing, I wouldn't have written that line. I would have found
a way to make it rhyme. It was only years later that I became aware of
what a songwriter was even supposed to do. I was really just a kid who
was kind of writing from the hip and the heart.

GROSS: Why don't we hear Freedy Johnson's version of that. Are you
familiar with the version?

Mr. WEBB: I've heard it, and I like it.

GROSS: Good, me, too. Let's hear it.

(Soundbite of song, "Wichita Lineman")

Mr. FREEDY JOHNSON (Singer): (Singing) I am a lineman for the county,
and I ride the main road searchin' in the sun for another overload. I
hear you singin' in the wires, I can hear you thru the whine, and the
Wichita lineman is still on the line.

You know, I need a small vacation, but it don't look like rain. And if
it snows, that stretch down South will never take the strain. And I need
you more than want you, and I want you for all time, and the Wichita
lineman is still on the line.

GROSS: Now, you grew up in Oklahoma. Your father was a Baptist minister.
How did the church figure into your daily life and into your musical
life as a child?

Mr. WEBB: It was a totally all-encompassing influence in that when
you're the son of a Southern Baptist minister, you are informed at a
very early age that you are part and parcel of his ministry and that
your behavior reflects on his image in the community and therefore your
every movement, your every word.

Everything that you do is monitored. And that includes the music that
you play, the music that you listen to. And my mother's dream from the
very beginning, when she started me on piano at six years of age, was
that I would be church pianist.

And I was. By the time I was 12 years old, I was playing. I was the
church pianist, and I was - I had also moved over to organ and was a
large part of the musical program in the church.

And we did specials. We sang three-part. My father played guitar. My
mother played accordion. I can just remember the top of my mother's head
sticking over this big Hohner accordion. She was short, and the
accordion was taller than she was.

GROSS: Now, your family moved to Southern California, to San Bernardino,
in 1964. Did your father get a church there?

Mr. WEBB: Yes, he was pasturing in Colton, and I finished my high school
in Colton. I graduated as a senior from Colton High School. It was the
year that JFK was assassinated, and it was also the year that my mother
died. And so it was really quite an eye-opener for me.

And my – it's interesting to note that my mother, after expending these
huge reserves of energy, sort of lashing me into a somewhat formidable
young musician, that she died before I ever did anything.

She never heard me. She never heard one of my songs on the radio. She
never saw me get one award. She never saw one piece of sheet music on
the piano with my name on it.

I have regrets about that because had she lived just a little bit
longer, I think she would have been really proud of me, you know?

GROSS: Sure, sure.

Mr. WEBB: So all of a sudden, I was exposed to The Beach Boys, which was
like – it was like a fish to water. I mean, I loved Southern California.
I loved the lifestyle. I loved The Beach Boys. I loved The Righteous
Brothers. And I just wanted to get into it. I wanted to get into the
record business, stop, you know... get into the record business, stop,
you know...

GROSS: Did your father love you doing that?

Mr. WEBB: No, he didn't and because one of the precepts of the Baptist
Church, Terry, is that we do not believe in dancing. The Southern
Baptist Church does not believe in dancing. In fact, Glen Campbell told
me a story once. He said Jimmy, he says, you know why Baptists don't
make love standing up, don't you? And I said no, how come? And he says
because they're afraid people will think they're dancing.

(Soundbite of laughter)

Mr. WEBB: That's kind of a typical Glen Campbell story. I think it's a
pretty good one.

GROSS: The year your mother died, your father moved back to Oklahoma.
Did he want – you didn't. You stayed in California. Did your father want
you to go with him?

Mr. WEBB: He sure did.

(Soundbite of laughter)

Mr. WEBB: I remember we were standing in San Bernardino, California, in
the parking lot of the Palm Paradise, Paradise Palm Motel. And my dad
had the car parked, and my sisters and my brothers were in the car. And
I was standing there, and I said: Dad, I'm not going.

I said: There's no way in the world that I'm going back to Oklahoma
after coming all this way and being this close to Hollywood. I just have
to try it. I have to try it.

He said son, he said, this songwriting thing, he said it's just going to
break your heart. And P.S., he was right about that more than once, but
he said but – and he dug down in his pocket, and he came up with $40. He
said son, he says this is all I've got, but he says it's yours. And he
gave me 40 bucks, and he got in his caravan, his little trailer-truck
thing, and off he went.

And that was a lonely, very isolated moment in time, standing there in a
parking lot with these neon lights blinking, these kind of electronic
palm trees blinking on and off over my head, going now what have I done?
How am I going to handle this?

GROSS: You started writing hit songs at an interesting time in the
history of radio. You know, we're talking about the latter part of the
1960s. So it's a time when you still have pop music on AM, and you have
the beginnings of, you know, quote, progressive rock on the FM, and...

Mr. WEBB: Underground, we used to call it.

GROSS: Underground, yeah. So your songs were falling a bit on both,
weren't they?

Mr. WEBB: I was very fortunate that way. If it hadn't been for FM,
quote, underground, unquote, radio, "MacArthur Park" would have never
been broken as a single because Top 40 was not going to play "MacArthur
Park."

It was seven minutes and 20 seconds long - parentheses, and "Hey Jude,"
is seven minutes 21 seconds long. I'm sure that's just a coincidence.
But "MacArthur Park" would never have broken on Top 40.

In fact, I remember Ron Jacobs calling me from KHJ in Los Angeles and
saying: We'll go on "MacArthur Park," but you have to edit it for us.
And I just, no, I'm not going to do that. And they said: Well, you
realize what you're doing? I mean, you're throwing away a hit record.

And I said, well, I'm not going to do it. I'm not going to edit it
because that's what it is. And a week later they were on it. And as soon
as stations like KHJ started playing "MacArthur Park" in its entirety,
forget it. It rolled across the country. It was inescapable.

GROSS: "MacArthur Park" and "Stairway to Heaven" are two of the most,
like, baffling lyrics in the history of pop songs.

(Soundbite of laughter)

GROSS: So let's go over the lyric a little bit. You know, MacArthur's
Park is melting in the dark, all the sweet green icing melting down.

Mr. WEBB: Flowing down.

GROSS: Flowing down, excuse me. Someone left the cake out in the rain. I
don't think that I can make it, but it took so long to bake it, and I'll
never have the recipe again.

Mr. WEBB: I don't think that I can take because it took so long to bake
it. Anyway, you can freely substitute. I don't really think it matters
that much.

GROSS: What were you thinking about when you wrote this? What is it?

Mr. WEBB: Well, I was thinking about the end of a love affair, you know,
in very lurid, sort of melodramatic terms because I – this whole love
affair had taken place in and about the environs of MacArthur Park in
Los Angeles, which in those days was this kind of lovely little park
with ducks and things.

Now, it's like – I don't know what it is. I think it's even smaller. I
think they've chopped it down into a smaller piece of real estate. But
there were boats there, and it passed for a romantic place when one was
a teenager.

And so really, I make no defense of the lyrics in "MacArthur Park." They
were written in a hallucinogenic era when actually, such lyrics are
quite common, and most of them need to be defended. It was an era of
that kind of thing.

GROSS: So you're using the psychedelic defense?

Mr. WEBB: Well, it's not even a defense. Again, I stand by "MacArthur
Park." I think that it's completely unique, and it is a very viable
attempt to coalesce rock and classical music and sort of format
something for the radio that has movements, that has a kind of
grandiose, symphonic feeling to it. I'm really not – and I did the
arrangement myself. I won a Grammy for it. So, I mean, I don't think
there's anything to defend really. It was just part of a lot of kind of
careless lyric writing.

GROSS: It's interesting. You know, it does have this kind of like trippy
lyric about the cake melting in the rain and everything. And, you know,
Richard Harris had the hit, and he, you know, I don't think he struck
anybody as being particularly of, you know, like, the groovy psychedelic
era. So it was kind of odd matching in a way.

Mr. WEBB: Well, he thought he was.

(Soundbite of laughter)

GROSS: Judging from – I'm looking at the album jacket of the CD reissue,
and I don't know if this is the same thing that was on the album, but
there's a picture of him in the park. I don't know if it's the park,
wearing, like, a black robe.

Mr. WEBB: Looking very sullen.

GROSS: Yes. He's in this kind of throne with a red headband tied around
his forehead.

Mr. WEBB: Yeah, he saw himself that way, too. He always saw himself on a
throne. In fact, he ended his career playing kings. He played "Caesar,"
and then in Harry Potter, he sort of, he was playing sort of the king of
the magicians. But he was a king, and I – to me, even though I think I
could say without fear of contradiction that this much maligned song,
"MacArthur Park," has been recorded probably 200 or 300 times by
everybody from The Four Tops to Frank Sinatra.

But my favorite version of it is still Richard Harris'.

GROSS: Did he want to ask you anything about the song before he actually
recorded it?

Mr. WEBB: No. You know what he said? He said: I'll have that.

(Soundbite of laughter)

GROSS: He's talking about striped pants in the lyrics, and he says
strip-ed. Did you want him to say strip-ed?

Mr. WEBB: Actually, I can give you something much better than that. The
name of the song is "MacArthur Park." All the way through, he sung
MacArthur's Park:

Mr. WEBB: (Singing) MacArthur's Park is melting in the rain...

Mr. WEBB: He sang MacArthur's Park, and he couldn't be dissuaded from
that. And, you know, I've had artists change my lyrics throughout my
whole career in that way, and sometimes they get something in their
head, and you can't get it out.

GROSS: Well, let's hear Richard Harris' version of your song "MacArthur
Park."

Mr. WEBB: Oh, let's do.

(Soundbite of laughter)

(Soundbite of song, "MacArthur Park")

Mr. RICHARD HARRIS (Actor, Singer): (Singing) Spring was never waiting
for us, girl, it ran one step ahead as we followed in the dance between
the parted pages and were pressed in love's hot, fevered iron Like a
striped pair of pants.

MacArthur's Park is melting in the dark, all the sweet, green icing
flowing down. Someone left the cake out in the rain. I don't think that
I can take it 'cause it took so long to bake it, and I'll never have
that recipe again, oh, no.

I recall the yellow cotton dress foaming like a wave on the ground
around...

GROSS: That's Richard Harris' recording of "MacArthur Park," a song
written by my guest, Jimmy Webb. What did you think when Donna Summer
had her hit disco version of "MacArthur Park"?

Mr. WEBB: Well, first of all, I'm not – I was not a great disco fan, but
I am a great Donna Summer fan, and she's got these great pipes, and she
really sang the song.

It was also, just from a purely financial point of view, it was – and
this is probably one of those asterisk quotes at the bottom of my career
somewhere – it was the only number one record I've ever had in the
United States.

GROSS: Really?

Mr. WEBB: And I remember – yes because everything else, you know,
through my heyday, I was battling The Beatles, and The Beatles quite
often held down the top three spots, sometimes the top five.

"MacArthur Park" was kept out of number one by a Beatles record. I don't
remember which one it was, but they just sat there. They just sat there
for 16 weeks and kept us out of number one. So "MacArthur Park" was
never higher than two with a bullet, with Richard Harris.

And a lot of those records were stuck either in the top 10 or the low
teens or the high teens because The Beatles held down so many slots. And
here it was, finally my first number one record.

GROSS: Do you see yourself as straddling different eras, you know, of
having, like one foot in the rock era and one foot in the popular song
era?

Mr. WEBB: Oh, I think it's inescapable. I think it's absolutely true,
and in many ways, I've been fortunate because of that because I've had a
breadth of experience, and the artists that I was conversant with, and
the fact that Johnny Mercer would call me up and ask me if I was
interested in writing a song with him is quite incredible when you place
it alongside, for instance, the fact that Lowell George, who founded
Little Feat, recorded one of my songs on his solo album and that I
played piano on "Jump Into the Fire" on "Nilsson Schmilsson" and that I
– that my first song was recorded by The Supremes. It was a Christmas
song called "My Christmas Tree."

And so I've been almost extraordinarily fortunate to have been able to
live in those two worlds and to intimately embrace those two worlds, to
have been at the recording session in London when The Beatles recorded
"Honey Pie," to have been sitting there watching them play.

So it is – it's really – if variety is the spice of life, then, you
know, my life has been well-seasoned.

GROSS: Jimmy Webb, I want to thank you so much for talking with us.

Mr. WEBB: It's been a long-time dream of mine to talk to you, Terry.

(Soundbite of laughter)

Mr. WEBB: I'm honored to hear you say that. Thank you.

(Soundbite of song, "MacArthur Park")

Ms. DONNA SUMMER (Singer): (Singing) MacArthur's Park is melting in the
dark, all the sweet, green icing flowing down. Someone left the cake out
in the rain. I don't think that I can take it 'cause it took so long to
bake it, and I'll never have that recipe again, oh, no.

DAVIES: That's Donna Summer's 1978 recording of Jimmy Webb's song
"MacArthur Park." It was her first number one single. Jimmy Webb spoke
with Terry Gross in 2004. He has a new album of duets he's recorded with
some of the artists he's written for over the years. It's called "Just
Across the River." You can hear three tracks from his new CD at our
website, freshair.npr.org.
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Jared Harris: A Chameleon-Like Actor Reflects

TERRY GROSS, host:

When the TV series "Mad Men" drew to a close last season, there were big
changes in store for the agency Sterling Cooper. The most powerful
people at the agency: Don Draper, Roger Sterling and Bert Cooper had
hatched a plan to break away from their British parent company to start
their own firm. They sought help from British executive Lane Pryce, the
only person with the authority to sever their contracts.

Here’s a scene from the last episode of last season. Pryce is with
Draper, Sterling and Cooper going over there plan.

(Soundbite of TV series, "Mad Men")

Mr. JARED HARRIS (Actor): (as Lane Pryce) If I were to send a Telex at
noon today that you're all being sacked, it's after close of business in
London. It would remain unnoticed until Monday morning there, 2 A.M.
here. That gives us today and the weekend to first gather accounts and
then a skeleton staff to service them. And, of course, we would have to
obtain all the materials required for continuity of service.

Mr. JON HAMM (as Don Draper) Obtain? We have to steal everything.

Mr. HARRIS: (as Lane Pryce) Anyone approached most be of certainty. If
news spreads, they’ll lock us out.

Mr. HAMM (as Don Draper) Do we vote or something?

Mr. HARRIS: (as Lane Pryce) Well, gentlemen, I suppose you’re fired.

Mr. JOHN SLATTERY (Actor): (as Roger Sterling) Well, it’s official.
Friday, December 13, 1963, four guys shot their own legs off.

DAVIES: The British executive Lane Pryce, who helps mastermind the
break-away, is played by Jared Harris. He's the son of the late Richard
Harris who, in between his roles playing kings and aristocrats, had the
1968 hit of Jimmy Webb's "MacArthur Park." And Jared Harris' stepfather
was Rex Harrison.

Before being cast in "Mad Men," Jared Harris' film roles included "I
Shot Andy Warhol," "Happiness" and "The Other Boleyn Girl." And he had a
recurring role in the FX series "The Riches."

Terry Spoke to Harrison in 2001.

Since we’ve been on the topic of "MacArthur Park," let's begin our
interview excerpt there.

GROSS: What did you think of the record when it came out and what was
happening in your life that year - 1968?

Mr. JARED HARRIS (Actor): I was enduring my first year in prisoner war
camp. It was a private school called Lady Cross.

GROSS: It was like a high school?

Mr. HARRIS: Yeah, it was a boarding school.

GROSS: So everybody in the school most have known this. Did this help or
hurt your reputation?

Mr. HARRIS: Did they know? I don’t - I remember seeing him on top of the
pops singing "My Boy," but not that one.

GROSS: Wow. I guess it wasn’t that big in England, huh?

Mr. HARRIS: No he was. But he wasn’t - you know, I was at a boarding
school, you know, you didn’t have radios.

GROSS: Right.

Mr. HARRIS: You weren't allowed to watch television. And you didn’t have
access to, you know, where would you hear it? You didn’t have little
record players or CD's or anything like that.

GROSS: Well, when you saw your father and your stepfather acting, was it
acting or the actor's life that you found appealing?

Mr. HARRIS: I wasn’t aware of my dad being an actor when I was young. I
remember there was an Australian children entertainer on television
called Ralph Harris and when I'd say my father was an actor, kids would
say, you know, oh, is he Ralph Harris? And I had to say no and then they
would lose interest, so I was disappointed he wasn’t Ralph Harris for a
long time. But I wasn’t aware of him as an actor.

I think obviously, I had the benefit of both his success and my
stepfather's success and being privileged to go and see a lot of the
world when I was very young, you know. So that rubbed off - a taste for
that rubbed off definitely.

GROSS: What were the Richard Harris and Rex Harrison movies that made
the biggest impressions on you when you were young?

Mr. HARRIS: I remember seeing "Camelot." I do remember seeing "Camelot"
and a film called "The Snow Goose."

GROSS: Mm-hmm.

Mr. HARRIS: Oh. I think those were the first films he made that kids
could go and see. My father mostly was in mature themed movies. And Rex,
I remember seeing him in "Cleopatra." He played Caesar opposite
Elizabeth Taylor.

GROSS: That must have been fun.

Mr. HARRIS: Yeah. I love - "Cleopatra" is great from all his battles and
everything.

GROSS: When you started acting, did you feel that there was anything you
had to live up to from your father and stepfather's reputation, or that
you would be compared to them in any way?

Mr. HARRIS: Well, I've obviously compared myself. I - it was important
to me to establish myself on my own terms. I had opportunities to act
with him very early on. In the movie "The Field," they had trouble
finding somebody, and I was talking to the director about playing his
son in "The Field." And he was leery of it and so was I. And it was
important to me for me to be established and recognized on my own right
before I went and, you know, I guess went down that route, you know,
tried to coattail, you know,? I didn’t want to do that. Otherwise, you
know, I wanted to fail on my own terms.

If I was - you don’t know if you’ve got - everyone - everybody has to
think that they’ve got something special to get into this because the
chances of succeeding are so slim. But if I was going to - if I had
nothing special and I was going to fail, then, you know, I wanted to do
it on my own terms and rather than sort of be fooled, you know.

GROSS: Is there anything that you’d seen in your father or stepfather's
careers that either influenced you or convinced you to do it
differently?

Mr. HARRIS: Well, Rex Harrison had and my father still has incredibly
successful varied careers. So I'd be thrilled if I could get mine up to
that kind of a level. I think the lesson that I remind myself is, is not
giving up. You know, they didn’t want Rex Harrison to play the part of
Henry Higgins in "My Fair Lady," when they were going to make the movie.
They didn’t want him for it. And he played it on Broadway and he played
it in the West End. But he wasn’t a movie star and so they were going to
get somebody else and they, of course, were campaigning for him to play
this part. And so, they demanded that he audition for it and send a
photograph of himself in, you know. And they were trying to, you know,
they put him from some very humiliating, or attempted to put him through
humiliating hoops to get this part. And he sent a photo of himself
straddling over one of those little, you know, boys that piss into a
fountain, you know?

(Soundbite of laughter)

And he sent that in as his picture.

And then similarly, they didn’t want my father for the role in "Camelot"
either, to play King Arthur. They wanted Richard Burton. And when he
turned it down they were going elsewhere and he had to - he campaigned
like hell to get that part. I mean even to the point of tracking down
Jack Warner in some party out in Palm Springs to convince him to give
him a shot at this role, you know? So those are the things that I
remember.

When you see something that you know you’re right for, go after it and,
you know, not to give up while you still have that - the desire and the
ambition.

GROSS: The movie that I think you first became really known for was "I
Shot Andy Warhol" in 1996. And this movie is about Valerie Solanis who
wrote the "SCUM Manifesto" and actually shot Andy Warhol, seriously
wounding him and nearly killing him.

Lilly Taylor played Valerie Solanis. You played Andy Warhol. How did you
get the part?

Mr. HARRIS: I auditioned. You know, I knew it was a part that they would
cast an English speaking actor - I mean an English actor for. Generally,
when your over here, if you’re English, you to tend to get the parts
that - well, this sounds a bit silly, not that nobody wants but, you
know, you get the kind of odd parts, the character parts or the sort of
the, the kind of, the villain parts. So I knew this was an American
role, which was an important thing for a foreign actor working in this
country to get is to try and get your first American roles, you know?

So, I was all gung-ho to try and land this part and played some little
mind games to get it.

GROSS: What did you do for the audition?

Mr. HARRIS: You know, I went in and met them first and I had a beard and
everything and I deliberately tried to look as unlike the guy as I could
and then said I'd like to come in, but don’t ask me to come back here in
two days time or three days time. I said, you know, give me two weeks or
three weeks to really focus on this and try and get it right and you'll
have an idea of how close I can get. And if you’ve got any material and
tapes and stuff like that, you know, I've loved to get that because
it'll, you know, it'll give me a, cut short my that process. So, which
is what I did.

I studied for a couple of weeks and I came into the audition and I
thought I'd be too weird if I sat down talking as I do now and suddenly
put on this persona. So I went in and did the whole thing as Andy.

And then I thought, well, he would do something to try and flip the
tables on these people because he didn’t like to be put on - he liked to
be in the spotlight but not having it pointing at him. He kind of - he
liked to be pointing the spotlight. So I tried to figure out how to turn
the tables. And I got a hold of a little video camera and made a movie
of them auditioning me.

(Soundbite of laughter)

GROSS: Now, you play Andy Warhol as if he's pretty disconnected from his
body, and almost as if his body doesn’t have much weight or energy.

Mr. HARRIS: I thought that's true looking at the photos of him and
seeing him move around. I think he'd become pretty disappointed in his
sexual experiences and I think he hated the way he looked and he hate
his body. He didn’t like the way it looked. As before he got shot, he's
deteriorated greatly after he got shot.

And I also noticed that in all of his pictures he always covered up his
crotch.

GROSS: Huh.

Mr. HARRIS: And he always in the way he stands, he always sort of
covering it up and shielding himself.

GROSS: So what does that mean to you?

Mr. HARRIS: I don’t - well, I think that, and I think that he was
uncomfortable and was disappointed in the act of sex and was in some way
disappointed in his physical being, you know?

GROSS: Now, I think of you as being a real chameleon in some of your
movies, and I think it's great for you as an actor. I think the only
problem would be that people don’t necessarily recognize you from role
to role and therefore, it might be a little harder to build up a
reputation for being Jared Harris.

Mr. HARRIS: Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding...

(Soundbite of laughter)

GROSS: That's been a problem?

Mr. HARRIS: Absolutely. Good for the craft. Crap for the career.

(Soundbite of laughter)

Mr. HARRIS: It is. In this country a good actor is confused with a
famous actor.

GROSS: Right.

Mr. HARRIS: You know, so yeah, that is, that's made it a longer journey.

GROSS: Jared Harris, I want to thank you so much for talking with us.

Mr. HARRIS: Is that the end?

GROSS: Yes, it is.

(Soundbite of laughter)

Mr. HARRIS: Is it? Oh, I've enjoyed it. Time just flew by.

DAVIES: Jared Harris, speaking to Terry Gross recorded in 2001. Harris
plays the British ad executive Lane Pryce in the AMC series "Mad Men."
Its fourth season begins Sunday.

You can join us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter on nprfreshair. And
you can download podcast of our show at freshair.npr.org.

(Soundbite of music)

We're closing with Dutch saxophonist and bandleader Willem Breuker, who
has died at the age of 65. For years, he led the Willem Breuker
Collective. This was recorded in 1987.

For Terry Gross, I'm Dave Davies.
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