The Importance of Being Ernest Read online

  Looking back, Mary Polites (nee Ford) says that he probably had more potential as a character actor than anyone she had ever seen. Yet she wasn’t sure if it would come to fruition. “I knew he had the talent, but not the discipline,” she says. Jim often missed rehearsals and sometimes argued with her about his blocking – the positioning and movement of actors onstage.

  Jack Pattie, a well-known Lexington radio personality today, was a few years younger than Jim when the two acted together in Children’s Theatre. This was around the time Jim was entering his teenage years and becoming what Pattie describes as “edgy” for the times. Jim enjoyed sneaking up to the third floor of the Carriage House to smoke cigarettes. One time, he tried to teach Pattie how to French inhale.

  Despite Jim’s popularity in Children’s Theatre, Pattie says he never noticed an ounce of ego. Jim was usually the center of attention, onstage and off. During rehearsal breaks, he often entertained the other children with his impressions and tricks. Jim was amused at Pattie’s rendition of a Cinderella spoof called “Rindercella” that Pattie had memorized. The spoof, known as a spoonerism, exchanged many letters in the words of the story for comedic effect. (Actor/comedian Archie Campbell performed a memorable rendition of it years later on “Hee Haw” during one his popular barbershop sketches.) It always made Pattie feel cool when Jim would be in the middle of entertaining a small group and would call Pattie over to recite it.

  By the time Jim was 10 years old, his family had moved out of Bluegrass Park and into the suburbs. Even though the neighboring families were more spread out, Jim was still able to make new friends. Next door lived a family with a house full of boys. Jim was a few years older than the youngest son and was constantly amazed by the bad language the kid seemed to get away with using. Jim enjoyed riding bikes and playing baseball with the boys next door. During one of their many baseball games, Jim chased after a pop fly. As he reached up for the catch, he missed and the ball smashed into his top lip. He knew it wasn’t good when he felt something crack. His lip swelled with blood, filling the spaces between his teeth. Jim ran home holding his bleeding mouth. The dentist’s X-rays showed that Jim had fractured one of his front teeth and another one right next to it. The dentist pulled both and inserted a small plate with two teeth attached to fit into the roof of Jim’s mouth. Louise feared that it might affect his smile as he grew older.

  Eventually, Jim got used to the plate. It never affected his speech, and few people ever noticed it. Once Jim became an adult, he had a permanent bridge made. It was only noticeable in close-ups and bright light. As a kid, it was a relatively minor setback compared to how he would come to feel about his looks as an adult and how they might limit his potential as an actor.

  Even at a young age, Jim had his sights set on performing. He had become well aware of Hollywood and Broadway from browsing newspapers and magazines at the library. He lived near a street called Hollywood Drive, and the neighborhood itself was called Hollywood. Jim often saw the city bus drive down his street with “HOLLYWOOD” listed as its destination. Young Jim knew that movie stars lived in Hollywood and asked Jake one time if she could take him on the bus to see them.

  Another source of entertainment for Jim during this time came from the Baptist church he attended with sister Sandy. When the family was living in Bluegrass Park they all attended a nearby Christian Church. After the family moved away, the drive to the church became too long, and they stopped attending. Soon after moving into their new home, Jim and Sandy would catch a bus on Sundays to attend a nearby Baptist church. The pastor there was charismatic, and often Jim would get more caught up in his delivery than the message.

  With his growing love of acting it was no surprise that Halloween became one of Jim’s favorite holidays. The Varney kids all enjoyed creating their own unique costumes for trick-or-treating. Through the years Jim dressed up as everything from a cowboy to a clown. Sandy remembers him fooling other kids by dressing up and talking like an old lady, hunched over and wearing a hat as he passed out candy from their door.

  CHAPTER FIVE: ANNE, HER MOTHER AND THE FINER THINGS

  When Jim was around 13, he met a girl who would become one of his first girlfriends and eventually, a lifelong friend. One day, Jim and a buddy were running down the street from the bus stop to rehearsal at Children’s Theatre in the pouring rain. Anne Lambert’s big house was just around the corner. From her porch she saw the two boys running, and she yelled for them to come up to dry off. They told her where they were headed, and she mentioned that her mother had been an actress in New York. All of a sudden, the friendly girl about their age became a lot more interesting to the boys.

  After Lambert introduced Jim to her mother, Jane, he became captivated with stories of her acting career. He began spending more and more time at the Lambert house. Anne Lambert remembers Jim being much more interested in her mother than her at first. Along with stories about working in the theater, Jane Lambert also taught Jim such manners as dining etiquette. Jake believes that she saw Jim was a “diamond in the rough” who needed polishing.

  Anne Lambert and Jim dated for a short time in high school. They loved going to the movies. Lambert recalls seeing “Becket,” starring Peter O’ Toole and Richard Burton, with Jim in the spring of 1964. To Lambert’s amazement, after the movie, Jim gave dead-on impersonations of the two leading men. The movie became one of his all-time favorites.

  Jim also loved to watch Sean Connery in the five Bond films released from the time Jim was 13 to 18. Jim was impressed with how refined Connery was as Bond, as well how he used his good looks and suave demeanor to attract the most beautiful girls. Bond girls may have been out of Jim’s reach, but he discovered that a Rolex similar to Bond’s was not as elusive. The most affordable Rolex he could find was $125, a lot of money at that time and especially for a teenager. He made a deal with a local jeweler to buy it on a payment plan. Jim asked the jeweler to engrave “007” on the back. He wore that watch for years. As an adult, whenever he gave someone a watch (which was often) it was usually a Rolex.

  In addition, Jim admired a lesser-known actor to American audiences: France’s Jean-Paul Belmondo. In contrast to Connery, Jim probably identified more with Belmondo’s unconventional good looks. If there was one real negative about Jim’s love of acting during his teenage years it was that he became more and more critical of his appearance. Compared to his favorite actors such as Connery and O’Toole, Jim’s large nose and wide mouth were just not up to par. And physically, he had the skinnier build of his mother, not the boxer’s frame of his father. He was already thinking about how his looks would affect the types of roles he would be offered as an adult. Even though Jim desperately wanted to be the hero who got the girl, he thought he would probably be cast as the villain. He seemed resigned to the fact that he would be limited to the small screen, playing in series such as “Playhouse 90” and the “Hallmark Hall Of Fame.”

  Jim’s preoccupation with his looks worsened as he entered puberty and, like many kids, endured his share of acne. Mary Warner Ford tried to tell him that a character actor such as himself would never need to worry about having movie-idol looks. She thought he was handsome enough in his own right, although Jim never saw that when comparing himself to others.

  Jake once asked Jim a riddle where a person must decide if they would rather have beauty, wealth or fame. By choosing one, you could never attain the others. Jim didn’t hesitate for a second. Beauty, he replied. With that choice, Jake reminded him that he would never be rich or famous. Jim said he didn’t care. But then he added that there should be another choice. Jim said that if love was one of the options he would choose that. Jake thought it was an unusual response for a 14-year-old.

  Jim spent a fair amount of free time by himself in his early to mid-teens. Since his mother never learned to drive and his father was at work, he would either walk or ride the bus. One place he loved to frequent was a cigar store downtown on Main Street. He would buy magazines, cigarettes and the o
ccasional cigar or pipe. Jim began smoking Marlboros around 13. He called them “Marley-barleys.” Occasionally he bought Benson & Hedges, perhaps because they were considered more of an upscale brand.

  Jim couldn’t afford many of the things he wanted as a teenager. But when he did save up the cash, he enjoyed spending it on items that gave him a taste of how the upper class lived, such as gourmet cheeses, chocolates and English toffee. He liked to talk about his knowledge of these finer things, such as how the English referred to gumdrops as wine gums. Not even a simple candy treat was beyond the reach of his historical knowledge.

  As far as clothing, Jim loved the feel of cashmere. Although he couldn’t afford a cashmere coat, he did find a way to scrape up enough money for a scarf. He always said that he had “expensive feet,” because cheap shoes were often painful for him to wear. He loved anything made of leather and enjoyed wearing soft leather loafers and boots.

  Jim’s interest in jewelry and knives continued to grow in his teenage years. He kept a cigar box in his bedroom full of all types of jewelry and trinkets that he had collected and received as gifts. He loved to go through the box, almost as if he was studying some of the pieces for the first time. He would read up on their characteristics until he could talk at length about each one. For example, he would tell you about how one of his railroad wristwatches had a lever to set the time. As an adult, Jim created what he called a “curiosity table” at his home in Tennessee. The big round oak table in his den was covered with dozens of items such as old coins, telescopes, gears, knives and so on. He invited anyone visiting to inspect the items, and he would explain what made them unique.

  Jim loved giving jewelry as a gift almost as much as he did buying it for himself. Starting as a teenager, he would give almost every female he knew a watch, and the present always included a lesson on how to operate and care for it. He found many vintage watches in pawnshops and secondhand stores. When he found an old watch that caught his eye he would bring it home, polish it up and buy a new band for it. He loved bringing to life a piece whose value he felt someone else had overlooked.

  As an adult, Jim had jeweler’s loupes (magnifiers) attached to a pair of glasses. A pronounced crease would appear between Jim’s eyes when he inspected something. His intense curiosity would almost convince you he was a visitor from another planet. He would marvel for hours at the workmanship of Swiss watches and the detail in hand-etched coins. He didn’t collect something for its value as much as he did out of admiration for the craftspeople who had made it. He could spend hours cleaning and polishing pieces in his collection. It was a calming pastime.

  Beginning as a teenager, Jim enjoyed wearing a variety of pieces of jewelry, including a signet ring given to him by his father. For most of his adult life there were about six pieces he consistently wore: a small loop earring, a silver chain bracelet, a Celtic cross necklace, numerous rings (one of which displayed the thespian masks) and his stainless-steel Rolex. Some of these pieces were even visible when he was dressed as Ernest. His jewelry represented his many interests while reflecting the diversity of his personality.

  CHAPTER SIX: THE VARNEY PARKERS

  One particular photograph of Jim and his father has always been a family favorite. In it, Jim is about 15. He leans back against a car while standing next to his father in a parking lot. They both wear hats with the word “PARKING” inscribed across the front.

  To bring in more income, James Sr. formed a small business parking cars that the family affectionately referred to as “The Varney Parkers.” Along with Jim and his father, the “Parkers” usually consisted of Jim’s cousins Ed, Win and Jack McChord, as well as many of their friends, including some of Jack’s college buddies.

  Starting the little business seemed like a logical choice to James Sr. after working as a parking attendant at Keeneland during the racing season. He had business cards printed up and started handing them out. When someone called, he would decide how many men he would need for the job and then figure $5 per man. Wedding receptions brought in their biggest business. In addition to tips, delicious leftovers often came with the job.

  When Jim started working with the guys he was too young to drive so he would direct parkers into their spots. During the event the men hung out by the cars, cracking jokes and listening to James Sr. tell stories. Of course Jack, Win and Ed respected their uncle immensely and in many ways saw him as larger than life. His stories never failed to captivate them, whether they were about his boxing exploits or tales of the gigantic pythons he had encountered in the Philippines. Ed would later recall a particularly memorable story where, as a teenager working in the mines, his Uncle Jim had gotten into an argument with another teenage boy. The boy left and soon returned with his father. The story goes that James Sr. ended up whipping them both. Despite his humble beginnings as a teenage coal miner with a ninth-grade education, Jim’s father demonstrated to the young men that in life, anything was possible.

  CHAPTER SEVEN: HIGH SCHOOL YEARS

  By the time Jim entered Lafayette High School, he had been acting for almost eight years. From home movies to Children’s Theatre, Jim was ready to take his acting to the next level. Soon he’d leave an indelible mark on Lafayette, a big school where it was easy to get lost in the crowd.

  Jim immediately began taking advantage of the Speech and Drama courses. This is where he met drama teacher Thelma Beeler. Her association with Jim would ultimately help cement her status as one of the top drama teachers in Kentucky. Her long tenure and passion for teaching eventually led to Lafayette’s auditorium being named in her honor in 1976.

  Beeler spotted something unique in Jim immediately. Perhaps sensing his need for extra guidance, she seemed to take on a motherly role in his life. Jim’s other teachers were not as impressed as they grew increasingly frustrated at his lack of enthusiasm and attendance. Beeler occasionally stepped in to make sure he was keeping his grades up enough to stay on the drama team. One such episode involved an incomplete English assignment that threatened to prevent Jim from competing in a district drama competition. Beeler arranged for Jim to make up the assignment after school. She remembered years later, “Jim wrote a better paper than many of the students who had been working on it for three weeks.” A few times when Jim had to stay after school to finish an assignment, Beeler brought him home. Jim later recalled, “She hung in there with me, and we won drama awards left and right.”

  The summer following Jim’s junior year provided an important opportunity. It was July 1966. The University of Kentucky’s Centennial Players’ Summer Theatre was preparing for “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” The project involved hiring professional actors to work with college and high school ones. The plays were held at the Guignol Theatre on the university’s campus. The college actor set to play the part of Puck dropped out just weeks before the performance after accepting a professorship elsewhere. The play’s director went through all his contacts and eventually took a chance on Jim on the word of Mary Warner Ford at Children’s Theatre. Ironically, Ford had been unsuccessful at convincing Jim to play the part of Puck in a Lexington Children’s Theatre performance of “Dream” not long before the second opportunity arose.

  It was Jim’s most difficult role to date. He spent weeks at the university rehearsing and memorizing his lines. He later confessed, “I had to just about live with a script in my hands.” He came home late with green makeup still visible behind his ears and around his eyes. He didn’t say too much about the play to the family, only that they should all come see it.

  One of the professional actors in the play who was just beginning what would become a brilliant career as a character actor was 31-year-old M. Emmet Walsh. Walsh has long been entertaining audiences with diverse character roles such as Dr. Joseph Dolan (Dr. Jellyfinger) in “Fletch” and the corrupt Detective Visser in “Blood Simple.”

  “Dream” became one of Centennial’s most impressive productions of the summer. Critic Mary Agnes Barnes of the Lexington Herald-Leader
wrote of the opening-night performance, “The audience responded very warmly.” In what may have been a foreshadowing of Jim’s career, she noted, “This production relies heavily on slapstick.” But it was clear that Jim had opening-night jitters. When Barnes singled out individual performances, she observed, “Jim Varney, as Puck, talked much too fast.”

  But when Jim’s parents attended the performance, they couldn’t help but overhear the compliments whispered about Jim in the audience. Jim’s father had once imagined himself hearing admiring comments while watching Jim play football or basketball. So seeing Jim excel onstage had to be gratifying. At 17, Jim could now claim his first professional acting experience.

  In addition to Jim’s young age, something else had the crowd gossiping – Jim’s clothing, or lack of it. With his entire body covered in green paint, the small loincloth of the same color he wore made him appear nearly nude when the lighting was turned down. He later joked, “I was the most nude actor they’d ever had in Lexington.”

  Jim’s thirst for performing now became so great that he began to experiment beyond the stage. In local college hangouts, such as the Nexus coffeehouse, he stepped up to the microphone and introduced many of the comical characters he had created. He told jokes and entertaining stories about his grandmother’s Ford Mustang and a character named the Orange Kool-Aid Kid. He also performed impressions of famous actors such as Richard Burton and John Wayne. Much of this material he used again to win one of his high-school talent shows.