Ernie:. Ernest Borgnine
make some of the foods he had known in the Old Country.
Anyway, my father moved back to Connecticut and went back into making bricks. From there he matriculated to working on the railroad.
While the Borgninos were busy becoming Americans, my mother made a similar journey. She came from a little town called Carpi, just outside of Modena, Italy, with her sister. They came to a place called Centerville, which—as the name suggests—is the “center,” in this case of a little town called Hamden, Connecticut. They didn’t have very many motion pictures in those days, but they had dances. Everyone went, and that’s where my father met my mother. They married a few months later and he moved in with her in Hamden.
A little over a year later, on January 24, 1917, I was born. I know I made two people happy. One was my sainted mother who, of course, didn’t have to carry me anymore. I was a pretty big boy—no surprise there, about nine pounds. Even when I was on the outside of my mother, the poor lady had a rough time carrying me around. I don’t think it would’ve helped if they had those slings that moms have today. I’d have tipped her over like a bear cub stuck in a tree.
My father was happy, too, of course, though he was torn: my arrival kept him from enlisting to fight in World War I. But he had a new family to support and that’s what mattered to him most. I was touched and surprised when, years later, he confided to me, that not being able to serve is one of his few regrets.
“I wish to goodness I’d gone just to be able to know what it was all about.”
Dad was like that. Patriotic to the bone over his new homeland, and able to embrace and grow from all experiences, even negative ones. That outlook also kept me going during the lean years.
Unfortunately, Dad was also the kind of a person who was easily enticed to roll the dice with the men and have a drink or two. Two years after I was born my mother got tired of not having enough money due to his drinking and gambling, so she packed me up and we took a train ride to Chicago. We didn’t have the money for a Pullman sleeper, so we sat—and slept—in our seats for nearly two days.
The choice of Chicago was not as random as it seemed. First, it was far from the wagging tongues of Connecticut. Divorce was frowned on, and my mother didn’t want to hear any of that. Second, I was suffering from mastoiditis, an inflammation of the ears that caused me a lot of pain and kept filling with—and leaking—fluids that made it tough for me to hear. She knew someone who knew someone who knew a doctor who was a specialist.
This doctor told her to immerse me in a bathtub filled with water as cold as she could make it, which meant a layer of ice cubes. Then she was supposed to drain the tub and put me in very hot water. So with pans and kettles whistling, I’d be frozen, then boiled. It didn’t drain my ears, but it did crack the tub. I had the illness until I was about eighteen. To this day, I can’t bear to be in water that is anything other than “warm.” On the other hand, I had a lot of “damn cold” memories to draw on when I made Ice Station Zebra.
After a few months in Chicago, my mother took me to Italy to live. Her father was the well-to-do Count Boselli, who used to be the financial adviser to Victor Emmanuel, the King of Italy. I remember my grandfather’s farm. He had a big baronial estate. It even had its own church. I loved working on the farm with the farmers and riding the oxen they called “Bo.”
In the fall they slaughtered the pigs, which consisted of hitting them on the head and cutting their throats. It was actually quite merciful. They’d always take the bladder of one, blow it up, and make a kind of football out of it. We played some bruising games with those bladders, enjoying the kind of camaraderie you just don’t find outside a rustic village. Today, people have much less interaction. It’s a shame. I learned a lot about life from those farmers, especially the idea that if you work together, without ego—whatever you’re doing—the end result is a lot richer. Not surprisingly, the movies I made that turned out best had that kind of mutual support on the set.
It was enchanting in Italy except for going to religious schools. Nuns can be awfully nice people, but they’re not all Julie Andrews. They’re strict. Some of them were just plain mean. I sure caught my share of their discipline. I used to go home with my hands swollen from being beaten. My mother would ask me, “Why are you such a bad boy?”
I’d say, “I’m not bad. But if I ask a question too loud or at the wrong time or drop a book, they come along and swat me.”
“Just remember,” she said, not wanting to criticize the nuns, “God knows the truth.”
I was okay with that. When I face Saint Peter, I’m betting he’ll wink and let me pass.
Naturally, we went to our little church on the estate every Sunday. With my mother there, I felt safe from the nuns. After Mass, while we were waiting for Sunday dinner to be prepared, my uncle used to take me on the barge that went across the river. Despite my fear of the cold water, I enjoyed those trips. It’s funny, now, to think about how I had ridden almost all the forms of transportation known to man at the time. I’d been on a boat, a train, an early motorcar, a horse, and an ox. All I was missing was a trip on a biplane, which would occasionally pass overhead to our great excitement. Back then, you could actually get your arms around much of what the world had to offer.
Talking about change, I went back there recently and saw the river I used to cross. They have a bridge there now. You can cross quickly and easily by foot or car. It’s faster, but not necessarily better.
I loved watching my grandfather go to work in the morning. He had his own carriage and horse and he was driven by a coachman. He would sit in the backseat with his long cutaway coat, his top hat, cane, and even spats. Everybody bowed to him as he passed, and he bowed back
“Buon giorno, buon giorno, how are you, how are you?” he would reply with a gracious wave of his hand.
My grandfather died before Mussolini took over and the king became nothing but a figurehead. The new regime’s changes trickled down to our family as well. Except for the farmhands, all the people that used to respect him, and us, were now rude and impatient whenever we went to town.
“Come on, get out of the way, you’re bothering us,” they’d say as they tried to ride their horses or carts past our carriage. And the indignities didn’t stop there. The local government took my family’s land and most of their possessions. My mother and grandmother ended up in the little town of Carpi. My mother had a little coffee shop and sold drinks on the side to customers who had hangovers.
To me, though, the move was a new adventure. I missed the farm and the farmhands, but now I had all of Carpi as my backyard along with kids my own age. I remember as a boy I used to go to the coffee shop and stuff candy in my clothes. Then I would hide underneath my grandmother’s big bed. Looking out, I’d see my mother and my grandmother walk into the room. Knowing exactly where I was, they’d say to each other, “I wonder where that little bad boy went,” and there I’d be eating candy and thinking I’d fooled them—again and again. I’d finally pop out from underneath. My grandmother always laughed and hugged me. You would never guess, from her quick smile and gentle eyes, how much she had lost to the new regime.
She died when I was about six years old. She had a huge funeral. People didn’t come to the funeral because she was nobility and they felt obligated. They came because she was a great lady who had earned the love and respect of her community.
Chapter 3
Back Home
All the time we were in Italy my father had been writing to my mother. “Please come home, please come home,” he’d write at least once a week. He even sent a record for the Victrola with lyrics that went, “My son, my son, my boy, my boy.”
My dad was persistent.
After a few years my mother broke down. They did love each other, and my father said he had settled down and gotten a good job and they’d live nicely. Also, once again, my poor health contributed to a move. I’d managed to come down with malaria, which was almost epidemic in coastal regions of Italy in the early 1920s. The doctors told my mother