[about working with
Broderick Crawford on
Highway Patrol (1955)] Well, by that time Brod was drinking pretty regular, but he was a great guy. It never seemed to affect his work. Brod Crawford and I used to rehearse our scenes together, and you know, with him, he never gave you a cue. In the theater, you learned to handle that--you anticipate the other actor. For me, it was no problem. You could tell with Broderick just by watching him, the way he walked and moved, when he'd finish his lines. So, we worked well together. Now, he also had a couple of quarts of vodka in the prop truck, on ice. After every scene, he'd say, "Let's freshen up." So we'd go over to the prop truck, he'd take a drink and hand the thing to me. I'd blow bubbles in the darn thing and give it back to him! Come wrap time, I'd start to have a few, too! He'd get pretty stoned sometimes. One afternoon after one of these days with these long freshening-up rituals, he tripped over a cable and sprained his ankle, and he said to me, "Geez, you can handle that stuff!" He thinks I've been drinking drink for drink with him, and the whole time I've been blowing bubbles in his vodka.
