The Casual Assassination of ‘Mr. President’

In January, Oscar-winning actor George C. Scott (“Patton”) was hospit a lized for a week because of an acute myocardial infarction. He has since gotten a clean bill of health. But the poorly rated Fox Television half-hour series in which he starred, “Mr. President,” fared less well: Carson Productions, which has announced it is getting out of the TV series business, had decided before Scott’s hospitalization to stop production of the sitcom. Fox is now airing reruns.

In the following account, Scott recalls his trials and tribulations with the series. Meanwhile, he ‘ s off to England to scout locations and meet with financiers regarding “Harrow Alley,” an original screenplay by Walter Newman about the black plague, a project that Scott owns and has been trying to film for a decade.

Perhaps you can imagine my skeptical bemusement when I peered up through a forest of I.V. tubes, empirin bottles, nitroglycerin feed lines, oxygen inhalers, etc., and recognized Sam Tresch grinning down at me. His expression was quizzical, if not downright mocking.

At first, I thought him fantasy. It was late, I had been through a rather long day, and the light in my intensive care cubicle was untrustworthily dim. One side of Sam’s face was cast in the eerie green light of the scanning screen which, with a steady, dogged indifference, was monitoring my rather unstable heart rhythms.

But the way he clucked his tongue, laughed his low, whiskey-reformed laugh, and spoke to me in that voice known and revered (by at least 14 viewers that we know of) throughout the length and breadth of our beloved country . . . well, there was no question in my mind that I was in the presence of the former television President of the United States!

“You poor slob,” he said without a trace of pity. “So we got canceled. You don’t have to overreact.”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” I said. “It’s not on account of losing your company.”

Uninvited, Sam pulled up a chair, settling his bulk next to the bed. “Are you certain?” he said. “I mean, think about it. We’re canceled just before Christmas . . . and you can’t even make it through the first half of the NFC championship game before you have a bleeping heart attack!”

The minute I heard that good ‘ol TV talk (“bleeping”) my rhythm scan on the monitor fuzzed ever so happily . . . from nostalgia, I assumed.

“I’ve been canceled before,” I said.

Sam looked surprised. “Really? When was that?”

“In 1963. CBS.”

“ ‘63?” Sam scoffed. “Man, that’s a quarter of a century ago! Nobody remembers that. What was the name of it?”

I reminded him, as loftily as possible, that the series (“East Side, West Side”) had had a black--Cicely Tyson--as a regular. For that reason, over 60 affiliates had refused to carry the show from the outset. In spite of that, it had been critically rewarding and had gained a dedicated cult following that had not waned easily.

Sam cocked his ex-presidential eyebrow at me. “Rationale,” he murmured. “What you’re trying to tell me is that the ratings stank.”

“True,” I admitted. “But we addressed bold, provocative material. We attracted writers that were dedicated and daring. We beat the bushes of the Vast Wasteland for the finest actors and directors available. No subject was too. . . .”

“Cool it,” said Sam, putting up a warning hand. “Remember your blood pressure.”

“Bleep you!”

“Touchy,” clucked Sam. “Balancing on the threshold of the Great Unknown hasn’t made you any mellower.”

“Nobody invited you here, anyway. You’re history, so take off!”

Sam Tresch placed a patronizing hand on my needle-discolored forearm. “Love to, old man. But, I can’t. You see, you just won’t let me out of your mind.”

I turned my face to the wall, hoping he would disappear. He’s smug now, I thought, because he knows the experience is still fresh in my mind. But time and circumstance are on my side. I’ll be too busy recovering my health to think about him . . . too occupied with new projects to fret over the death of some insane sitcom. In a little while, Sam Tresch will fade from my memory, no more remarkable than creamed spinach or network executives.

“Don’t be too sure,” Sam said aloud.

I had forgotten that he could read my mind. It’s a little trans-schizoid trivia game that actors and their characters play with each other.

Sam tilted his head back, laced his fingers, and struck what he assumed was a philosophically sagacious pose. I saw through it, of course, since I had done that business for him scores of times.

“My friend,” Sam intoned, “time is a Hanging Judge who never adjourns court.”

“Profound,” I said. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

He removed his glasses and held me in his steady, serious gaze. Sam’s myopic, just like me.

“It means that you won’t be able to rid yourself of the entire experience as easily as you hope. It means, that in spite of all your denials and shrugs and mirthless grins . . . you cared. You cared about me, the show, your colleagues . . . and the naive aspirations you entertained at the beginning.”

“Please, no speeches,” I said. “I’m a sick man.”

“Oh, of course,” Sam ignored me. “You shot your face off about how you were only interested in the money, and you were doing the series in order to retire forever and buy a hotel in Beverly Hills like your idol, Merv. And you bragged to the media about how acting didn’t turn you on anymore, and how you’d been at it so long that you were really kind of above it all, and how. . . .”

Sam’s harangue was interrupted, mercifully, by Ruby, the head nurse. She walked right through Sam Tresch just as if he weren’t there. Nobody messed with Ruby; she ran the place.

Hers was an indispensable presence that any CEO, corporate or political, would have instinctively recognized and envied. I know Sam did. I could tell by the way he watched her. She reminded us both of someone . . . and neither was quite sure who.

Ruby deftly attached the blood pressure collar around my left arm and watched me with an expression of curiosity in her intelligent brown eyes. The eyes flicked swiftly around the room, then back to me, almost as if they were asking, “Do you always talk to yourself aloud?”

Of course, there was no way I could have explained to her about Sam Tresch.

“You’re gonna do fine,” Ruby smiled down at me. “Maybe you won’t even need the angioplasty.”

Someone called for her and she left, promising to return shortly to give me a back rub and something to help me sleep if I thought I’d need it.

Sam cleared his throat with a sense of self-satisfaction. “Where was I?”

“Why don’t we give it a rest?” I said.

Sam shrugged. He was trying to feign indifference, but as usual, I could see right through him.

He reminded me that he could return any time he pleased, simply by crossing my mind. Then he was gone. In the darkness of the tiny coffin of a room, he left me staring at the heart monitor, tracing the pulses and impulses of my life in an ugly pale green scrawl. He left me alone. He left me wondering how in hell I had got where I was. And why?

Sometime during the summer of 1986, Johnny Carson sat in the sun room of my cottage house in the flats and described the idea of me starring in a half-hour series concerning the day-to-day occurrences in the life of a man who, as Johnny put it, “just happened to be the President of the United States.”

The bricks and mortar of the proposition seemed clean and straightforward enough. With no pilot, “Mr. President” would have a 13-shot guarantee as the premiere offering of the fledgling Fox Television Network.

A new network!

Stirring thought indeed! A new network that might put forward programming more daring, more visionary, more diversified than the stultifying, predictable diet of cop shows, sitcoms, car chasers, giveaways, any-time-of-the-day-or-night soap operas that have been clogging our electronic arteries for decades.

It was a challenge and a chance. A chance for creative talent and ever-hopeful viewer alike to rise together out of the cesspool of mediocrity in which the arcane acronyms had mired us for years.

And what finer vessel than the presidency? What more advantageous a milieu than the White House? Characters of persuasion and power grappling with important problems that affect us all. Striving with sardonicism and wit--and a rejection of self-delusion--to possibly illuminate some answers to those problems. All of us might even have a helluva lot of fun doing it, too. Wow!

I was excited and provoked. Astonishingly, I even found myself willing to overlook the exorbitant salary they offered me to become a contributor to the Revolution. There was no question in my mind that ever-capricious Fate had selected me to gird up, unfurl the Galahadic guidon, and achieve Something Worthwhile in television.

“There is no question in my mind,” Sam Tresch leered down at me, “that thou wert an ass!”

It was the following day, and they had returned me to the O.R. for another angiogram.

Tresch was leaning on the opposite edge of the table, his head cocked impudently to one side, as a doctor inserted a catheter into my groin sheath.

“You didn’t even come close to all those high-flown ambitions,” he said.

“No, we didn’t.”

“We, hell! I’m talking about you, personally.”

“I did my best.”

“Bull!”

Hadn’t I complained with vehement emphasis about gags instead of humor? About topical shallowness instead of substance? Didn’t I gripe continuously about shtick in place of wit? Pants-dropping in lieu of eyebrow raising? Burlesque posing as satire?

“Listen,” I attacked him, “how many times did I use my vulgarest epithets to condemn vulgarity in our writing?”

“Often,” Sam agreed. “What else did you do?”

“Didn’t I shoot down all those goat jokes?”

“Nearly every time.”

“And what about scatology?” I roared.

Two of my nurses, Billy and Lou Anne, exchanged moderately concerned glances. I ignored them.

“How did I handle scatology?” I persisted.

“You dumped on it, man.”

“Damn right!” I said, vindicated.

Then I launched into a long-winded tirade, outlining to Sam how I had come out to the coast from my home in Connecticut weeks in advance of shooting. I had volunteered my availability for story conferences, concept reconstruction, script rewrites, etc. Little occurred.

I met with one of the Exec Prods. We discussed some ideas. Time passed. No scripts.

I took another Exec Prod to lunch. We discussed golf. He said he thought the series would be “fun.” His main concern seemed to be that I had requested a motor home near the shooting stage.

More time passed. I discussed casting over the phone and looked at some audition tapes. First-draft scripts began to make unprepossessing appearances. They wriggled out into the sunlight like grubworms from beneath shadowed rocks.

I found them banal. Little more than kitchen comedics.

I met some Assoc Prods. Then I met some Asst Prods. More time passed. I had not yet met a Plain Prod. Shooting was scheduled for April. It now had been about nine months since I had agreed to this evocative adventure.

My father in Florida--he was 85 and very ill--phoned me about how eager he was to see me as President of the United States. We went into rehearsal for the first show. My father died on April 15. I said nothing and did not go to the funeral.

I reminded Sam that, out of concern over the mewling, inconsequential script drafts I had been reading, I had sent a memorandum to the Exec Prods in the early spring.

The memo read as follows:

SUGGESTED SUBJECTS

FOR CONSIDERATION

If our thematic subjects are to be forever shackled to such earth-shaking issues as trade bills, maritime law discriminations, “Gidget Goes to the White House,” ambassadorial appointments to Pago Pago

Subjects that are worthwhile and humanizing.

Subjects that are perplexing to, and controversial between, people have been dealt with successfully by television in the past. Why shouldn’t we?

“MASH” did it.

“WKRP” did it.

“ALL IN THE FAMILY” did it, in spades.

Even “THE ODD COUPLE” and “THE MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW” ... although they did not feed us a steady diet of Beirut bombings ... frequently managed to be intelligent and contemplative, while at the same time they were warm and funny.

The subject or theme doesn’t necessarily have to be amusing. The fun comes from the way human beings relate to it and deal with it.

RACISM ... in any direction, from any source.

SELF-RIGHTEOUS FUNDAMENTALISM

CRIME

CRUELTY

VIOLENCE

DRUG AND ALCOHOL ADDICTION

VOTE BUYING

GRAFT ... giving and receiving

ABORTION ... pros and cons

DIMINISHING AGRICULTURE

TOXINS AND POLLUTION

VENEREAL DISEASE

BUREAUCRATIC INCOMPETENCE

SEX EDUCATION IN THE SCHOOLS ... pros and cons

GERIATRICS AND EUTHANASIA

CARE OF THE MENTALLY ILL

CARE OF THE HOMELESS

POWERMANIA

“And how many of those themes were tackled on the series?” Sam demanded. “One!”

“The rather innocuous little episode we did about your wife’s nephews smoking a joint in the Lincoln bedroom,” I said. “It was a well-meaning piece, albeit slow moving.”

“Well,” Sam said, quite seriously, “I always thought your portrayal of me in that one was ponderous, to say the best.”

“Really?” I said. “Thanks so much.”

We were silent for a while after that, each of us locked into our separate, yet shared thoughts. I lay supine on the narrow, cold table. Two doctors distracted me with news that the occluded artery was opening. An angioplasty would not be necessary.

As Sam began to fade from my consciousness, I heard him mumbling to himself. “One. Out of all these subjects . . . only that one!”

He didn’t pop up again until late the following afternoon.

Ruby had been giving me a splendid back rub and we reminisced about old-fashioned remedies and practices. I was going to miss Ruby. She had a couple of days off coming and wouldn’t be back until Saturday. By that time, I would be out of intensive care and convalescing in my own room.

“You’re gonna be just fine!” Ruby grinned and waved when she left. “Now be a good boy . . . and I don’t want to see you back here anymore.”

Sam Tresch was standing at the threshold of the door, but again, Ruby seemed not to notice him. As a matter of fact, now that I was beginning to feel better, Sam’s image was a little fainter to me.

But the raspy, obnoxious voice was as strong as ever. “Now I remember who she reminds me of.”

“So do I.”

As very often happened, we thought of the same things at exactly the same instant.

“The Lady Vice President!” we said in unison.

We were remembering a story line of mine. An accident vacates the Vice Presidency. In a crisis decision, the President opts to appoint a highly qualified black woman. Repercussions naturally ensue. It was a provocative idea. I had developed it myself, and paid a writer to do a first draft.

The whole concept had been rejected categorically. The Exec Prod had said, “I don’t know how to do a story like that.”

Apparently, it wasn’t because the writer lacked talent--he was subsequently hired for another script that was completed, shot and aired. The devastatingly controversial thrust of that dealt with the President’s paranoiac reaction to the chronic malfunction of the White House elevator.

For a time, Sam and I didn’t seem to know what to say. Finally, he sat down on the edge of the bed, eyes downcast.

Obviously, he wanted to square things away with me but was having difficulty knowing how to begin. And for once, I wasn’t sure what he was going to say before he said it. No way to learn those lines. We realized we were beginning to slip away from each other.

“Listen,” I said, “you and I had a pretty long run together at that. Around nine months, wasn’t it?”

The thought seemed to cheer him a little bit.

“Yeah,” he grinned, “that’s not so bad. Longer than a lot of other guys, right?”

“Damn right!”

Sam warmed to the subject. “Longer than Richard III or Shylock, right? Longer than Scrooge or that bleepin’ Mussolini! Right?”

“Oh hell, yes,” I laughed.

Sam Tresch seemed to relax perceptibly.

“You and me, we . . .” he swallowed several times. “We had a relationship, didn’t we?”

“You bet,” I said, hoping he wouldn’t go sentimental on me.

“Longer even than both Pattons, am I right?”

“Yes, I suppose. Look, Sam. . . .”

“I know, I know,” he grinned. “I’m not going to burst out crying. It’s just nice to know we weren’t some cheap one-night stand, that’s all.”

Then, for a few minutes, Sam and I reflected on a new genre of shows called “dramedies,” as exemplified by “Frank’s Place” and “The ‘Slap’ Maxwell Story.” They are slowly proving successful, and gradually building a following, by treating serious themes with wit and sardonicism and irony. Evidently, the road to ratings isn’t necessarily paved with skit gags, sexual innuendo and whoopee cushions.

“Dramedies,” I mused. “Sounds like a new name for an old song we’ve been singing right along.”

Then Sam looked directly at me for the first time. Both his gaze and his voice were very measured, very controlled.

“I’m sorry, G.C.,” he said. “But I’m afraid self-pity won’t cut it anymore. You let me down. You let us all down.”

I was stunned. “I did my best.”

“Did you? Then your best must not have been very good. Because we’re off the air, right? You didn’t stand up for what you believed in.”

“I fought ‘em,” I protested. “I fought ‘em as hard as I could for as long as I could!”

“My hero,” Sam said, coldly. “What do you want, a Presidential Unit Citation? You were the star, man! You’re supposed to fight them. Who else but you had the clout?”

“Who else but me,” I said sullenly, “had the heart attack?”

“Oh, poor baby. Don’t try to tell me you actually believed that malodorous mob of Prods and Christmas-help network executives had the show’s best interests at heart?”

“I don’t understand,” I said. “All that time and energy and money expended. Why should they want it to fail?”

“They operate on a shotgun principle, pal. If you don’t have the vision, or the acumen, or the determination to make a project succeed, you cut your losses, and the project, you move on to your next target. They’re all playing Jed Clampett, hoping to strike oil on a coon hunt.”

“Well, if you were aware of that,” I submitted, “what are you so upset about? What else did you expect?”

“My friend,” Sam said, “I expected more from you . You were the star and a part owner. I was a lousy fictitious character.”

“I rejected a script early in the run. It shut the company down for a week. I wasn’t very well liked after that.”

“Whatta you . . . still playing Willy Loman, you have to be well liked? How many more scripts did you refuse to do?”

I tried to explain to him that out of over 20 other scripts we did, only four or five could be considered good. The rest ranged from barely adequate to trash.

The working situation was positively Byzantine. We were always chronically behind. In scripts, in time, most of all in quality. Had I habitually insisted on the unreality of perfection, the whole insane Chinese fire drill would have ground to a halt. They would have sued me.

“Probably,” Sam agreed, with a cold smile. “Then you could have resigned with dignity.”

“You’re crazy.”

“Why?” Sam spread out his hands. “One of your Exec Prods resigned rather early on. Nobody sued him.”

“No. Politics, probably.”

“Lots of other people resigned and got fired along the way. Nobody sued them.”

“Because they weren’t essential.”

“Who was essential?”

“I was essential,” I sighed.

Sam waggled a finger at me in triumph. “You wuz essential, right! And essentially, you let me down.”

“Swell,” I said, not trying to mask the fatigue in my voice. “Then you sue me.”

I’ve seen Sam Tresch only once since. I had convalesced well and been given a clean bill of health. My wife, Trish, who had barely left my side for 10 days, was down making arrangements for my departure from the hospital. I was going home, finally, neither a totally well nor totally wise man, but reasonably glad to be alive.

I was standing at the window, fully dressed, gazing past the “Blue Whale” near Beverly Boulevard and up into the Hollywood Hills, musing, wondering quo vadis . I felt, ever so lightly, the comforting reassurance of a friendly arm around my shoulders.

“You know, Pal,” Sam Tresch said, “I’m glad you had this heart attack.”

“How nice,” I said.

“From a practical standpoint, however, your untimely death might have been more advantageous.”

“There are many who would agree,” I observed.

“Maybe if you drop dead,” Sam theorized, “people become a little more aware. Maybe a major network picks us up. We regroup. With a decent number of affiliates comes a competitive position in the ratings. First thing you know, they recast me with a really big-time actor and we’re off to the races!”

“I like it,” I said. “It has flair.”

“No need to be sour about it. You’re the one who was always harping about what was best for the series. I’m just trying to point out that your death, troublesome if not tragic, would have been a lot more beneficial to the project than me being stabbed in the back!”

I slipped on a sweat suit jacket that Trish had brought for me, walked out the door and down the hall. Tresch pursued me all the way to the elevators.

“You weren’t stabbed anywhere, Sam,” I told him calmly. “Let’s try not to make a Ford’s Theater or a Dealey Plaza out of this thing. Actually, it was more like something Paddy Chayefsky once said . . . you were simply ignored to death.”

It was crowded going down in the elevator, but I seemed to be the only person who noticed Sam muttering to himself.

Out on the street, we paused for a moment, waiting for my car. Sam slumped against a concrete pillar and shook his head slowly. There was no question that his image was becoming paler and less distinct in the watery morning sunlight. In truth, I felt a little sorry for him.

“Look,” I said, “we went down the tubes. No big deal. Just another little inconsequential sitcom. People aren’t going to remember it or care about it any more than last week’s rag mag.”

“No, you’re wrong.” Sam’s voice was faint, but insistent. “You’re terribly wrong. We lost an opportunity that no series ever had . . . that’ll probably never come again.

“For one whole presidential election year, maybe the most desperately confusing election year in decades, we could have helped crystallize with humor some of the vital problems that are shaking people to pieces in this country.

“We’re working in the most powerful communications medium ever devised. And because we were dealing with the President and the White House and Capitol Hill, and issues of enormous scope and importance, we could have served as the conscience of the nation!”

“Yep,” I grunted. “Right here on our stage, folks. Whoopi Goldberg plays Joan of Arc.”

“It’s OK. Go ahead,” Sam said. “But you know I’m right.”

“You mean we could have made a statesman out of Art Buchwald?”

“We could have done worse. As it is, we succeeded only in trivializing the presidency.”

The car pulled up. I got in slowly. I smiled up at Sam Tresch through the window. For some reason, it was tough to say goodby.

“It wasn’t a total loss,” I said. “We also managed to insult what audience we did have and make fools of ourselves in the bargain.”

A big grin broke over Sam’s face.

“Cheer up,” he waved. “Things’ll get worse.”

The car pulled out into traffic. It was an effort for me to turn to look back through the window. Sam disappeared. I haven’t seen him since.

To my knowledge, neither has anyone else.