By Michael Miner
The bio continued, “In all, he has been in one hundred and thirty-two feature films including Lassie Come Home, The White Cliffs of Dover, The Planet of the Apes and three of its sequels. He directed Ava Gardner in The Ballad of Tam Lin.” An Emmy for Not Without Honor crowned a 49-year television career, while a 1953 production of Misalliance marked his Broadway debut. “Elsewhere in the United States,” the bio concluded, “he has performed in Chicago on the ImprovOlympic house team Faulty Wiring.”
“Really, it all works together,” said Gwinn. “Everything I’ve done before–whether it be film, television, or whatever–everything has broadened my frame of reference.”
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As the interview continued, Carpenter felt–as he put it–“twinges.” He told me he thought, “This guy doesn’t really know what he’s talking about. This guy isn’t 68. He sounds very young. But the biggest thing was he didn’t seem to know anything. I asked him about some of the films, like Planet of the Apes and White Cliffs of Dover, and he just kind of glossed over it. And I thought, well, maybe–it was a long time ago.”
It’s up to the reader, guided by his faith in human decency, to gauge the depths of Gwinn’s concern for Carpenter’s credulity. At any rate, for all the actor’s winks and hints, the reporter never did see the light. Carpenter wrote, “London-born Gwinn, 68, has starred in over 130 films in England and America, including The White Cliffs of Dover, Planet of the Apes–he was the ape that was always with Roddy McDowall–and Lassie Come Home.” Though he’d lost “even a trace of British accent,” Carpenter observed, “Gwinn is, in typical Anglo style, more than polite.”
For his part, Carpenter doesn’t sound like a man bent on vengeance. “I’ve been asking people for embarrassment stories to make me feel better,” he said. He’s had trouble finding any that measure up.
“But instead of a Pulitzer,” Page wrote, “the Mirage got a lot of criticism from a new wave of ethical puritans like Ben Bradlee, then editor of The Washington Post. He deplored any form of misrepresentation in pursuit of a story, no matter how beneficial the results might be to humankind.”
