(9 of 10)
All during the filming he kept revisiting Colleen. They remarried on July 4, 1967. "Independence Day," she says now. "It seemed only right and fitting." They live in tentative tranquillity in a rambling farmhouse in South Salem, N.Y., with their sons, Alexander, 10, and Campbell, 9. The children of Scott's second marriage, Matthew, 13, and Devon, 12, visit frequently, attracted in part by a burgeoning menagerie of four German shepherds, two ponies, 20 chickens, two cats, three doves and a swimming-pool bullfrog named Charlie. At the farm, Scott plays chess, bridge and golf with neighbors. His wife, a strong, warm woman, is, in the phrase of a family friend, "an anchor in George's life." Colleen herself credits Scott's self-control. "When G.C. isn't drinking, up here he becomes the most prosaic of gentlemen." Not so prosaic, however, as to accept what many people consider the honor of an Academy Award nomination. This month, cited for Patton, he declined again. "I don't give a damn about it," he says in a voice like a sonic boom. "I'm making too much money anyway."
Struggle and Frustration
Scott speaks enthusiastically of working in the new Simon play, doing more directing and establishing a television repertory theater with Colleen and some friends. There is little in his profession he could not do if his private and persistent demons would give him a break. Scott has tried to strike a compromise with them. "Since childhood, the whole self-loathing thing was a big part of my makeup. Now I've learned to say O.K., I've screwed up. Then I try to make amends."
He is not always successful. His scuffles with several scripts, including one version of Patton, have not been felicitous. He wrangled constantly with Patton Producer Frank McCarthy, who comments: "He rewrote several scenes to make Patton more sympathetic, but the rewrites were not as good as what we already had." Scott missed eight days of work, some because of a recurrent problem with the retina in his left eye, two because he was drinking hard and feeling mean. "I got fed up, exhausted and frustrated, so I'd go out and get loaded," he says. His frustration, however, in no way detracted from his professionalism and his performance. McCarthy says, "He's difficult to deal with, but always for a purpose. I wish I had a picture with Scott starting tomorrow."
To Director John Huston, Scott is "one of the best actors alive. But my opinion of him as an actor is much higher than my opinion of him as a man." Huston started out as director in The Last Run, now being filmed in Spain, but he and Scott clashed over the actor's objections to script rewrites and the leading lady, Tina Aumont. There were shouting matches between Scott and Huston in the early hours of the morning. Huston eventually departed, and so did Tina Aumont. The film is now being finished under the direction of Richard Fleischer. Scott, who realistically maintains that "I can still make more money in films than any place else," is presumably planning to gather up his not inconsiderable salary and then turn to more serious matters.