My Favorite Oswald

I read someplace that classical actors are judged according to how well they play Hamlet. After seeing Gary Oldman’s bravura turn in 1991’s JFK, I’ve decided that, modern actors must be judged by how well they play Lee Harvey Oswald.

Think about it: what other characters in recent American history, other than Richard Nixon and Anna Nicole Smith, have been more complex and confounding, bullying their way into our nightmares and turning history? With his bayou-coonass/Bronx accent and shifty-eyed demeanor, Oswald presents physical and psychological dimensions that would challenge the most accomplished actors.

I recently watched JFK for the first time since the movie’s release. I longed to see a lot more of Oldman’s Lee Harvey Oswald and a lot less of Kevin Costner’s New Orleans DA Jim Garrison in smoke-filled rooms. Director Oliver Stone teased the audience with fragmented McNuggets of Oswald, and left me panting for a big juicy steak of the Marine-Commie-defector.

So I started a trek to discover my favorite Oswald. Using Gerald Posner’s epochal investigation Case Closed: Lee Harvey Oswald and the Assassination of JFK as my trusty field guide to Dealey Plaza and beyond (and I’ve read the whole book, including the footnotes), I looked for movies and compared them to the historical record.

Surely, I thought, there must many films about Oswald, beyond the Kennedy biographies and factual records of the assassination. Oldman set a very high thespic bar, but I was determined to find challengers to the throne of Oswald actors.

To my amazement, almost nothing exists. Nada; zip; bupkis. While bookshelves groan and the Internet crackles with information about Oswald and the whole sordid mess, the creative film effort is pathetically small. Exhausting my web research skills, I found the Oswald shelf of your local video store would contain these films:

·JFK (1991), already mentioned. It covers the highlights of Oswald’s assassination-related life, some that really happened and others in dream-like uncertainty. Whatever one thinks about Stone’s politics, he created a hard-charging film brimming with colorful characters. Thrill at the opportunity to hear Oswald say, “I emphatically deny these charges,” “I didn’t shoot anybody, no sir,” and of course “I’m just a patsy.” Plus, Stone made good use of cute-as-a-button Quitman native Sissy Spacek as Liz Garrison. And in one easily missed line, Costner, I think, refers to McAllen as a center for gun-running. Ah-ha, I found a South Texas connection to the intrigue!

·Ruby (1992), starring Danny Aiello as Jack Ruby. Willie Garson plays a colorless throwaway role as Oswald. He doesn’t appear until an hour into this sluggish but sporadically entertaining piece of speculation, in which Oswald isn’t even the shooter. Watch for X-Filer and Princeton graduate David Duchovny in a minimal role as “Officer Tippit,” the Dallas cop killed by Oswald after the assassination. Aiello’s Ruby does get some amusing lines. In one scene, he is attacked by and then beats the tar out of the abusive husband of a stripper played by the delicious Sherilyn Fenn (post-Twin Peaks, pre-anorexia). Tough-guy Ruby bellows, “You make that the last time you take out your disappointments in life on Jack Ruby!”

· Two movies bear the proud title The Trial of Lee Harvey Oswald. The first appeared in 1964 (I’m sure glad it wasn’t 1962). Director Larry Buchanan explores whether Oswald was mentally ill. The film appears in video with another Buchanan take on Texas terrors, titled The Other Side of Bonnie and Clyde. Specialty house Something Weird Video in Seattle markets this twin bill. The other "The Trial of Lee Harvey Oswald" appeared on TV in 1977 and clocks in at an agonizing three hours and 12 minutes in length with John Pleshette as Oswald. This film is impossible to find.

· Love Field (1992) deserves mention not so much for its Oswald presence (just the standard TV scenes to move the plot along) but the way it uses the assassination as a mechanism to propel a Jackie-obsessed Dallas hairdresser played by Michelle Pfeiffer on her odyssey to Washington, D.C., for JFK’s funeral. On her trek she meets Dennis Haysbert (he played Senator and then President David Palmer on the first three seasons of "24") and they eventually engage in some amor prohibido. Nothing explicit gets shown, but Michelle does appear with a lovely post-coital glow on her face.

· The PBS program Frontline did an episode in 1993 called “Who Was Lee Harvey Oswald?” While it’s a documentary, the teacher’s guide on the PBS website suggests that students watch the program and then stage their own trial of Oswald. The guide helpfully notes, “The teacher should allow some latitude in legal tactics. The purpose of this exercise is not to teach courtroom strategies. It is to explore the motivations and life of Lee Harvey Oswald.” The activity conjures up images of high school students hamming it up as Oswald, no doubt defended by Johnny Cochran-wannabees shouting, “If the Mannlicher-Carcano don’t fit, you must acquit!”

By default, Oldman wins the nod as my favorite Oswald, in the acting category. Oldman’s a great actor in a tough role. Challengers will be minimal until, oh, 2060, when some bright-eyed director, now in diapers, decides the 100th anniversary of the assassination will be a swell time to finally film an Oswald biopic.

Beyond the big and little screens, Oswald’s malign presence festers and sloshes. On the printed page and Internet, anything goes. Norman Mailer wrote the non-fiction "Oswald's Tale: An American Mystery," while Don DeLillo wrote the novel "Libra." Hard-boiled crime novelist James Ellroy’s "American Tabloid" explores the down and very dirty side of organized crime and the FBI and much more in the years leading up to November 22, 1963, conspiracies, Oswald and all.

Stephen Sondheim and John Weidman added music to the mix with "Assassins." Oswald joins other killers and contenders, such as John Wilkes Booth, John Hinkley, and Lynette (Squeaky) Fromme, the Charles Manson acolyte who tried to kill President Ford, to do a little song and dance. (Interesting note: Squeaky Fromme is now rotting away in the Carswell Federal Medical Center in Fort Worth; her projected release date is September 5, 2005. Take note, Secret Service!)

Staying on a musical note, Dallas musician Homer Henderson wrote one of the great transgressive songs of all time, “Lee Harvey Was a Friend of Mine,” with the lyrics,

I was born in Dallas in 1952,
Lee Harvey moved across the street on Bentley Avenue,
He used to throw the ball to me when I was just a kid,
They say he shot the president---I don't think he did.

And Lee Harvey was a friend of mine,
He used to take me fishing all the time,
He used to throw the ball to me when I was just a kid,
They say he shot the president but I don't think he did.

Wallow in Oswaldiana for any length of time, the ambiguities and slippery connections start to play games with your head. Shadows and coincidences merge into confounding patterns. For example, Willie Garson of Ruby also played Oswald in episodes of “Quantum Leap” and “Mad TV.” John Pleshette of 1977’s "The Trial of Lee Harvey Oswald" also had roles in the 2004 version of "Helter Skelter" about Charles Manson) and the 1998 TV movie "The Day Lincoln was Shot." Coincidences, you say?

The strangest dot-connecting pulls together "JFK," "Love Field," and the terrorist-battling series "24" on Fox. Hang with me here: "JFK" cast Donald Sutherland in a pivotal role, as the government operative who steers Costner’s Jim Garrison toward the conspiracy. Then, Dennis Haysbert plays a lead role in Love Field. Finally, in "24," Haysbert plays President David Palmer, while Donald’s son Keifer Sutherland plays the anti-terrorism operative Jack Bauer, who works for Palmer. Well! What does all that mean?

And now, a confession: the annals of Oswaldian speculation include my own modest, yet dare I say imaginative, contribution. You’re reading it here first, folks, a world exclusive.

In 1994, America followed the sordid case of O.J. Simpson, from the murder of Nicole through the chase of the White Bronco to the arrest, the trial, the acquittal, and the relentless search over the last decade for the real killers. Throughout the case certain facts troubled me. Echoes of past horror bounced off the walls of the courthouse into my brain, where they forced my attention. Unable to resist the compelling force of these echoes, I followed a twisting path of research that left me breathless in its stunning revelations. In the end, I wrote what is truly “my favorite Oswald” article, which I titled, “OJ and Lee Harvey: Stunning Links Revealed!”

To my bitter disappointment and undying suspicion, not a single newspaper or magazine would publish the fruits of my long and lonely hours spent delving into the arcania of two ill-led lives. Fortunately, through the magic of the Internet, I can now share my findings. My shocking thesis: “O.J. Simpson is possessed by the demon spirit of Lee Harvey Oswald!”

My research, which has yet to be refuted, charts connections between Simpson and Oswald that simply cannot be coincidences. Really! While the research and documentation run for thousands of pages (kept is a secret location to protect them from my rivals and enemies), I can provide some key findings:

· Both Oswald and Simpson trained in the deadly arts. Oswald was a Marine with extensive rifle experience. Simpson learned to wield weapons acting in movies such as "Firepower" and "Killer Force."

· In his statement read during his mad dash, Simpson wrote, “First, everyone understand I had nothing to do with Nicole’s murder.” Following Kennedy’s assassination, Oswald also denied involvement. Quoting Dallas police captain Will Fritz, Gerald Posner wrote, “He denied it and said he hadn’t killed the President.” Thus, both Simpson and Oswald said they didn’t do it. Now, you tell me: how likely is that to happen in murder cases?

· Oswald shot Kennedy from the Texas School Book Depository and fled, finally being captured in the Texas Theater. Simpson flew from L.A. International Airport to Chicago’s O’Hare Plaza Hotel. Oswald went from a storage center to an entertainment place. Simpson went from an airport—a storage center for airplanes—to a hotel—where entertaining movies are shown in rooms. Their movements show uncanny similarities.

I could continue, but these examples nail the case down pretty well, the real demonic conspiracy. Now if I could just get somebody to buy my screen play. . . Gary Oldman, baby, have I got a role for you!