In his deeply moving story “Bobby” Martin conveys how learning of the mortality of his hero, Bobby Kennedy did not shake his faith but gave him pause and strengthened it, proving that even the most tragic events can bring us to a positive personal realization beyond our expectations. He then goes on to interview his son, Emilio Estevez who offers his own take on how he processed this same tragedy many years later in his life and the miraculous circumstances surrounding that journey.
In his deeply moving story “Bobby” Martin conveys how learning of the mortality of his hero, Bobby Kennedy did not shake his faith but gave him pause and strengthened it, proving that even the most tragic events can bring us to a positive personal realization beyond our expectations. He then goes on to interview his son, Emilio Estevez who offers his own take on how he processed this same tragedy many years later in his life and the miraculous circumstances surrounding that journey.
Martin Sheen:
Hello and welcome to the Martin Sheen Podcast with yours truly, Martin Sheen, of course, and I'm delighted to be your host for this podcast pilgrimage where the destination is the journey itself. Along the way, I plan to share stories and personal memories of some of the many people, places and events that have helped to shape my life. Happy and continuing struggle as an artist and a man to unite the will of the spirit with the work of the flesh. I also hope to explore poetry as a powerful form of expression and communication by proxy, as it were, and how poetry is such a vital and necessary component of our spirituality and our public discourse. And from time to time, I'll invite friends, fellow actors, poets, scholars and family members to join our pilgrimage and discuss what inspires their artistic journey. And so, friends, let us begin.
"Bobby"
Each time someone stands up for an ideal or acts to improve the lot of others or strikes out against injustice, they send forth a tiny ripple of hope. And crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and injustice. Those words were spoken at the University of Cape Town, South Africa, in 1966 by Senator Robert F. Kennedy. They are inscribed on his memorial in Arlington National Cemetery, as well as, and he remains a powerful source of inspiration for my generation ever since. In the spring of 1968, Janet and I took our four kids to visit her mother in North Benton, Ohio, near Lake Berlin, a remote community in the northern section of the state.
On Tuesday evening, June 4th, we borrowed my mother in law's car and took the kids to a drive in movie theater near Alliance. After the movie, a fog coming off the lake was so thick I could hardly see the road. And as we crept along, I had an ominous feeling that I could not shake even after we reached the house safely. Later, after we put the kids to bed, we checked for news on TV of the Democratic presidential primary in California and South Dakota, where Bobby Kennedy and Eugene McCarthy were battling it out. We were longtime Kennedy supporters and deeply concerned after his loss to McCarthy the previous week in the Oregon primary.
Now we were greatly relieved to learn that he had been declared the winner in South Dakota. And although California remained undecided, it was early and he was very comfortably ahead. I had been following Bobby Kennedy's career with great enthusiasm since he became Attorney General in his brother's administration in 1961. His brilliant maneuver that helped end the Cuban Missile Crisis, his strong support of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement, and his keen Insight into and great compassion inspired me to support his run for the U.S. senate in New York in 1964. And now I supported his run for the presidency, and I felt certain he would win.
On April 5, 1968, the day after Reverend King was assassinated, Bobby Kennedy spoke out against a horrible epidemic of gun violence in the US To a large audience in Cleveland, Ohio. That left a lasting impression on me. "Whenever we tear at the fabric of a life which someone has painfully and clumsily woven for themselves and their children," he said, "the whole nation is degraded."
Clumsily. What an extraordinary choice of words to describe what it is to be human. Clumsily. Like a child's first steps. Clumsily. We go about weaving the fabric of our lives with no advance warning or guaranteed outcome. We just keep weaving along. Clumsily.
He's going to win, this, Janet predicted confidently that night in Ohio. It's late and we should go to bed. And I agreed. Approximately six hours later, I was awakened by a small hand pressing on my shoulder. It was Emilio.
"Dad," he said urgently. "Wake up. Bobby Kennedy was shot."
"Go back to sleep, honey. It's just a dream," I said, half asleep.
"No, dad, wake up. Bobby Kennedy was shot. It's on TV."
Now I'm suddenly wide awake. "Oh my God." I shouted, waking Janet. "
What’s going on?" She says.
"Emilio says Bobby Kennedy's been shot. He saw it on tv."
"Oh, dear God no." She shouts as she rushed down the stairs.
Behind us, all the TV channels were choked with special reports and updates. Unfortunately, Emilio was right. Bobby had been shot and was currently in surgery.
"Please, God, let him live," I uttered.
"Dad?" Emilio asked gravely, "is he gonna be okay?"
He's six years old and barely knows who Bobby Kennedy is or what he stands for, but he knows how important this sad news is to me.
"Yes, son, he's gonna be okay," I assure him. But the words are as much for myself as they are for him.
And now a long, anxious Vigil began on Oct. 4, 1964, 20, during Bobby's campaign for the U.S. senate in New York. Janet and I sat directly behind him for nearly two hours at the old Madison Square Garden on 8th Avenue and 50th street during a political rally against the closing of the Brooklyn Navy Yard. 16,000 people jammed the arena that Sunday afternoon to hear every New York politician with any clout to explain what they would propose to keep the Naval Yard open and save thousands of local jobs. Governor Nelson Rockefeller, New York City Mayor Robert Wagner, and Both sitting Republican U.S. Senators Jake Javits and Bobby's opponent, Kenneth Keating, were present with many other state and local officials from all five New York City boroughs. We arrived as Senator Keating was speaking and found two empty seats on the platform.
Shortly afterwards, I heard a commotion to my left, and suddenly Bobby Kennedy emerged with a small entourage and and quietly walked up to the platform. It was nearly a year since his brother's assassination, and the toll was clearly evident. His hair had started to gray and his movements were careful and measured. He was still the handsome, young heroic figure we'd come to love and admire, but now he was more introverted and reflective. His disarming smile was less frequent and his sharp Irish wit was more tempered. Everyone on the platform stood up to let him pass through as he took his seat directly in front of us. When a young aide whispered something in his ear, he turned around to face Janet and me. I gently extended my hand and whispered, "Mr. Kennedy, it's an honor to meet you."
He smiled and nodded in response as he shook my hand. "Thanks for coming," he said. Then he shook Janet's hand as well. Speaker after speaker droned on through the afternoon while Bobby waited patiently with his legs crossed and his chin resting on his hands. I couldn't take my eyes off him. Every now and then, he withdrew a paper and pen from his coat pocket and scribbled something down, then signaled to an aide who would retrieve it and scurry off on an errand.
As still more boring speakers were introduced before him, I began to feel uncomfortable. Why were they making him wait so long? I wondered. I got my answer when he was finally introduced and the crowd rose to its feet with a thunderous applause, whistle, and wild cheers that went on for several minutes. He spoke for less than five minutes and ended with, "I think what should guide us is not the fact that the struggle is so difficult, but what really should guide us is what George Bernard Shaw once said. 'Some men see things as they are and say why? I dream things that never were and say why not.’"
With that, he smiled, gave a little wave to the crowd, and stepped away from the podium as the crowd leapt to its feet once again and erupted even louder than before with applause and cheers until he left the arena. Clearly, he was the only one who could have held the crowd until the end of the rally. Wisely, they had saved the best for last.
It's hard to convey to anyone who didn't live through that era exactly what kind of raw emotion Bobby inspired. He was the first rock star politician of my generation, with a magnetism that was awe inspiring to witness and a genuine heroic humanity to emulate.
In Los Angeles in the early morning of June 5th, the news was grim. Bobby had been hit with three bullets at close range. One to the neck, one through the shoulder, and the most lethal lodged in his brain. All day I hoped for a miracle. I told myself that if he was still in surgery, chances are he was still alive. And if he was still alive, there was always the possibility he'd pull through. I went to St. Mary's Church in nearby Sebring to pray and light a candle. Then we took the kids to a playground and tried to stay positive and focused.
This was Mahoning County, Ohio, rural and conservative. There were no prayer services, no public displays of concern or or morning. And when Bobby died the next morning, Janet and I wept alone. The requiem mass for Bobby was held at St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York City on Saturday, June 8th.
I left Ohio that same day by train for New York in order to begin rehearsal for "Romeo and Juliet" the following week. With Joe Papp directing and set to open in mid July at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park. Janet decided to stay with the kids at her mother's for several more weeks while I rehearsed in New York.
Settled in my seat, I pressed a tiny transistor radio tight against my ear. The smokestacks of Youngstown streamed past the window as I strained to hear the ceremony broadcast from St. Patrick's I could not even begin to imagine the depth of Ethel Kennedy's pain and unimaginable loss, pregnant with her 11th child, or that of her other 10 children who had just lost their beloved father. As we sped towards Pittsburgh, I heard Ted Kennedy's emotional eulogy of his brother Bobby from the altar.
"My brother need not be idealized or enlarged in death beyond what he was in life, to be remembered simply as a good and decent man who saw wrong and tried to right it, who saw suffering and tried to heal it, who saw war and tried to stop it."
He was burying Bobby, an unbearable loss and the last of his three older brothers. And though I could not have known it yet, in less than three months I would be heading back to Ohio for the funeral of my oldest brother, Manuel, in Dayton, a beloved father of two who would die of a heart attack at the age of 39.
At 1pm the train carrying Bobby's casket and his family left New York or Washington D.C. He would be buried at Arlington National Cemetery, not far from President Kennedy's eternal flame. What should have been a four hour journey from New York to Washington took twice as long because so many thousands of mourners lined the track to pay their final respects all the way through New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware and Maryland.
My train sped into the night unimpeded. But it would take me a long time, another 13 years to confirm Bobby's insight that every woven life, even the clumsiest, like my own, is a life of worth and honor.
It would take me even longer, 35 years to discover what Bobby's death had meant to Emilio and for him to transform the events of that tragic night in 1968 into an artistic acute expression with his brilliant 2006 film, "Bobby."
We're going to take a little break here, but I assure you there's more to come. Stay tuned. Welcome back. I'm so glad you stayed.
I am delighted at this time to welcome to our mic for an interview one of my favorite people in all of the world, my son Emilio.
Emilio Estevez: Uh, this is going to be a very, very difficult interview for a lot of reasons.
Martin Sheen: You're gonna make sure for that it.
Emilio Estevez: Will be the most difficult interview you have ever done in your life.
Martin Sheen: I haven't done that many.
Emilio Estevez: Well, I know, but, but just for the record, I don't listen to podcasts and I won't listen to this one anyway, so having said that, it's gonna be a difficult interview. Um, it's. I'm not going to listen to it.
Martin Sheen: Okay.
Emilio Estevez: I don't care.
Martin Sheen: Okay.
Emilio Estevez: But I'm happy to be here.
Martin Sheen: Well, welcome. We're delighted to have you.
Emilio Estevez: Thank you. No, thank you. And I'm delighted to be here.
Martin Sheen: Okay.
Emilio Estevez: What a journey. You know, when we left New York, there's a, it's a, it's a long sort of circuitous story, but, you know, I never wanted to leave New York.
Martin Sheen: Yeah.
Emilio Estevez: And when we went to Mexico, I, I assumed we were going back and I remember we go to Mexico, you do "Catch-22," We took the train to Nogales, rented a car, and your first stop in LA that you wanted to make was the Ambassador Hotel because Bobby had just been killed
Martin Sheen: a few months earlier.
Emilio Estevez: It had a profound effect on me as a six year old kid because how many years later, uh, tell us.
Martin Sheen: About that, about the story of, uh, how you came to write, uh, and direct.
Emilio Estevez: Well, Charlie and I were, uh, we had done a picture for Showtime called "Rated X" and they wanted to do a photo shoot with us and they said the Ambassador Hotel is a place where they do commercials and film shoots and photo shoots. And would you guys like to do it there? And I said, why not? So we showed up, we got in character, in costume. We did this photo shoot. And the groundskeeper, a guy named Ray, pulled me aside, and he says, do you want to see the kitchen? And I said, ray, you know, I haven't. The last time I was here was 1969. And I remember walking through and holding my dad's hand. And he says, come on, I'll show you the kitchen. So he did. And I began to imagine what that day was like.
Martin Sheen: And you're talking about June 5, 1968. Yeah. Bobby Kennedy had just won the.
Emilio Estevez: He just won the California primary. And so I thought, well, uh, this could be a fascinating story. Almost like the Titanic where, you know, the audience knows the ending. Obviously, we all know what happened at the end of that night, but we don't know that there were other people shot. We don't know what was happening or who they were. Or who they were. So I began to imagine it. I, uh, make the film.
Martin Sheen: But you wrote the script.
Emilio Estevez: Yes.
Martin Sheen: Tell us about how you came to write the story of, uh. Bobby, please.
Emilio Estevez: To go back to the photo shoot that day. I, uh, was already in town. I was scheduled to go to a screening that night of a movie that Jon Bon Jovi had a supporting role in called u571. It was a movie about, uh. It was a submarine film. And he says, hey, man, the screening.
Martin Sheen: Had you met him before on Young Guns?
Emilio Estevez: Oh, he says, no. John and I were old friends at that point. And so I said, sure, man. I've got this photo shoot. Uh, I'll clean up, and I'll meet you at the theater in Westwood for the screening. I sit down next to John, and then right next to me sits Bobby Shriver.
Martin Sheen: Yeah.
Emilio Estevez: I thought, well, that's kind of strange. That's an interesting coincidence. I was just at the Ambassador hours ago.
Martin Sheen: This is a cousin of the, uh, Kennedy family.
Emilio Estevez: That's right. And so, you know, I wanted to say something, but it was. It was so uncomfortable. I just sort of. I just kind of marked, uh. It. It was an odd coincidence that felt like it wasn't a coincidence at all. And I said, okay, that's interesting. So I began to do the research. I started going to the public library downtown. I started getting all of the. Whatever was available. It was all on microfiche. Yes, I had a computer. And yes, Google existed, but not to the depth of which. Things hadn't been digitized in the way that they are now. And so you had to go into the bowels of the LA Public Library, Central Library, downtown, and access your material on anything you wanted to, uh, reference or get. The LA Times is what was my interest. And then you'd print it, and then you'd take the material home and then you'd go through it and you cull through. Okay, that's an interesting factoid, and that's an interesting point. And oh God, this was happening. Don Drysdale was pitched a no hitter that night and Bobby thanked him or, uh, congratulated him from the stage. And so I thought, okay, do the Dodgers figure into this? And ultimately they did. Um, so, um, I got writer's block and then I carried around these pages. Maybe it was 30 pages. And I think all of you were a little concerned about what the hell was happening in my life. Uh, I think maybe you dispatched Charlie.
Martin Sheen: And Charlie read those 30 pages.
Emilio Estevez: He read those 30 pages. He says, you're onto something, but you're not gonna, it's not gonna happen here. Uh, you have to just chill out, you have to go somewhere, you have to dig in and finish writing this thing. So I did. The next day I got in my car, I packed up whatever I had, my five by seven cards, my whiteboard, my computer, and I went to Pismo beach, where I had no reservations, no real plan. I just knew that I needed to get at least three hours away from la. Checked into a hotel in Pismo Beach. The lady behind the desk said, uh, oh, I recognize you. What are you doing here? I said, ah, it's kind of, I'm not really talking about it. She says, oh, you can tell me, I don't know anybody. I said, well, I'm writing a, a movie, hopefully a movie, but right now it's a story about the day Bobby Kennedy was shot. And she looked at me and her eyes welled up and she said, my God, I was there. Mhm. And she became the basis for the Lindsay Lohan character in the movie.
Martin Sheen: Really extraordinary.
Emilio Estevez: It's a flawed movie, but it was a gathering and what Joe Papp would call a happening. Ah, you're on the set and there's Bill Macy and there's Tony Hopkins and uh, Harry Bell. Harry. Mary Belafonte and you. And, and Shia LaBeouf and uh, my God, who else? Uh, Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore and Sharon Stone. It's like on and on and on and on. It was, it was insane. Uh, and it became this movie that everyone wanted to be a part of and either for political reasons or because there wasn't anything else like it, it was an ensemble film that no one would have to bear the responsibility if it tanked.
Martin Sheen: Right.
Emilio Estevez: Which is the beauty of ensemble films. Right. You're not caring. No one was carrying the movie.
Martin Sheen: Yeah.
Emilio Estevez: Um, then, you know, we got nominated for a SAG Award and a Golden Globe for Best Picture, and so it became. It was a great calling card for me as a filmmaker, and it allowed a lot of doors to really open up, so. So, yeah, you never know, uh, what life's gonna throw at you or where, obviously. I mean, that's an old saying, but. But this was one of those instances where you quite literally walked into what felt like a wall, uh, initially, and then the wall became a door, and the door opened to that experience.
Martin Sheen: Yeah. It's extraordinary. As oft befalls the firstborn son when looked upon askance, he dogs the fiddler round the hall and pays him for the dance.
I invite you to delve further into the works of the poets I shared with you, and I hope you seek out writers and poets whose work speaks to your hearts and minds with the power to inspire your life. If you've enjoyed what you've heard here, please subscribe to my podcast, the Martin Sheen Podcast, with your host, yours truly, Martin Sheen, of course, wherever you find your podcasts. Yeah, I have to.
You can find a complete list of the poets and titles of their poems that I've chosen at our website, themartensheenpodcast dot com I want to thank the people who make this podcast possible. Our producer and research assistant, Rene Estevez, who assures me that the Internet is a real thing and a safe place if not used off label. And our sound engineer and editor, Bruce Greenspan, the man behind these rich and seamless recordings. And to his dog, Gracie, our studio mascot, who snores in perfect pentameter.
And so, friends, we part with the prayer from Tagore. We are called to lift up this nation and all its people to that place with the heart is without fear and the head is held high. Where knowledge is free, where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls. Where words come out from the depths of truth and tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection. Where the clear stream of reason, uh, has not lost its way into the dreary desert sands of dead habit. Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever widening thought and action. Into that heaven of freedom, dear Father, let our country awake. Amen.
Martin Sheen: The Martin Sheen Podcast. All rights reserved. No part of this podcast may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form without prior written consent of the author. NTE Productions Bobby by Ramon Gerard Estevez, AKA Martin Sheen, is included here by granted copyright permission.