Jimmy Breslin died today. He spent years writing for various newspapers in New York, and his name is one of the first that comes to mind when I think of quintessential New Yorkers.My mom was born and raised in New York City, so I had the good fortune to return with her throughout my childhood to visit my grandparents. I always looked forward to these trips, and I came to love New York before I’d even visited Chicago, despite living a few hours away in Peoria, and then Springfield.During one visit late in the 1980s, when I was ten or eleven years old, my grandpa mentioned the name Jimmy Breslin. I’d never heard the name before and didn’t know who he was, but I could tell right away that my grandpa liked him.I don’t remember what he said, or why Breslin’s name came up. I just remember that when my grandpa said his name, he said it with a bit of nostalgia, or maybe even reverence. Something like, “Old Jimmy Breslin,” as if he were an old friend he hadn’t talked to in many years.That’s not too surprising though. Readers identified with Breslin because of his writing style and his affinity for telling stories of ordinary people. After JFK’s assassination he wrote a piece about Clifton Pollard, the Arlington National Cemetery employee who dug the president’s grave.(Coincidental that I watched the film Jackie last night, and was struck by the scene in which she’s walking through a chilly, foggy Arlington searching for a proper burial site for her husband.)When I think of Jimmy Breslin I think of my grandpa, and I think of New York. But it’s not the same way that I think of today’s New York. Jimmy Breslin and my grandpa aren’t gentrification, mortgage-backed securities, and a $2 billion Yankee Stadium.They’re not Bill de Blasio. They’re more Ed Koch. They’re the gritty and graffiti New York. Subways and buses, not Uber and Lyft.At least that’s how they are in my mind.Jimmy Breslin almost landed a part as one of the most quintessential fictional New York characters to ever hit the big screen, Popeye Doyle. (Fictional, but based on a real NYC detective, Eddie Egan.)On an episode of the WTF podcast last year, William Friedkin, who directed The French Connection, explained that he wanted Breslin to play Doyle, the lead role in the film.They had a small budget for the film, and the studio thought that instead of having a movie star play the lead, they could just find the right actor. Friedkin suggested that the role was so unique that a non-actor might be able to play it. He knew Jimmy Breslin, so he asked Breslin to come rehearse with the film’s co-star, Roy Scheider.The first day went great, as Breslin and Scheider improvised and created scenes. But on the second day, Breslin forgot what he did on the first day, and couldn’t recreate it. On the third day, he showed up drunk. He didn’t show up at all on the fourth day. So Friedkin knew he had to fire him.They were friends though, so Friedkin didn’t know quite how to fire him. On the fifth day, Breslin showed up, contrite, but he knew the score. He asked Friedkin, “Isn’t there a car chase in this movie?” Friedkin said there was. Then Breslin says, “I promised my mother on her death bed that I would never drive a car. So I don’t know how to drive.”Friedkin fired him on the spot, much to Breslin’s relief.Breslin was nine years younger than my grandpa, but they’re of the same time and place. My grandpa was an ironworker (he helped build Kennedy airport and the remodeled Yankee Stadium), not a writer. I suspect that he never showed up to work drunk. And as far as I know he never got beat up by a mobster.But Jimmy Breslin and my grandpa could have been friends. And I would have loved to have read what Breslin would have written about that.Wasn't that well-written and fun to read? You should subscribe to my blog and we'll send you an e-mail every time I write a new one. Type your email address in the box and click the "create subscription" button. My list is completely spam free, and you can opt out at any time.
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