Sterling Hayden was an actor. He played the corrupt police chief who was shot in the head, by Al Pacino, in The Godfather. But he was a lot more. He was an adventurer, sailor, OSS agent and many others. He defied a court order and sailed to Tahiti with his four children, Christian, Dana, Gretchen and Matthew. He hated acting and always regretted naming names to the House Un-American Activities Committee.
He wanted to be free:
"They are enmeshed in the cancerous discipline of 'security'. And in the worship of security we fling our lives beneath the wheels of routine-and before we know it our lives are gone.
What does a man need-really need? A few pounds of food each day, heat and shelter, six feet to lie down in-and some form of work activity that will yield a sense of accomplishment. That's all-in the material sense. And we know it. But we are brainwashed by our economic system until we end up in a tomb beneath a pyramid of time payments, mortgages, preposterous gadgetry, playthings that divert our attention from the sheer idiocy of the charade.
The years thunder by. The dreams of youth grow dim where they lie caked in dust on the shelves of patience. Before we know it, the tomb is sealed".
Where, then, lies the answer? In choice. Which shall it be: bankruptcy of purse or bankruptcy of life?...
....Somehow it is the male's duty to put the best years of his life into work he doesn't like in order that he may 'retire' and enjoy himself as soon as he is too old to do so. This is more than just the system-it is the credo. It is the same thing that prompted Thoreau to say, in 1839:
'The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation."'
His autobiography is quite interesting. He never seemed to know where he belonged. "You were strong enough to rebel-not strong enough to revolt"
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