Movie Star Moment: Elliott Gould

Elliott Gould as Philip Marlowe
in "The Long Goodbye" (1973)

   Viewers who weren't around then might find it hard to imagine, but in the early 1970s, the hottest (and coolest) actor in movies was Elliott Gould. He'd hit it big with "Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice" (1969) and "M*A*S*H" (1970), and he was at a career peak in 1973, when he played Philip Marlowe in "The Long Goodbye", Robert Altman's playfully off-kilter take on detective movies. One of the running jokes in the film is the way Marlowe smokes. He smokes everywhere, all the time, lighting his cigarettes with kitchen matches which he strikes on whatever surface he can reach without moving too much. Smoking is Marlowe's way of marking his territory. Sterling Hayden, bellowing up a storm as a boozy writer, calls him "Marlboro". In this scene, Marlowe has just ducked out of a tense but comical confrontation with with some gangsters. It's night, and as he walks out onto the street, he spots the femme fatale (Nina Van Pallandt) driving by in a convertible. He runs after her on foot and chases her for several blocks, dodging the nighttime traffic. The whole time he's running, he's smoking a cigarette. Finally, his luck runs out and a car knocks him down and the girl gets away, and the last thing you see is Marlowe lying unconscious, face-up on the pavement, the cigarette he was smoking still clenched between his lips. I'm sure other actors could've played Marlowe in this, but nobody else at the time could've waltzed through the picture with Gould's slouchy, wise-cracking ease. And the thing he does with the cigarette there - even Bogart would be impressed.