A Hollywood Legend Was a Huge Pain While Guest Starring on ‘The Simpsons’
Countless celebrities have lent their vocal talents to The Simpsons over the past 36 years, including several legit old Hollywood icons such as Elizabeth Taylor, Jack Lemmon and an 89-year-old Bob Hope, whose dialogue was recorded at his Silver Lake home with the help of a young Conan O’Brien.
But perhaps the most prominent Simpsons role to be played by a classic film star was Chester J. Lampwick, the impoverished creator of The Itchy & Scratchy Show’s Itchy, who was voiced by three-time Oscar nominee Kirk Douglas. And really, no scene in Spartacus comes close to the passionate rebellion Douglas showcases as Lampwick while refusing to paint Grampa Simpson’s chicken coop because the corn muffins he was compensated with were “lousy.”
But the late Douglas wasn’t always the easiest person to work with. He was labelled “difficult” by frequent co-star Burt Lancaster, and fought so bitterly with director Stanley Kubrick that the two had to attend therapy sessions together.
As recounted by Nancy Cartwright, the voice of Bart Simpson, in her book My Life as a 10-Year-Old Boy, Douglas threw up some huge roadblocks during the recording session for his episode, “The Day the Violence Died.” When Douglas pulled up to the studio in a limo, he made it immediately apparent that he didn’t care much about the gig. “This won’t take long,” he instructed the driver, “so keep the car running.”
Things got off to a bad start when Douglas took off his headphones and threw them onto a table, telling the Simpsons crew, “I’m not wearing these things. They hurt my ears.” This was a big problem for director Josh Weinsten, who suddenly had no way of communicating his direction to the actor who was inside a soundbooth.
Cartwright then realized that she’d have to step in and direct the star herself, at which point Douglas told the crew, “I’m only going to give you two takes then I’m outta here.” This wouldn’t have been such a huge problem, except for the fact that Douglas proceeded to flub one of his lines. During a speech about inventing cartoon violence, Lampwick is supposed to say, “I changed all that,” but Douglas read it as, “I charged all that.”
With just one more take to work with, Cartwright told Douglas, who was already checking his watch, that he was “brilliant,” but added that “on that second speech let’s really hear how you are changing all that.” Douglas just stared at her, then proceeded to perform the second take. Unfortunately he screwed up and said “charged” yet again.
Knowing that he wouldn’t want to do the line again, Cartwright “let out a huge fake sneeze.” As she wiped her nose, she apologized to Douglas for ruining the take. “That’s all right. No biggie,” he responded, as Weinstein was busy “picking his jaw up off the floor.”
“Uh, great,” Cartwright said. “So… let me see, let’s start with your line: ‘Before I came along, all cartoon animals did was play the ukulele, I changed all that.’ And continue to the end.”
After that, he performed the dialogue perfectly.
Of course, if Douglas hadn’t been able to finish the job, the producers always could have brought in Mickey Rooney.
