Harlem to Hollywood North: How Even Tough Guys like Det. Sonny Grosso Got the Jitters
The French Connection’s Oscar-winning director Billy Friedkin worked closely with Sonny Grosso on several projects including that Oscar-winning movie, as well as The Brink’s Job with Peter Falk and Cruising with Al Pacino. So, at dinner at Rao’s in New York, Friedkin once confided to me: “The thing about Sonny is if he’s your friend, he’ll stop a bullet for you. Eddie (Egan) always has that Irish bluster, but Sonny has that Italian iron fist. You do not mess with Sonny Grosso.”
But “iron fist” Grosso used to laugh when he talked of two of his phobias, including: he hated flying and actually sat alone in his New York apartment on Oscar night in Hollywood in 1972, when his French Connection bust story was adapted to the movie that earned 5 Oscars; and, in spite of dealing with the very worst of human depravity, Sonny Grosso hated seeing human bodies.
Yeah, you know, “I see dead people!”
One night at Carlo and Adelina’s Place in Mirvish Village in Toronto, where he was filming his hit Night Heat series, he spoke of those phobias, recounting very human and down-to-earth tales, which I used for the basis of his memoir, Harlem to Hollywood. One involved a tale of the macabre from the holiday season. But he first set it up, telling a story from his days in the Police Academy:
“When you go to the Academy, there’s an autopsy class where you get sent to the morgue and you’re supposed to learn how they do autopsies on the human body. I wouldn’t do that. I said, ‘Listen, it makes me sick.’ So, I went to see a superior officer, and they made me go see Irv, the police mechanic, at the Police Garage. There I was in coveralls, taking apart police cars, taking sirens off, removing radios, replacing the lights, all that stuff. So, I got to know cars inside out. That’s where I really got to know Irving the mechanic who later helped us strip down that Invicta auto where we found the French Connection heroin stashed in the rocker panels. Plus, I also avoided seeing any autopsies.”
That was until Sonny had segued from “Harlem to Hollywood,” and began working on various filmed projects. He continued his tale:
“I’d retired from the NYPD, and I was now a technical advisor and we were set up outside the morgue, shooting a scene for the movie Cruising, starring Al Pacino and directed by Billy Friedkin. But, I didn’t want to go into the place. And Billy’s going, ‘Stop being a baby!’ I don’t know if he knew that I never went into a morgue even when I was on the job. So, I’m standing in the vestibule of the morgue thinking, ‘I’m safe, I’m going no further.’ It was night time, around Christmas and there were people inside having a holiday party and dancing to songs like Dick Haymes’ Little White Lies — ‘That night that you told me, those little white lies’. Yeah, they were partying and dancing in the morgue. So, while I’m transfixed and unable to move, in swings the door and in come these ambulance guys wheeling in a stretcher and I step aside as they head towards me. Then, I hear a thump, I look down, I swear, there’s this poor female victim’s head rolling around on the floor — she’d been decapitated in a car accident and they’d put her head under the cover until they hit a couple of bumps inside. I ran out of there like my ass was on fire. And I never went back in there for any filming. Christmas cheer or not. Fuggedaboudit!”
We all have our little and sometimes irrational fears — personally, this writer is not a fan of IV needles and blood, but then again, who is? But with this Sonny Grosso story, the fact is — even the tough guys get the jitters, sometimes.
Check out Night Heat’s “Necessary Force” episode. And also check out Det. Sonny Grosso’s story “Harlem to Hollywood — My Real-to-Reel Life” discounted for the Holidays on Amazon, in the United States, and Canada.