Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958)

Burl Ives: Big Daddy Pollitt

Photos 

Quotes 

• Harvey 'Big Daddy' Pollitt : I've got the guts to die. What I want to know is, have you got the guts to live?

• Harvey 'Big Daddy' Pollitt : This was what my father left me, this lousy old suitcase! And on the inside was nothing, nothing but his uniform from the Spanish-American war. That was his legacy to me! Nothing at all! And I built this place from nothing.

  Brick Pollitt : That was all he left you?

  Harvey 'Big Daddy' Pollitt : He was a hobo, the best-known tramp on the boxcar circuit. He'd worked once in awhile as a field hand, and I'd tag along. Sat on my bare bottom in the dirt, waiting for him. Outside of hunger, the first thing I remember is shame. I was ashamed of that miserable old tramp. I was riding boxcars with him when I was nine, something you never had to do. You'll never have to bury me the way I buried him. I buried him in a meadow alongside a railroad track. He was running to catch a freight and his heart give out. You know something? That old tramp died laughing.

  Brick Pollitt : Laughing at what?

  Harvey 'Big Daddy' Pollitt : Himself, I guess. Old hobo tramp, not a nickel to his name, no future, no past.

  Brick Pollitt : Maybe he was laughing because he was happy. Happy at having you with him. He took you everywhere. He kept you with him.

  Harvey 'Big Daddy' Pollitt : I don't want to talk about that.

  [pause] 

  Harvey 'Big Daddy' Pollitt : Yeah, I loved him. I reckon I never loved anything as much as that lousy old tramp.

  Brick Pollitt : And you say he left you nothing but a suitcase with a uniform in it?

  Harvey 'Big Daddy' Pollitt : And some memories.

  Brick Pollitt : And love.

• Harvey 'Big Daddy' Pollitt : There ain't nothin' more powerful than the odor of mendacity!

• Harvey 'Big Daddy' Pollitt : What's that smell in this room? Didn't you notice it, Brick? Didn't you notice a powerful and obnoxious odor of mendacity in this room?

• Brick Pollitt : I'm ashamed, Big Daddy. That's why I'm a drunk. When I'm drunk, I can stand myself.

  Harvey 'Big Daddy' Pollitt : But it's always there in the mornin', ain't it? The truth and it's here right now!

  [They run outside into the rain] 

  Harvey 'Big Daddy' Pollitt : You're just feeling sorry for yourself; that's all it is! Self-pity!

  [Inside the carport] 

  Harvey 'Big Daddy' Pollitt : You didn't kill Skipper. He killed himself. You and Skipper and millions like you are living in a kids' world. Playing games, touchdowns, no worries, no responsibilities. Life ain't no damn football game. Life ain't just a buncha high spots.

  [He grabs Brick] 

  Harvey 'Big Daddy' Pollitt : You're a thirty-year-old kid. Soon you'll be a fifty-year-old kid. Pretendin' you're hearin' cheers when there ain't any. Dreamin' and drinkin' your life away. Heroes in the real world live twenty-four hours a day, not just two hours in a game. Mendacity! You won't...

  [winces in obvious pain] 

  Harvey 'Big Daddy' Pollitt : You won't live with mendacity? Well, you're an expert at it! The truth is pain and sweat and payin' bills and makin' love to a woman that you don't love any more. Truth is dreams that don't come true, and nobody prints your name in the paper 'til you die.

• Margaret "Maggie" Pollitt : Look, Mama, he's wearing Brick's birthday present. I haven't given you my present yet, but I will now. I have an announcement to make.

  Mae Pollitt : What kind of an announcement?

  Margaret "Maggie" Pollitt : An announcement of life beginning. A child is coming, sired by Brick out of Maggie the cat. I have Brick's child in my body, and that is my present to you.

  Mae Pollitt : Did you ever in all your born days hear such a bold-faced lie?

  Gooper Pollitt : Shut up.

  Ida 'Big Momma' Pollitt : [kissing Maggie]  Thank you. Thank you very much.

  Harvey 'Big Daddy' Pollitt : Yes indeed, this girl has life in her body. And that's no lie. Gooper, I want to talk to my lawyer in the morning. Brick?

  Brick Pollitt : Yes, Big Daddy?

  Harvey 'Big Daddy' Pollitt : I'm going to go out and look this place over before I give it up. The place and the people on it.

• Brick Pollitt : [Offering Big Daddy morphine]  It'll kill the pain, that's all.

  Harvey 'Big Daddy' Pollitt : [Wincing with pain]  It'll kill the senses too! You... you got pain - at least you know you're alive.

  [groans] 

  Harvey 'Big Daddy' Pollitt : - It's easin' somewhat now. When you got pain, it's better to judge yourself of a lot of things. I'm not gonna stupify myself with that stuff. I wanna think clear. I want to see everything, and I want to feel everything. Then I won't mind goin'. I've got the guts to die. What I want to know - do you have the guts to live?

  Brick Pollitt : I don't know.

  Harvey 'Big Daddy' Pollitt : We can start by helping each other up this stairs.

• Harvey 'Big Daddy' Pollitt : Why did you and Brick suddenly decide to drive up from New Orleans?

  Margaret "Maggie" Pollitt : For your birthday, what else?

  Harvey 'Big Daddy' Pollitt : I had a birthday last year and the year before that. Didn't see you then.

  Margaret "Maggie" Pollitt : Well, you know how Brick is sometimes.

  Harvey 'Big Daddy' Pollitt : Maybe he thought he'd be coming to my funeral, instead of my birthday.

  Margaret "Maggie" Pollitt : But Brick loves you! He does!

  Harvey 'Big Daddy' Pollitt : But does he love you?

  Margaret "Maggie" Pollitt : What do you want, proof?

  Harvey 'Big Daddy' Pollitt : If I was married to you three years, you'd have the living proof. You'd have three kids already and a fourth in the oven.

• Brick Pollitt : Why'd you let Mama buy all this stuff?

  Harvey 'Big Daddy' Pollitt : The human animal is a beast that must die. If he's got money, he buys and buys and buys everything he can, in the crazy hope one of those things will be life-everlasting, which it can never be. I've suddenly noticed you don't call me Big Daddy anymore. If you needed a big daddy, why didn't you come to me? If you needed someone to lean on, why Skipper? Why not me? I'm your father! Why didn't you come to your kinfolk, the people that love you?

  Brick Pollitt : You don't know what love means! To you, it's just another four-letter word.

  Harvey 'Big Daddy' Pollitt : You've got a mighty short memory! What was there you ever wanted that I didn't buy?

  Brick Pollitt : You can't buy love!

  Harvey 'Big Daddy' Pollitt : Who do you think I bought it for? It's yours! The place, the money, everything's yours!

  Brick Pollitt : I don't want things!

• Harvey 'Big Daddy' Pollitt : Would ya look at all this stuff? Bought most of it when I took your mother to Europe on that Cook's Tour. Never had such a lousy time in my life. I tell you that Europe ain't nothin' but a wore-out auction, just a great big fire sale, the whole rotten thing. Boy, Big Mama just wild in it, and she just bought and bought and bought. Sure is lucky I'm a rich man, yes, sirree, sure is lucky. Got any idea how much I'm worth, son? Ask Gooper. He knows. He knows to the penny 'less I missed my guess. Close on ten million dollars in cash and blue chip stocks besides twenty-eight thousand of the richest acres this side of the Valley Nile.

  Brick Pollitt : Well, that is pretty rich to be.

  Harvey 'Big Daddy' Pollitt : But, there's one thing you can't buy at any European fire sale,

  [clears cobwebs from broken clock] 

  Harvey 'Big Daddy' Pollitt : or any other market on Earth. That's your life. You can't buy back your life when it's finished.

  Brick Pollitt : No, sir, no-one can.

  Harvey 'Big Daddy' Pollitt : Feelin' sorry for me, or for you?

  Brick Pollitt : For you, Papa.

  Harvey 'Big Daddy' Pollitt : That's good, 'cause you're gonna miss me, boy.

• Harvey 'Big Daddy' Pollitt : Let's go home.

  Ida 'Big Momma' Pollitt : Don't you want to ride with the children, honey?

  Harvey 'Big Daddy' Pollitt : No!

  Ida 'Big Momma' Pollitt : [laughing]  He's his sassy old self again, all right!

  Harvey 'Big Daddy' Pollitt : Be quiet, woman!

• Harvey 'Big Daddy' Pollitt : So you bought me a birthday present, huh?

  Brick Pollitt : No sir, Maggie bought it.

  Harvey 'Big Daddy' Pollitt : She's got good taste, that girl.

  Brick Pollitt : In some things, yes, but not in men.

• Harvey 'Big Daddy' Pollitt : I'm gonna pick me a choice woman and I'm gonna smother her in minks and choke her with diamonds. Boy, I'm gonna be happy.

• Margaret "Maggie" Pollitt : Did the storm cause any damage, Big Daddy?

  Harvey 'Big Daddy' Pollitt : Which storm you talking about, the one on the outside or the hullabaloo I heard going on in here? Heard some mighty loud talking. What's the powwow about?

  Mae Pollitt : Nothing, Big Daddy, nothing at all.

  Harvey 'Big Daddy' Pollitt : What's in them important-looking documents you got there, Gooper?

  Gooper Pollitt : Nothing, sir, nothing much of anything at all.

• Harvey 'Big Daddy' Pollitt : Grown-ups don't hang up on their friends! And they don't hang up on their wives and they don't hang up on life! That's the truth and that's what you can't face!

  Brick Pollitt : Can you face the truth?

  Harvey 'Big Daddy' Pollitt : Try me.

  Brick Pollitt : Sure, somebody else's truth.

  Harvey 'Big Daddy' Pollitt : So you're running again?

  Brick Pollitt : Yeah, I am! Running from lies like birthday congratulations and many happy returns when there won't be any!

  [pause] 

  Harvey 'Big Daddy' Pollitt : What did you say?

  Brick Pollitt : Forget it.

  Harvey 'Big Daddy' Pollitt : Won't be any happy returns?

  Brick Pollitt : Please just let me go home. Leave the place to Goober and Mae.

  Harvey 'Big Daddy' Pollitt : Leave the place? Who said I was gonna leave the place? I'll outlive you! I'll bury you!