The Long Goodbye: Sterling Hayden’s Avant-Garde Writing Tweeds

Sterling Hayden in The Long Goodbye (1973) Vitals Sterling Hayden as Roger Wade, larger-than-life alcoholic writer Los Angeles, Summer 1972 Film: The Long Goodbye Release Date: March 7, 1973 Director: Robert Altman Men’s Costume Designer: Kent James (uncredited) WARNING! Spoilers ahead! Background Sterling Hayden storms into The Long Goodbye like a force of nature, a happily hulking 6’5″ direct counter to Elliott Gould’s laidback characterization of private eye Philip Marlowe. It’s a magnificent performance, underscored by Hayden’s own classic noir credentials from films like The Asphalt Jungle (1950) and The Killing (1956) brought to Robert Altman’s inversive deconstruction of the genre. A year after portraying the crooked Captain McKlusky in The Godfather, Hayden stepped into the ragged tweeds and fisherman sandals of Roger Wade, a gruff, buff, and hard-drinking Hemingway-esque writer who reflects on suicide and “beautiful broads” in the same train of thought. Although Wade has…