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 clearly molded himself in a conventional image of masculinity to mask his own deep insecurities and sensitivities, he ironically refers to Marlowe as “the Marlboro Man” throughout his interactions with the detective:

You know what I wish you’d do? I wish you’d take that goddamn J.C. Penney tie off, eh?, and settle down with me, and what you and I are gonna do is have a little, old-fashioned, man-to-man drinking party.

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What’d He Wear?

Roger Wade establishes an artistically masculine offbeat appearance by always wearsing a white cotton band-collar shirt with a wide dark-brown leather belt worn around his waist outside the untucked hem. He maintains the intentionally unkempt look by unbuttoning the front placket to mid-chest and keeping the button cuffs unfastened and rolled up his forearms.

Wade appropriately tops his tweedy tailoring with a brown tweed flat cap, irregularly woven with a tan tic-checked arrangement.

“You look like you’re wearing your working clothes,” Marlowe comments of the brown-and-tan flecked Donegal tweed Norfolk jacket that Wade wears when the detective visits. Characterized by box pleats and a belted waist, these loose tweed sport jackets originated among 19th century sportsmen, reportedly named after either the Coke of Norfolk, the Duke of Norfolk, or the county of Norfolk where it was favored by Edward VII’s sporting circle.

Although tweeds are considerably out of place during summer on a Malibu beach, Wade trade on these rugged associations with country sportsmen and hunters as part of his carefully crafted image. However, rather than the neatly buttoned-up and belted presentation of properly worn Norfolk jackets, Wade looks characteristically slapdash by keeping the jacket unbuttoned, its collar turned up in the back, and abandoning the belt despite waist loops clearly configured for one.

Wade’s Norfolk jacket has notch lapels that roll to a high three-button front and the requisite vertical pleat strips over the front and back, curving slightly inward over the back. These run over the two chest pockets in the front, each covered with a single-button scalloped flap, though they stop above the larger patch pockets on the hips that also each close with a single-button flap. Seams extending down from the armpit align with the unused belt loops and the double side vents. The sleeves are finished with three-button cuffs.

The matching Donegal tweed waistcoat (vest) suggests pieces of a three-piece suit worn orphaned from their matching trousers. Like the jacket, he wears this single-breasted waistcoat with its seven front buttons fully undone. Its four set-in pockets are each covered with flaps, adding a sportier element than the non-flapped pockets on more businesslike tailored waistcoats. The back is finished in a black cotton with a matching adjustable strap across the bottom.

Wade’s darker taupe-brown trousers are a narrow pinwale corduroy (or “needlecord”), texturally consistent with the sporty coarseness of tweed while likely considerably more comfortable for his long days and nights sitting in front of the typewriter and/or aquavit bottle. These have flat-felled seams down the sides like jeans, ending at the plain-hemmed bottoms reinforced with banded seams.

His weathered fisherman sandals look like they’ve endured plenty of sand and sweat. The uppers each consist of a network of wide dark-brown leather straps interwoven with a central length-wise strap over the instep, enclosing the toes.

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What to Imbibe

Roger Wade: I got champagne, beer, Scotch, bourbon, aquavit, port…
Philip Marlowe: What are you drinking?
Roger Wade: What I’m drinking is called aquavit.
Philip Marlowe: Well, I’m drinking what you’re drinking.
Roger Wade: God bless you, I like to hear that. You know, there’s an awful lot of people, you say, what do you want to drink? “Ooh, I want this, I want that, and a twist of lemon.” Balls!

And with that, Wade continually refills their mugs from a chilled bottle of Aalborg. Also known as “akvavit”, reportedly derived from the Latin aqua vitae for “water of life”, this spirit dates back to at least the 16th century as a staple of Scandinavian culture, distilled from either grain or potatoes and flavored with a variety of herbs and spices.

Aalborg, the distillery headquartered in the Danish town of the same name, distills their aquavit with amber. (For the record—and perhaps not coincidentally—Aalborg was determined to be the “happiest” European city in a European Commission study.)

If you’re looking for something perhaps more accessible to accompany viewing The Long Goodbye, you could consider Wade’s initial request for milk—until his wife Eileen (Nina van Pallandt) counters by asking “is milk what you really want?”, sending him pouring whiskey into his coffee mug.

Later, Wade’s party is separately crashed by both Marlowe and Dr. Verringer (Henry Gibson) while he’s pouring out shots of Jack Daniel’s Tennesse whiskey from the familiar black-labeled bottle, presumably also ripping plenty of shots himself.

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How to Get the Look

Technically set during the summer (as a calendar shows July), Roger Wade’s tweed-layered look over a belt-secured band-collar shirt with fisherman sandals suggests some offbeat layers during more transitional seasons.

• White cotton band-collar shirt with front placket and button cuffs
• Dark-brown wide leather belt (worn over his untucked shirt hem)
• Brown-and-tan flecked Donegal tweed 3-button Norfolk jacket with notch lapels, front and back pleated strips, belt loops (unused), two chest pockets with single-button scalloped flaps, two hip pockets with single-button flaps, three-button cuffs, and double side vents
• Brown-and-tan flecked Donegal tweed 7-button waistcoat with four flapped set-in pockets and black cotton-lined back
• Dark taupe-brown pinwale corduroy trousers with plain-hemmed bottoms
• Dark-brown leather fisherman sandals
• Brown and tan tic-checked tweed flat cap

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Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie and read Chandler’s 1953 novel.

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The Quote

Balls, baby! Balls!