The Animal Factory (29 page)

Within a couple of years, Bunker found himself back on the inside again, having been found consorting with known felons (he happened to be travelling in a car owned by two burglars who had their tools in the boot of the vehicle). Details of Bunker’s misdemeanours together with a damning report by his hard-ass probation officer conspired to give him a ninety day jail sentence which included being sent out on work detail to the county farm (where low risk prisoners were sent). Bunker escaped almost immediately by climbing over a poorly guarded fence. He was a fugitive from justice once again and stayed on the run for over a year, despite a couple of close shaves with the police. Robbed of his cash while staying in an hotel during a road trip to New York, Bunker resorted to armed robbery out of desperation for immediate funds.

Inevitably, the agents of justice caught up with Bunker, but not before a failed bank heist and a wild car chase had ensued.

Bunker tried to get out of going back to prison by pretending to be insane. He gave a convincing performance (faking suicide and declaring that the Catholic Church had inserted a radio inside his head!) and was declared criminally insane. Bunker was shunted back and forth between Atascadero State Hospital and the California Medical Facility at Vacaville (where he edited a prison newspaper). Although Bunker was eventually freed, he could not keep out of trouble. His notoriety as a criminal mastermind put him on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list. In San Francisco in the early ’70s, Bunker ran a profitable drug empire. He was eventually caught after the cops had put a tracking device on his vehicle and followed him to Los Angeles where he boosted a bank (in fact, the police couldn’t believe their luck—they were under the erroneous impression that a drug deal was going down). With a
helicopter
and five cop cars on his trail, Bunker was apprehended after a car chase. He expected the book to be thrown at him for the robbery, anticipating at least a twenty-year sentence. Miraculously and largely due to the solicitations of influential friends and a lenient judge, he got only a five year custodial sentence.

Back in prison, Bunker focused on improving his writing skills. His perseverance (he produced six novels and fifty short stories between 1953 and ’72) was rewarded by encouraging words from an genuinely interested literary agent. By 1972, Bunker had finally produced a novel,
No Beast So Fierce
, which, after some judicious pruning was accepted by the publisher, WW Norton. At the same time, Bunker’s essay “War Behind Wall” about San Quentin’s internecine race wars was published in the prestigious
Harper’s
magazine.

When Eddie Bunker was released on parole in 1975, he had spent eighteen years of his life in prison institutions. Despite his new career as a writer, for a time, a life of crime still had its temptations, particularly when money got tight. But once Bunker was earning money from his writing and film appearances, he had no need to resort to crime to survive. His own view of his descent into criminal activity was that it was dictated solely by circumstances and necessity—once those circumstances changed for the better, the criminal impulse died in him.

A second published novel,
Animal Factory
, appeared in 1977 and articles followed in
The New Yorker
and both the
New York Times
and
LA Times
. Happily for the ex-convict, the actor, Dustin Hoffman, who had bought the film rights to
No Beast So Fierce
, in 1975, made a favourable deal with First Artists which allowed him not only to direct the movie but also supervise its all-important final cut. But taking on the mantle of director as well as starring in the main role as convict Max Dembo proved too much for Hoffman, who persuaded his old pal Ulu Grosbard to take over directorial duties. To Hoffman’s dismay, First Artists reneged on their earlier decision to allow him the final cut and tampered with the film’s editing in such a way that Hoffman sued for damages. Controversy aside and despite disappointing critical and commercial responses,
Straight Time
was a good movie and a faithful representation of life in the U.S. penal system. Bunker collaborated with Alvin Sargeant and Jeffrey Roam on the movie’s screenplay. The film was also significant for Edward Bunker in that it represented his first acting part in a movie. It would be the first of many fleeting cameos that Bunker would play over the next two decades, including playing the part of a cop (Captain Holmes) in
Tango and Cash
(1988) and culminating with his famous role as Mr Blue in Tarantino’s acclaimed
Reservoir Dogs
. Indeed, Bunker’s minor thespian exertions even made him eligible for a Screen Actors Guild pension.

In 1979, Bunker claimed that he found true salvation in an
attractive
young lawyer, Jennifer, whom he married (despite a difference in age and background they are still together and have a young son, Brendan, born in 1994).

In 1981, Bunker produced a third novel,
Little Boy Blue
, which contained some of his most impressive and eloquent writing. In 1985, Bunker wrote part of the Academy Award-nominated screenplay to the film
Runaway Train
, starring Jon Voigt as a fugitive con (Bunker mainly wrote the opening half-hour of the movie depicting prison life).

In 1991, Bunker was cast by wunderkind director, Quentin Tarantino (at the suggestion of Chris Penn) in
Reservoir Dogs
as Mr Blue. Tarantino, in fact, had apparently studied the movie
Straight Time
while attending a course at Robert Redford’s Sundance Institute for young film-makers. A couple of years later, in 1994, Bunker was hired as a consultant on the film
American Heart
, starring Jeff Bridges as the con Jack Kelson, who has just been released from the slammer and is hoping to go straight by cleaning windows. In Michael Mann’s slick 1995 thriller,
Heat
, starring Al Pacino and Robert De Niro, some of the cast picked Bunker’s brain about the nature of the criminal mind (Jon Voigt’s
character
, in fact, was made to resemble Bunker in appearance).

In 1996, Bunker produced his fourth crime novel, the action-packed
Dog Eat Dog
, based upon a story a fellow con had related to him while in prison. His latest book,
Mr Blue
, a candid autobiography, has just been published with the possibility that one of his earlier, previously unpublished novels, a sort of Jim Thompson-esque, noir novel, will follow shortly afterwards.

Ironically, Edward Bunker continues to make a living from crime—but for the last quarter of a century, he’s only been writing about it. After having begun life in somewhat unfortunate circumstances in Hollywood some sixty-six years ago, Edward Bunker has returned to whence he came to reside in tinsel town as a model citizen. No longer the human equivalent of an earthquake, Bunker (though still
unrepentant
about his criminal exploits), lives in relative serenity after many turbulent years evading the law.