Jerry Weintraub (Patrick McMullan)
SHIP SHAPE: Jerry Weintraub (left) worked harder on Bush’ doc than “Ocean’s 11.” (AP/inset: Shepard Sherbell/CORBIS SABA)
If “41,” HBO’s documentary about the 41st president, George H. W. Bush, feels unusually fond and friendly, chalk it up to the influence of a fond friend: the film’s producer, Jerry Weintraub, who has been a buddy of Bush’s for some 45 years.
Weintraub, the producer of such blockbusters as “Ocean’s Eleven” and himself an irrepressible Hollywood figure and subject of the documentary “His Way,” sat down to talk about Bush, whose 88th birthday is today, and “41,” which debuts on HBO Thursday.
Q: How did you get to know George Bush?
A: My wife had summered in Kennebunkport [the Maine town where the Bush family has long kept a vacation home] and knew the Bushes.
The president and I couldn’t be more different — he had a patrician background, I’m from The Bronx and Brooklyn. When I got up to Kennebunkport, it was kind of a culture shock for me.
He was very, very nice to me. There aren’t a lot of people in Kennebunkport named Weintraub. In those days, the clubs didn’t have Jewish members. They were “restricted.”
But he made sure I was socially accepted and got me into those clubs.
Q: He talked about himself so little — he never wrote a memoir, for instance — that a lot of viewers may not know that he was a pilot who was shot down over the Pacific in World War II.
A: I don’t think he wanted to sit down and write about himself. He’s a very private guy whose mother and father taught him not to be [given to] braggadocio and not to be a big shot.
He was brought up to handle adversity and to make things work and not make a big deal out of them.
He also talks about his daughter Robin, who died of leukemia when she was 3.
He couldn’t understand why God took her. He’s not a religious fanatic, but he believes in God. I don’t think it shook his faith, but he certainly questioned things.
Q: What is your friendship with him like?
A: His opening up of his world to a person of my background — I never would have seen that in a hundred million years.
I stayed in the Lincoln Bedroom, I traveled on Air Force One, Marine One, went to private dinners with Gorbachev, people like that. It was a pretty extraordinary leap into this other world. He taught me a lot about our system in this country and about the importance of family. I’m a nutcase for him.
Q: Neither of the Bushes has been very visible after leaving the White House.
A: He feels that when you’re president, you’re president, and then it’s over.
He dropped the title of president. When you call his office, it’s “Office of George Bush” not “President Bush.”
He’s one of the very few to do that. I couldn’t call him George when he was in office, though he asked me to.
The day he left, I called him George again.
Q: Bush is friends with the guy who defeated him, Bill Clinton, but Ross Perot. . .?
A: We didn’t lose to Clinton. We lost to Perot. He cost us the election. I don’t think [Bush] carries grudges against anybody except maybe Perot.
Q: Your film is very kind toward Bush — are you a Republican?
A: I don’t know what I am. I’m an independent, probably. I’m not dogmatic. I’ve supported Democrats and Republicans.
Q: Can you compare making a big-budget Hollywood movie to this?
A: I didn’t make five cents on this doc, and I worked harder than I did on the “Ocean’s” movies. This is more satisfying to me than all of my movies and all my shows. Because he’s a friend.