The Book of Sheen: A Memoir

Sheen recounts his first remembered family story, from early childhood, and he reflects on his uncertainty about memory itself. He states that recollection and events often diverge, and the images he remembers may come from old photographs, rather than lived moments.

At age two in New York, he was taken for his first surgery. As a distraction, his parents dressed him in a “very stylish Roy Rogers cowboy ensemble” (9), including hat, boots, spurs, and toy pistols. The operation followed an occurrence that began six months earlier, when he began screaming whenever he felt people were staring at him. His parents sought explanations without success. The outbursts then incorporated a physical habit, in which his hand went into his pants to grab his crotch, with the grip tightening as he yelled.

A therapist friend of his mother witnessed an episode and suggested a medical evaluation for a hernia, reasoning that the force of the screaming had likely caused a tear. He was examined, scheduled, and underwent surgery. He reports that the procedure succeeded, and the screaming episodes stopped. Sheen says he has no personal memory of these events and knows them from family conversations. He believes his only “memory” comes from a single photograph of himself in the cowboy costume.

Sheen traces his parents’ paths to New York and the start of their family. In 1959, Martin Sheen leaves Dayton, Ohio, on a Greyhound bus with prize money from a statewide speech contest. He intends to pursue acting, having intentionally failed a junior college entrance exam to avoid enrollment.

Martin’s father, Francisco Estevez, a Spanish immigrant who worked at National Cash Register (NCR) for decades, married Mary-Ann Phelan, an Irish immigrant. They had 10 children, though Mary-Ann died when Martin was 11 years old.

Around 1960, Janet Templeton departs Ohio for a summer job in Provincetown, Massachusetts, and a scholarship to the Art Institute of Boston. On enrollment day, she instead goes to New York, where she works as a dental assistant by day and in a SoHo gallery at night.

A mutual acquaintance named Jim is the link between Martin and Janet. Martin works as a theater usher alongside Al Pacino, lands stage roles, and temporarily sleeps on Jim’s couch. Jim knows Janet from the gallery.

After a few awkward early dates, Martin invites Janet to his off-Broadway play The Connection, and they become a couple. They marry on December 23, 1961, at St. Stephen’s in Manhattan. Though Martin was named Ramon Antonio Gerard Estevez, he was “quietly and awkwardly” told that picking a less Latino-sounding name would help his career (13).

Martin and Janet’s first son, Emilio, is born on May 12, 1962. Ramon follows, born at home on Staten Island in August 1963, when a midwife is unavailable, with firefighters assisting. Martin chose his children’s Spanish names “to carry the Spanish flag” and preserve his own sense of identity (14).

This chapter follows Martin Sheen’s breakthrough on Broadway and the family’s shift into a mobile life that ends in Los Angeles. In 1964, he stars in Frank D. Gilroy’s The Subject Was Roses with Jack Albertson and Irene Dailey, playing to sold-out houses and industry acclaim, though the awards go to Gilroy and Albertson.

In 1967, his father, Francisco, attends a performance but leaves silently after seeing the lobby poster bearing Martin’s “fancy new American name” (15), a moment that devastates Martin and is left unresolved before Francisco’s death in 1974. The play’s run across multiple theaters leads to steady television work for Martin, including Flipper, Mission: Impossible, Hawaii Five-0, Mannix, Ironside, Columbo, and Mongo’s Back in Town.

The family grows when Renée is born in 1967, also delivered by Dr. Shaybone. With Martin’s work expanding, the family begins traveling together to sets, a practice Martin insists upon. On January 12, 1969, they head to Mexico for Catch-22, settling near the beach in Guaymas. Sheen recalls a daily ritual there as a four-year-old: entering the kitchen with his blanket to ask what day it is, where they are, and when they are going home, questions that alarm his parents during the four-month shoot. After Mexico, the family relocates to Los Angeles.

The family moves from a rented house on South Castello Avenue in West Los Angeles, near Pico Boulevard and just outside Beverly Hills, to a new home in Malibu. Martin prefers modest living, and he and Janet find Los Angeles easier after New York. With Martin in Italy finishing Catch-22 with the two older sons, Janet Templeton learns to drive in Los Angeles, bringing Charlie and Renée along during lessons. After six weeks, she passes her road test at age 30.

Seeking a cheaper rental, she scans newspaper listings and tours a house in the Pacific Palisades, but the landlord refuses to rent to a family of six, citing the septic system. She next visits a larger ranch-style property in northern Malibu owned by Dr. Marwah, a dentist known for treating Elizabeth Taylor and Muhammad Ali. The rent is $400 and is within budget, though Martin hesitates because the current location is close to studios.

A week later, the Manson murders occur in Los Angeles on Cielo Drive, followed by another attack the next night. The parents treat these events as a “serious sign” to move. Shortly after Charlie’s fourth birthday, the family relocates to Malibu, which becomes their home.

When Charlie is six, Martin Sheen and Uncle Mike (Janet’s brother) to Juan Cabrillo Elementary in Malibu. Left alone briefly in a running car, he gets out and hides in a backyard woodshed, clutching a brick. They find him and deliver him to class. When he realizes they will leave, Sheen has a severe reaction, and Martin stays with him. He reports that similar episodes recur during the first weeks of subsequent school years.

After a year at the Marwah Ranch, the family must move. They rent a house on Birdview Avenue in Point Dume. The house is unfurnished, and the four children sleep in sleeping bags in one room for a year. Charlie enrolls at Carden Elementary, a phonics-based school in Malibu. Within a week, the administrators call his parents because he refuses to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. Martin negotiates a “compromise” that his son does not have to stand or recite the Pledge.

The family then travels to Colorado for the three-month shoot of Badlands. To avoid repeating second grade, Charlie attends a nearby alternative home school for two weeks. There, an 8mm film shows Holocaust footage, and his parents withdraw him immediately.

Before his eighth birthday, Sheen recalls his parents purchasing their first home, two streets from their previous rental in Point Dume, Malibu, a modest four-bedroom with a large backyard. There, Charlie spends long days throwing a baseball and catching fly balls hit by Martin Sheen or Uncle Mike, developing a fixation with the game.

He transfers to Point Dume Elementary, a nearby public school, and tries to assimilate quickly. He joins a small group of classmates who already know one another: Chris Penn, Miles C., and the Heath twins. In Mrs. Haynes’s third-grade class, after lunch, the teacher poses a question. He knows the answer, raises his hand, and is called on, but no words come. Two more attempts fail as he sweats and panics while classmates laugh.

The bell rings; his friends avoid eye contact. Mrs. Haynes tells him a stutter is common for newcomers and advises him not to dwell on it. The next morning, Charlie tries to understand the incident and considers a link to his difficult birth. He identifies the onset as the beginning of a recurring stutter that he labels “the Stutter-Ghoul.”

In spring 1972, in County Cork, Ireland, while Martin Sheen filmed The Catholics, Charlie and his brothers receive a silent Movexoom 2000 Super 8 camera as a gift. They began staging short dramatic pieces rather than travel footage. Emilio assumes directing and cinematography, with Charlie and Ramon rotating as actors and crew, improvising props and learning by doing.

After eight weeks, they return to Malibu and expand the hobby into regular shoots across Point Dume, drawing in friends Chris Penn and the Heath twins. The “lean and dedicated” group film stunts, handheld action, and neighborhood set pieces (33), funding their film with money from their parents.

In 1978, the family upgraded to an Elmo Super 8 with sound, and the boys learned basic lighting, sound recording, and editing. Charlie and Chris handled postproduction, splicing film by hand in Chris’s room, then screening shorts for family on a sheet and, later, a portable screen. Chris’s brother Sean Penn advised on camera positions and dialogue, while Michael Penn provided original music. Sheen closes the chapter by saluting Chris Penn’s talent and their shared body of work.

This chapter follows a family trip to Italy during Martin Sheen’s work on The Cassandra Crossing. Sheen notes that the Super 8 camera always accompanied them. In Rome, Charlie and Emilio visit the Coliseum with their mother and return to shoot a short silent film, titled Rubble Child, with Emilio directing and Charlie acting.

At the studio, Charlie plays a “heated and surreal” late-night ping pong match with O. J. Simpson (38). He believes Simpson switches paddle hands near the end and wins. Charlie receives a consoling kiss from Sophia Loren. Producer Carlo Ponti and Loren host the cast at their villa, where Martin arranges food and coffee for chauffeurs waiting outside. The guests watch Dog Day Afternoon in the home theater.

Soon after, Martin’s agent calls with a request to meet Francis Ford Coppola during a layover. Coppola hands Martin a script and explains that his lead needs to be replaced. Martin returns to Italy to finish his work, then departs for the Philippines to begin Apocalypse Now, which Sheen labels “the greatest motion picture ever made” (41).

After Martin Sheen departs for the Philippines to film Apocalypse Now, Janet returns to Los Angeles with the four children and arranges for Uncle Mike to stay with them until she joins Martin in Baler a week later. A month into the shoot, Typhoon Olga strikes Luzon, destroying sets at Iba, causing hundreds of deaths and mass displacement, and forcing production to suspend. Martin and Janet return to California.

In July 1976, the parents decide the children will accompany them for the resumed shoot. The family flies to Manila and drives to Lake Caliraya, where they live in a bungalow amid extreme heat, “overwhelming” smells, and heavy insect presence. Charlie divided his time among Lake Caliraya, the Pagsanjan Rapids Hotel, and Kurtz’s Compound.

The Coppola family was similarly present: Charlie and Roman Coppola became “fast friends” and once pulled a local child from a pool, after which they were treated as heroes. Dennis Hopper hosted a screening of Easy Rider at the hotel, prompting Charlie to ask his parents about the film’s references to marijuana. Marlon Brando visits for lunch one day, and Janet’s bottled water, shipped from home, helps Brando recover from dysentery.

Set access was limited by danger, space, and late hours, so Charlie missed many of the film’s signature scenes. In spite of his excitement, he slept through the Do Lung Bridge explosion. At basecamp, he explored the prop and armorer trucks, ate American candy, fired a machine gun, learned to break down weapons, and observed special effects artist Fred Blau apply prosthetics, including work for a decapitation. He helped cover extras in blood for a temple scene. He also witnessed the “brutal” ritual killing of a water buffalo by the Ifugao people for footage intercut with the end of Kurtz’s story, after which the animal was eaten.

The family’s stay in the Philippines extended through the second half of 1976 during the production of Apocalypse Now and Martin Sheen’s health crisis and recovery (See: Background). A planned return to Malibu for school slips by. During a brief birthday visit to the set, Charlie sees his father emerge injured and disoriented after a difficult scene; the celebration is halted, and Martin is escorted away. Work resumes the next day, despite Martin’s “devastating pain.”

Life centers on the Pagsanjan Rapids Hotel while schedules collapse, Emilio returns to the United States for school, and a short-lived tutoring effort for Charlie begins. Production pauses for December, marked by a ping pong tournament that Charlie wins before the family heads home to California.

In January, Martin returns to the Philippines with Janet, leaving the children in Malibu with a friend, Mary Arnold. Charlie and a friend try marijuana for the first time, and Mary confronts him. Soon, Janet calls with troubling news about Martin’s health. The children fly to Manila and learn that he has suffered a mild heart attack.

Charlie and Martin play catch daily for two weeks as part of his rehabilitation. Joe Estevez briefly fills in for Martin on the film, standing in for the long shots, but soon, Martin returns to work. Eventually, the boys are sent home. Later, Janet brings Martin back to Malibu.