I listen to a lot of celebrity interview podcasts, from WTF to Marc Maron to Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard to Life is Short with Justin Long to Literally! With Rob Lowe, and in the last couple of months, Matthew McConaughey has stopped by all of them (and more) to promote his memoir, Greenlights.
I have listened to them all, and I’ve heard a lot of McConaughey stories since last October, so many in fact that I feel like I already know most of the content of his book. McConaughey is an interesting guy, obviously, although the more I hear him, the more I realize how out there he is. One story that seems to get repeated on every podcast, however, is how his father died. I think I have heard Matthew McConaughey say the phrase, “Called his shot” at least a dozen times.
The phrase refers to his father, who “called his shot,” so to speak, in the manner in which he would die. According to McConaughey, his father repeatedly told him that he would die while having sex with McConaughey’s mother, and that is exactly what he did. As sad as it is to lose a father — and McConaughey was close to him, although he was complicated — that particular story is clearly a huge part of the McConaughey family lore, and it’s given his father a mythic quality.
“He called his shot, man,” McConaughey said on Rob Lowe’s podcast. “He called his shot!” It was something his father had told him numerous times. “He’d say, ‘Boys! When I leave this place, I’m going to be making love to your mother … when I get on outta here, I’m going to makin’ love to your mother!’ And damned if he didn’t. Six-thirty in the morning on a Monday, he wakes up frisky. He and my mom make love, and as soon as he finishes, heart attack. On top of her.”
There’s a post-script to the story, however, that is not included in his memoir. “As my mom tells it,” McConaughey continues. “She calls the paramedics, and we’re living in this cul-de-sac in this little neighborhood in Southwest Houston. All the neighbors have come out at 7 in the morning to see what’s going on. There’s an ambulance across the street at the McConaugheys. They’re out in the driveway, and they’re rolling [my father] out on the gurney.”
“My mom is still in her nightie,” McConaughey says. “They have a sheet over [my father], right? That would be the nice thing to do, right? Guess who is pulling the sheet off of him and yelling, ‘No you’re not going to cover him up. I want the world to see why he was known as BIG JIM.'”
The neighbors were shocked, but McConaughey’s mother continued, yelling, “He did it! He did it! He said that’s the way he was going to go!”
Sure enough, it was exactly as Jim McConaughey had written it up.
Is it true? McConaughey says it is, and he’s had a wild enough life that I absolutely would not doubt it.
Source: Literally! with Rob Lowe
