Actor Denis Leary details chilling 9/11 experience…
Actor Denis Leary was unloading his hockey gear at Manhattan’s Chelsea Piers for a morning recreation when United Flt. 175 struck the South Tower of the World Trade Center 25 years in the past.
“They turned the rink into a morgue, and they lined up all the ambulances,” Leary, 69, told The Post.
The heartbreaking scene was the start of a journey that led to Leary’s well-known TV collection “Rescue Me” – a defiantly politically incorrect dramedy around FDNY members ridden with Sept. 11 survivor’s guilt.
Actor Denis Leary (heart, wanting at digicam) used his poignant experiences from 9/11 and firefighter buddies to help develop the hit TV collection “Rescue Me.” ©FX Networks/Courtesy:Everett Collection / Everett Collection
The New Englander star and his pick-up-hockey teammates from his manufacturing company had a clear, firsthand view of the terrorism and destruction unfurling that day from the West Side Highway.
Leary described seeing the “endless flow” of mud and cut-covered company staff fleeing uptown for hours.
“The sound of the buildings … it’s almost like it goes into your bones,” he said.
He was unaware of it at the time, but his buddy, Garnet “Ace” Bailey of the NHL’s Bruins – a hockey expertise who once performed with Wayne Gretzky’s Oilers in the World Hockey Association – was on board United 175, which had departed Boston’s Logan Airport for Los Angeles.
Leary misplaced pal Garnet “Ace” Bailey of the NHL’s Bruins — a passenger on domed United Flt. 175 — on 9/11. Getty Images
“I knew I was going to hear about firefighter friends of mine from the FDNY that didn’t make it,” Leary said.
“But the next day, to hear that “Ace” Bailey had died in the factor as properly, we had been just like, ‘That is crazy.’ I imply, it’s madness.”
Leary was already extremely hooked up to New York’s Bravest.
His cousin and close buddy Jeremiah Lucey was a Worcester, Mass., firefighter who was one of six responders killed in a warehouse blaze in the city in 1999 — and the actor remembered how his FDNY buddies got here up and helped search the building’s ruins at the time.
“A lot of members of the FDNY who I was friends with had come up to help look for the bodies,” Leary recalled.
The actor launched the Leary Firefighters Foundation in 2000 — and then an early supporter, FDNY Lt. Tim Higgins, was killed in the 9/11 terror assault that murdered almost 3,000 people that day – 343 of them FDNY, 23 NYPD and 37 Port Authority Police Department members.
The twenty fifth anniversary of the assaults is Friday. Getty Images
The heroic efforts of first responders that day are etched in historical past — and works such as “Rescue Me.” Universal Images Group via Getty Images
Leary said he “pretty quickly” determined he wished to flip the pain into a goal.
“A lot of the guys I knew that had survived, I was spending time with them and in their firehouses as they were digging through The Pile in the fall right after 9/11,” he said. “We were witnessing the grief that they were going through.”
Leary would often be joined in the firehouses by author Peter Tolan, who noticed the carnage firsthand while filming another project in New Jersey.
The pair initially mentioned a movie idea about a firefighter killed in the road of obligation – but one night time during the aftermath, modified all the things.
“It was literally in the blink of an eye. We went from watching a guy come up from downtown from The Pile — they had found a friend – a piece of a friend – and so he was just overwhelmed with grief. I mean, he could barely talk,” the actor said.
Firsthand grief resonated deeply with Leary. Getty Images
“Watching him trying to fight to talk in that firehouse kitchen was a very tough experience to watch. Maybe 20 minutes later…all of us were laughing about something.”
That’s when the lightbulb went off for the duo to create “Rescue Me.”
“We’re going to make a show where people are on the edge of their seat watching an action sequence involving fire,” Leary said, “And then the next minute they’re crying because they’re so sad, and then the minute after that, they’re laughing their asses off.”
The 2004 FX hit show launched around the plot line of Leary’s alcoholic firefighting character, Tommy Gavin, as he struggled to cope with the death of his FDNY cousin after only one of his fingers was discovered at Ground Zero.
The actor was moved to create “Rescue Me” after seeing the devastation of 9/11. ©FX Networks/Courtesy:Everett Collection / Everett Collection
It combined tearjerking tragedy with take-no-prisoners humor.
“Rescue Me” and its seven-season run also significantly revolved around cathartic, comedic, often irreverent firehouse kitchen conversations among Gavin’s crew.
They notably concerned John Scurti’s hilarious snack-loving Lt. “Lou” Ken Shea and Michael Lombardi’s inappropriately confused new, “probie” member Mike Silletti.
There also was Daniel Sunjata’s eventual 9/11 conspiracy theorist firefighter Franco Rivera and Steven Pasquale’s lovable fool Sean Garrity, whose heartbreaking cancer diagnosis turns into on-screen musical theater.
Leary’s show straddled the road of tragedy and darkish but hilarious humor. WireImage
Many scenes needed little to no Hollywood embellishment, thanks to the real-life tales that FDNY members and firefighting consultants gladly dished to the show’s creators.
“We had so much information on a daily basis, not just comedically, I’m talking about dramatically,” Leary said. “All the ideas for our fires came basically from experiences those guys had.”
Younger firefighters – many who had been quickly promoted because so many senior superiors had been killed on 9/11 – noticed the pilot before airing and liked its portrayal of uncooked firehouse conduct.
“They said, ‘You got it. You totally nailed it,’ ” Leary recalled.
Real firefighters have liked Leary’s TV show. ©FX Networks/Courtesy Everett Collection
As for the older officers, “I had one tell me, ‘You’re giving away our secrets.’ ”
It didn’t take long for the crew to notice “Rescue Me” also struck a chord outdoors the firehouses – particularly while filming early seasons in first-responder-heavy areas of outer Queens such as the Rockaways.
“We were shooting on blocks and in houses where every block had lost somebody,” Scurti told The Post.
Actor John Scurti recalled how “Rescue Me” helped many New Yorkers and widows heal. ©FX Networks/Courtesy:Everett Collection / Everett Collection
“People were out in their lawn chairs with a bottle of wine, watching us shoot all night. That’s when I remember getting a lot of real families and real widows saying that they loved the show and that you’re putting such a great light on the New York City Fire Department.”
Scurti wrote 4 episodes and said the source materials of on a regular basis New Yorkers wanting to share their tales was in all places after 2001.
“You walk into a deli, and you come out with another great 9/11 story that maybe we want to tell,” he said.
The show’s legacy – and therapeutic energy – is still reaching new New Yorkers over 20 years later.
Scurti recalled being stopped in a car parking zone by a former detective late last month to be told thanks.
“Rescue Me” still offers a therapeutic energy to many over 20 years later. ©FX Networks/Courtesy:Everett Collection / Everett Collection
“He and his son discovered ‘Rescue Me,’ and they’ve been sitting in front of the TV for the past two weeks,” the actor said.
Leary’s basis continues to help firefighters too, particularly during a yearly charity event at an FDNY academy “where people pay big money to become a firefighter for a day.”
“I still get firefighters, a lot of first responders and military people, who talk about how the show helped them through or how they still go back and watch the show because it helps them to still process it,” Leary said.
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