tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-90633747957734054072024-02-19T08:32:03.617-08:00Flickery FlicksBehind-the-scenes stories about movie-making AMANDA ERLANSONhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08802979669786762765noreply@blogger.comBlogger57125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9063374795773405407.post-43644859594955842812021-10-11T14:25:00.000-07:002023-04-08T17:28:52.667-07:00The Boy Who Gave Voice To "Forrest Gump"<p>Michael Humphreys made his acting debut playing ‘Young Forrest’ in <i>Forrest Gump</i>. Though he was just eight years old at the time, his performance had an enormous impact on the movie's success. Born in Memphis, Tennessee and raised in rural Independence, Mississippi, Humphreys was cast from an open call which drew hundreds of hopefuls to Memphis shortly before <i>Forrest Gump</i> went into production. His mother was inspired to bring him to audition after seeing a television commercial that said the filmmakers were looking for a boy who looked like “a young Tom Hanks, with light eyes and a quirky disposition.” “That’s Michael,” his mother realized. </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgt4_yEvib83hTzfUwVRLx-kSEbLkIeAbAio7syHlgCRpiv88xm3FpGQis4fgJIvoHfFiFX-s14Jb2rJu0BwWUtXgKm1aIn2Xh7hUaFaxHF_q5hHh3i3N4RAPGdGOOUw94a3iKinqoZ_sI/s1415/Forrest+Gump.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1415" data-original-width="1024" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgt4_yEvib83hTzfUwVRLx-kSEbLkIeAbAio7syHlgCRpiv88xm3FpGQis4fgJIvoHfFiFX-s14Jb2rJu0BwWUtXgKm1aIn2Xh7hUaFaxHF_q5hHh3i3N4RAPGdGOOUw94a3iKinqoZ_sI/w464-h640/Forrest+Gump.jpg" width="464" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><p>As producer Steve Starkey recalled, “Ellen Lewis, our casting director, brought this tape of his audition out to us in Los Angeles. After seeing it, director Bob Zemeckis had a big smile on his face, because he’d just seen this unique character that so far he hadn’t seen anywhere.” As a result, Michael Humphreys proceeded to the next phase of casting, which was a screen test in Hollywood. Starkey said, “We invited a number of boys out to actually read in front of the camera, because sometimes these children will just freeze up and won’t be able to perform at all. So Michael Humphreys came out, and he was as natural as ever. He didn’t have any fear at all. All he wanted was a peanut butter sandwich off the catering table.” </p><p>The filmmakers all agreed that young Michael Humphreys proved to be a “vault of treasure.” In fact, the boy provided the key to unlocking Tom Hanks’ Oscar-winning performance. </p><p>“I was very, very wary of the whole vocal thing, because it’s not my gig – I don’t know how to do it,” Hanks revealed. “I was always trying to convince Bob that there was some way of soft-pedaling it somehow, even though it is so evocative and it’s grammatically written out in Winston Groom’s novel… I told Bob, ‘This is new turf for me, and I don’t know how to do this. I think the audience is going to hate us, like I’m doing Ken Berry in <i>Mayberry RFD</i>.’ Bob says, ‘Look, you’ve just got to figure out a way of doing it.” </p><p>So Hanks did – he chose to study young Michael Humphreys and base Forrest’s vocal style on the way the boy spoke. Fortunately, all of the scenes with ‘Young Forrest’ were shot before Hanks began filming, so there was plenty of time for Hanks to observe him. “Michael’s got this way of talking – he’s got this kind of vocal quality that’s hard to define, but it’s definitely there,” said Hanks. “Being eight years old, and having a very particular personality, and being from Mississippi, he had this kind of vocal cadence or signature that was really kind of strange. It was weird! I studied him and transposed the way he spoke and some of his phrasing, and put it into the script.” </p><p>Throughout filming, Hanks hoped that he had found a way of presenting Forrest’s voice that would be appealing. “I have seen movies where somebody has adopted a sort of bizarre way of talking, and it seems like as much thought went into it as them wearing a pair of glasses in a movie,” he said. “It took months for me to figure it out.” </p><p>Fortunately, his dedication paid off. Audiences worldwide adored <i>Forrest Gump</i>, making it the most successful summer drama in history, and the Academy awarded Tom Hanks with the Best Actor Oscar for the second year in a row. </p><p><br /></p><div>Sources: <br />Cathy Thompson-Georges, “Tom Hanks Shows His Gumption,” <i>Entertainment Today</i>, 7/1/94<br />Irv Letofsky, “Hanks’ Role Has Plenty of Gumption,” <i>San Diego Union-Tribune</i>, 7/3/94<br />Tom Provenzano, “Get Ready to Meet Forrest Gump,” <i>Drama-Logue</i>, 7/7/94<br /><i>Forrest Gump</i> Production Information: Paramount Studios Press Release<br /><i>Forrest Gump</i> DVD: Bonus Materials</div>AMANDA ERLANSONhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08802979669786762765noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9063374795773405407.post-8603623526380153082021-10-10T12:26:00.000-07:002023-04-08T17:29:12.170-07:00'Forrest Gump' Was Patterned on a Boyhood Friendship<p>Many reviewers of the novel <i>Forrest Gump</i> appreciated author Winston Groom’s handling of Forrest’s voice, a juicy Southern vernacular with a casual disregard for grammar and spelling. According to Groom, Forrest’s voice just came naturally from the people he grew up with. “You hang around shrimpers or duck hunters on the Alabama waterfront, and you’ll hear that voice. They don’t ‘throw’ the ball, they ‘tho’ it.” </p><p>When the filming of <i>Forrest Gump</i> brought Groom into the limelight, he admitted that he had based some of Forrest’s vocal patterns and mannerisms on his boyhood pals Jimbo Meador and George Radcliff, to whom he had dedicated the novel. “There’s more than just a little of Jimbo and George in Forrest Gump,” Groom said affectionately. “These guys are the two biggest idiots I know.” In characteristic fashion, Groom’s friend George Radcliff countered that statement with, “He’s a lying sombitch.”</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmZelEzR5n-8qGUH8LmruvTE3K3BYOalGBoy0_RIR6BrmRdIWq0HGHfLlXvkItX3bWOnV_Nf-6gK-9yx4uZaIsyFy8SJ-pfUXUtpfSnvlmyaYtZyHeO4yE_y-zTLPLX0Qfq79LkkTQJ_I/s1535/Jimbo+Meador_George+Radcliff_Winston+Groom.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1535" data-original-width="1068" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmZelEzR5n-8qGUH8LmruvTE3K3BYOalGBoy0_RIR6BrmRdIWq0HGHfLlXvkItX3bWOnV_Nf-6gK-9yx4uZaIsyFy8SJ-pfUXUtpfSnvlmyaYtZyHeO4yE_y-zTLPLX0Qfq79LkkTQJ_I/w446-h640/Jimbo+Meador_George+Radcliff_Winston+Groom.jpg" width="446" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">From left to right, Jimbo Meador, George Radcliff and Winton Groom enjoying a day on the water</td></tr></tbody></table><p>In Groom’s picaresque novel, Forrest is a much earthier character than he is in the movie, prone to using foul language and getting involved in all sorts of bizarre situations. He’s also an accidental philosopher, reflecting our culture through his own unique lens. Toward the end of his adventures, he becomes a shrimp farmer, not a shrimp fisherman. </p><p>“One of my best friends is a guy named Jimbo Meador,” said Groom. “He’s an old friend from Mobile, Alabama. For 20 years he worked as the general manager of Bon Secour Fisheries in Alabama. Although he never did any shrimp farming, he was always interested in it, and we used to talk about it a lot. Jimbo knows everything there is to know about shrimp. We used to have lunch about once a week, and it occurred to me after one of these conversations while I was writing <i>Forrest</i>, ‘What better thing to do than make Forrest a shrimp farmer?’” </p><p>Jimbo Meador recalled, “When they were getting ready to make the movie, all of a sudden the media started sending people down to interview Winston. Then they started asking about me because of the dedication, and found out that I used to shrimp and used to be an obsessive runner. Suddenly, a lot of the media wanted to make me out to be the ‘real’ Forrest Gump.” According to some of Jimbo Meador’s friends, one big city journalist asked him point blank if it were true that he was the real-life inspiration for <i>Forrest Gump</i>. “I guess,” Jimbo replied, then added after a pause, “all but the idiot part.” </p><p>“Winston was encouraging me to talk to these people, but it really got out of hand,” Meador recalled. “<i>People</i> magazine came down here, and a television program called <i>A Current Affair</i>. The <i>London Times</i> sent a reporter, different magazines and newspapers, even a radio station in Australia. Finally, the people at <i>David Letterman</i> called to talk to me about being on the show, but there I drew the line. I kept telling everybody, ‘The story is fiction.’” </p><p>“It was an honor that Winston had dedicated the book to me,” Meador said, “but I hope people don’t think I’m an idiot. If they do, it’s maybe because I talk real slow. That’s how we talk down here in the South.” </p><p>Charles Gaines, another of Jimbo Meador’s friends, wrote that what makes the concept of Meador as an idiot particularly funny to his many friends “is that no one we know has led a less idiotic life than Jimbo. A man about whom it is impossible to find anyone to say anything even slightly disparaging, he owns a Sufi elder’s fortune of kind and generous imperturbability, amassed over a lifetime of following his bliss as implacably and enthusiastically as a beagle on a rabbit scent. Jimbo’s bliss has been his freedom, and that freedom has always been found on the water and in boats.”</p><p>Nonetheless, Jimbo Meador believes there are many admirable qualities in the character he helped inspire. As the bayou philosopher put it recently, “There are things I liked about Forrest. He was a good person, kind of naïve, but a good person who went with the flow. Today, everyone is more concerned about the dollar than doing the right thing. They don’t think about everyone that’s living, everything that’s existing.” </p><p><br /></p><div>Sources:<br />William Grimes, “Following the Star of a Winsome Idiot,” <i>New York Times</i>, 9/1/94<br />Joseph Olshan and Cindy Dampier, “Surprise Package,” <i>People</i>, 9/5/94<br /><i>Screen International</i>, 10/11/94<br />“Shrimp Bites Hollywood,” <i>Shrimp News International</i>, www.shrimpnews.com<br />Jimbo Meador, “Conversation With Fisherman-Philosopher Jimbo Meador,” <i>Waterkeeper</i>, Spring 2007<br />Charles Gaines, “Biloxi Reds,” <i>Garden & Gun</i>, 9/25/07</div><div>Breck Pappas, "A Farewell to Winston Groom," <i>Mobile Bay Magazine</i>, 11/5/20</div>AMANDA ERLANSONhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08802979669786762765noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9063374795773405407.post-28952759587314431732021-10-09T18:34:00.000-07:002023-04-08T17:29:24.585-07:00Author Winston Groom’s Inspiration for "Forrest Gump"<p>Author Winston Groom grew up in Mobile, Alabama, the son of a prosperous lawyer. After college and a stint in Vietnam, he attempted to make a living as a writer. By 1986, the year he wrote <i>Forrest Gump</i>, he was dividing his time between New York City and a friend’s place in Point Clear, Alabama. </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjR4hjv3oX7VAxrVmKN5ty31s-9HFySWHgJgaKUKeynAD1rWwFjH_6YuLzzv3oEPIFCAlNWeyKGFPAL3R2i2Zgj-yeSb_UQGqXYPzgHDUiwPApOJQjeTVBb2gS55PoB05SlBtNeh11S_SM/s1200/Winston+Groom+book+signing+in+1984.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="822" data-original-width="1200" height="438" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjR4hjv3oX7VAxrVmKN5ty31s-9HFySWHgJgaKUKeynAD1rWwFjH_6YuLzzv3oEPIFCAlNWeyKGFPAL3R2i2Zgj-yeSb_UQGqXYPzgHDUiwPApOJQjeTVBb2gS55PoB05SlBtNeh11S_SM/w640-h438/Winston+Groom+book+signing+in+1984.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Forrest Gump</i> author Winston Groom at a book signing in 1984</td></tr></tbody></table><p>Groom recalled, “I was living in New York and would come down in the winter to warm up. On Sundays, my daddy and I would have lunch. At one of these lunches, he reminisced about this fellow he once knew, a man who was slow-witted but whose mother had taught him to play the piano.”</p><p>Groom continued, “My dad told me about kids in our neighborhood teasing the heck out of this retarded boy, until his mother taught him to play the piano, and when the ruffians heard this exquisite piano music wafting out of his house, they listened and quit their razzing.” </p><p>“His story struck something inside me,” Groom revealed, “and then I saw a <i>60 Minutes</i> show about idiot savants. I started making notes, and by midnight I had the first chapter of <i>Forrest Gump</i>.” Groom completed the book in just six weeks, holed up in the former slave quarters on a friend’s property in Point Clear. </p><p>“I didn’t have a message,” Groom admitted. “I just wanted to show the modern world through the eyes of somebody who’s seeing it about 90° off. Other people have used that device, but I don’t think any of ‘em have quite got Forrest.” </p><p>“As I see it, it’s a story about human dignity, and the fact you don’t have to be smart or rich to maintain your dignity, even when some pretty undignified things are happening all around you,” Winston Groom concluded.</p><p><br /></p><div>Sources: <br />Robert Epstein, “<i>Forrest Gump</i>’s Proud Dad,” <i>Los Angeles Times</i>, 8/7/94<br />William Grimes, “Following the Star of a Winsome Idiot,” <i>New York Times</i>, 9/1/94<br />George Christy, “The Great Life,” <i>Hollywood Reporter</i>, 10/17/95<br />Joseph Olshan and Cindy Dampier, “Surprise Package,” <i>People</i>, 9/5/94</div><div>Breck Pappas, "A Farewell to Winston Groom," <i>Mobile Bay Magazine</i>, 11/5/20</div>AMANDA ERLANSONhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08802979669786762765noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9063374795773405407.post-27301635170100939542021-09-17T16:30:00.000-07:002021-09-30T13:43:46.643-07:00A Director’s Daughter Pitched "Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory"<p>Fittingly, one of the most beloved children’s movies was made because one little girl loved Roald Dahl’s book. Director Mel Stuart admitted, "If you want to credit anyone for the creation of <i>Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory</i>, credit my daughter, Madeline. It was sometime in the fall of 1969 when my precocious 12-year-old daughter came up to me, clutching a copy of Roald Dahl's book <i>Charlie and the Chocolate Factory</i>. 'Daddy,' she said, 'I want you to make this into a movie and have Uncle Dave sell it.'" Despite her youth, Madeline Stuart didn’t make the suggestion lightly. "I read the book five times before pitching my dad,” she said. “Later they paid me $50—and I didn't even need a lawyer." </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhl8b1Fe42xc4CP3F94hL_HhIlRwuXue-Ky9D09nVYwflx7jVtWQw2mJ7AXr2zsWQkjP0b3adNvE3ec-8Yu06zFDLmKj6ZbcFCX8LIXSHtCSmTfiQdyGs1YnVXofDfqtn8CgOWXey9nkhw/s1785/Madeline+Peter+Stuart+1970.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1785" data-original-width="1380" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhl8b1Fe42xc4CP3F94hL_HhIlRwuXue-Ky9D09nVYwflx7jVtWQw2mJ7AXr2zsWQkjP0b3adNvE3ec-8Yu06zFDLmKj6ZbcFCX8LIXSHtCSmTfiQdyGs1YnVXofDfqtn8CgOWXey9nkhw/w494-h640/Madeline+Peter+Stuart+1970.jpg" width="494" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Madeline Stuart and her brother Peter on the set of <i>Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory</i></td></tr></tbody></table><p>At first, Mel Stuart wasn’t entirely convinced. "You see, as a kid, she didn't realize that it wasn't that easy to make a book into a movie. I was working with a man named David Wolper and he was great at getting projects going… 'Uncle Dave’ was a very close friend, and the chief executive of the Wolper Organization, a major force in television and motion picture production. Over the years, I directed many documentary films made by Wolper. Now, in 1970, I was looking for a new feature to direct and, by chance, my daughter had provided the opportunity… I read the book and I thought it was kind of interesting – it might make a good movie – so I gave it to him. He never read the book, I just told him the story." </p><p>Stuart relished the idea of doing something a little different. "I thought that it would be rather challenging for me, because I was brought up in my whole soul a non-fiction realist, and I'd done so many documentaries. This was a fantasy. The whole thing about it, if you watch it carefully, the reason why I still think it works the way it does is that it's as realistic as it could be within the genre of fantasy." </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2iUmEY1Li2ssgAbvm3BpY9BpXtmi3MzuO40nFGHpQjmCHIFLAN2K4bt3dIat0WJD2lM0T049f6SOKMWzt20eTZ9KPnzK2J9UpHeIXWJ23jicv-Nb_MmA8sWocuaYtwTmWTzgFYLy6Y40/s2048/Mel+Stuart.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1775" data-original-width="2048" height="554" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2iUmEY1Li2ssgAbvm3BpY9BpXtmi3MzuO40nFGHpQjmCHIFLAN2K4bt3dIat0WJD2lM0T049f6SOKMWzt20eTZ9KPnzK2J9UpHeIXWJ23jicv-Nb_MmA8sWocuaYtwTmWTzgFYLy6Y40/w640-h554/Mel+Stuart.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Director Mel Stuart on the set of <i>Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory</i></td></tr></tbody></table><p>Full credit is due to producer David Wolper, however, for brokering the unique financing deal that got the movie made. "If there ever was a dream merchant, it was David L. Wolper,” Stuart said. “Whenever I would come up with a good idea for a film, Dave somehow found a way to get it made. Once, for example, we made up a list of 30 subjects we wanted to make into documentaries. He eventually obtained backing for 29 of them." </p><p>David Wolper believes that "a producer is a person who dreams – and good producers make dreams come true." So he kept Stuart's idea in mind, and a few months later, he happened to be meeting with Ken Mason of Quaker Oats, which had sponsored some of Wolper's television projects. While Wolper was pitching to him, Mason mentioned that Quaker Oats was introducing a new candy bar, and Wolper immediately thought of <i>Charlie and the Chocolate Factory</i>. </p><p>It was 1970, and most of Hollywood's major studios had run out of money. MGM and Fox were selling off huge blocks of their famous backlots to real estate developers, as well as auctioning off their movie memorabilia. In this dry economic climate, feature films were being financed by companies like Mattel Toys and General Electric instead of the mammoth studios of days gone by. It was highly unusual for a cereal company to finance a feature film, but Quaker Oats decided to name their candy the “Wonka Bar,” buying the rights to the name from Dahl and putting up the movie’s frugal $3 million budget. </p><p>Mel Stuart recalled, "This was perhaps the first time and maybe the most revolutionary of the product tie-ins that would become standard with studio movies. Typically, the studio allows a corporation a product placement in the film in exchange for the creation of a huge advertising campaign for the film when it is released, as in the case of Reese's Pieces with <i>E.T.: The Extraterrestrial</i>, and McDonald's with the <i>Toy Story </i>movies. In a more inventive example, AOL made a deal for its catchphrase 'You've got mail' to be the title of a film. In this case, Quaker Oats was using the entire movie as an ad campaign for a new candy bar." </p><p>Yet at the time, producer David Wolper described his motives for making the movie differently. "I’ve always believed that the movie theatre is and should be a very special palace of dreams for young people, so I decided that the time was propitious to make a film especially aimed at them,” he said. </p><p><br /></p><div>Sources: <br />Arthur Knight, “Can Creativity and Commercial Tie-Up Coexist?,” <i>Saturday Review</i>, 1971 <br /><i>Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory</i>, Production Notes, Wolper Pictures, 1971<br />Michael P. Lucas, "Sweet Legacy for a Dark Film, <i>Los Angeles Times</i>, 6/29/01<br />Daniel Robert Epstein, "Interview with Mel Stuart," <i>ugo.com</i>, 2002<br />Mel Stuart, <i>Pure Imagination</i>, Macmillan, 2002<br />David Wolper, <i>Producer: A Memoir,</i> Scribner, 2003</div>AMANDA ERLANSONhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08802979669786762765noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9063374795773405407.post-54241816209318168782021-09-16T14:14:00.000-07:002021-09-16T14:14:15.698-07:00Casting the Ideal ‘Willy Wonka’<p>When he decided to make <i>Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory</i>, producer David Wolper knew there was one decision on which the entire fate of the project rested. "The success of the movie depended completely on the casting,” said Wolper. “To be believable, Willy Wonka had to have a magical quality about him, the joy of a child in a man's body. For a time, we seriously considered Joel Gray.” Impish song-and-dance man Joel Gray was very much in the public eye at the time, as he’d just starred in <i>Cabaret</i> on Broadway. Roald Dahl wanted to cast Spike Milligan, who was best known for writing and co-starring with Peter Sellers in British radio’s groundbreaking <i>Goon Show</i>. “But we also looked at a lot of other actors,” Wolper said. “Years later, I learned that Fred Astaire had wanted to play the role, but never approached me." </p><p>Director Mel Stuart also felt the ‘Wonka’ casting decision was one that would make or break the film. "While I would have loved to work with Astaire, because he was extraordinarily talented, I didn't conceive of Wonka as a seventy-two year old man, which was Astaire's age at the time,” Stuart said. “Besides, we probably couldn't have afforded his salary… I needed someone with a commanding presence, who could walk the line between seeming madness and innocence, someone you could trust and fear at the same time." </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieKFu5CNpRgNN1YO3Lw9TJNzP8mfQARTLMSRp-ETKPfPCcffOst0_gaK3YYCguM6n22Wppw8t1m8vUBmxxmdXOp66D7Rrfrab1RNqr97HwaZfSJEU6F3nfA0rZpJ945YH5hMrZtETAWXQ/s356/Willy+Wonka.gif" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="200" data-original-width="356" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieKFu5CNpRgNN1YO3Lw9TJNzP8mfQARTLMSRp-ETKPfPCcffOst0_gaK3YYCguM6n22Wppw8t1m8vUBmxxmdXOp66D7Rrfrab1RNqr97HwaZfSJEU6F3nfA0rZpJ945YH5hMrZtETAWXQ/w640-h360/Willy+Wonka.gif" width="640" /></a></div><p>David Wolper recalled the fateful day when he met his ‘Wonka.’ "We were auditioning actors in a suite at the Plaza in New York when Gene Wilder back-flipped in,” he said. “Wilder's career was just beginning – he had done <i>The Producers</i>, which later became a classic comedy and a hot Broadway show, but had not been that successful when it was originally released. When he walked into the room, both Mel and I knew instantly we had found our Wonka. Perfect does not begin to describe him – the role fit him tighter than one of Cousteau's wet suits." </p><p>Mel Stuart agreed. "Gene walked in and I realized that his presence – his humor, the humor in his eyes… was Wonka,” he said. “Sometimes in casting, someone walks in and you just know he's the right person… He had the sardonic, demonic edge that we were looking for." </p><p>Ever the producer, Wolper kept a poker face while Wilder was in the room. He recalled, "When Gene left the room, Mel said, 'That's him, that's Willy Wonka. We've got to sign him.' I agreed, but warned Mel, 'Don't tell anybody. I've got to make a deal and we can save a lot of money if they don't know how much we want him.' With that, Mel ran out into the hall after Wilder. He caught him at the elevator and told him, 'Gene, you got it. You're the guy.' So much for subtlety." </p><p>Mel Stuart is unapologetic, knowing that Wilder was worth every dollar. "Gene just had a quality of the madness, and yet the wit and the bite and the ability to come back and suddenly become very fatherly-like.” In the end, Wolper grudgingly paid Wilder $150,000 to take the role of the mischievous candymaker. </p><p><br /></p><div>Sources:<br />Mel Stuart, <i>Pure Imagination</i>, Macmillan, 2002<br />“Mel Stuart Interview,” <i>WFPL’s On Second Thought</i>, 6/28/03<br />Jason Zasky, "Wonka Vision," <i>failuremag.com</i>, 2002<br />Steven Morris, "Hollywood Finds New Taste for Dahl’s <i>Chocolate Factory</i>," <i>Guardian Unlimited</i>, 5/27/03<br />David Wolper, <i>Producer: A Memoir</i>, Scribner, 2003</div>AMANDA ERLANSONhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08802979669786762765noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9063374795773405407.post-90824431434072550052021-09-15T13:38:00.002-07:002023-04-08T17:41:23.099-07:00Roald Dahl Based his Chocolate Factory on Boarding School Experiences<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Beloved children’s author Roald Dahl was born in 1916 in Llandaff, South Wales. His parents, who were from Norway, wanted him to get a British education, so they sent him to Derbyshire, where he was a successful athlete at the Repton School. During his time there, the nearby Cadbury chocolate factory would occasionally send boxes of new chocolates to the school to be tested by the students. Dahl sometimes daydreamed that he would invent a new chocolate bar that would impress Mr. Cadbury himself, a notion that would one day inspire him to write his third book for children, <i>Charlie and the Chocolate Factory</i>. </div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhX7dDhKlaIc78iTYXy_5SV7AIrjlf-WBpOAFd5zv-5sE9c7W2L7Ug8je15UrJjOrX44qnsOM9mJzudl88AB1CjEWymkIP5eCRbx5ZUolWJ1csyr8DtoLl25LaocIbfdSNuSr2Aq7PlBqg/s969/Roald+Dahl+as+a+young+man.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="969" data-original-width="634" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhX7dDhKlaIc78iTYXy_5SV7AIrjlf-WBpOAFd5zv-5sE9c7W2L7Ug8je15UrJjOrX44qnsOM9mJzudl88AB1CjEWymkIP5eCRbx5ZUolWJ1csyr8DtoLl25LaocIbfdSNuSr2Aq7PlBqg/w418-h640/Roald+Dahl+as+a+young+man.jpg" width="418" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Roald Dahl as a young man at Repton School, near the Cadbury chocolate factory</td></tr></tbody></table><p>When World War II broke out, Dahl joined for the Royal Air Force, where he flew many missions over East Africa before being invalided out in 1942. In the later years of the war, the Foreign Office assigned him to Washington, where he worked as a spy for British Security Coordination, the same organization that spawned Bond author Ian Fleming, who was a close friend. </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwM2yb_M645UbK-yk-oCK8vkvidkQFAZmKb6WmuoCfgScNGkquoK5whN4PBY_z3sNXLpluSjVGVo1tKtBhdvlW4zwCrTiWbj5q1LZpY5Rrku9IoFmSmIZdAmeJMtGZ0Rj4Sa75pV04wG0/s976/Roald+Dahl+RAF.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="549" data-original-width="976" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwM2yb_M645UbK-yk-oCK8vkvidkQFAZmKb6WmuoCfgScNGkquoK5whN4PBY_z3sNXLpluSjVGVo1tKtBhdvlW4zwCrTiWbj5q1LZpY5Rrku9IoFmSmIZdAmeJMtGZ0Rj4Sa75pV04wG0/w640-h360/Roald+Dahl+RAF.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Roald Dahl in his days as a flying ace in the Royal Air Force</td></tr></tbody></table><p>While in DC, Dahl wrote his first children's book, about little creatures called “gremlins” who lived in fighter plane engines and caused them to stall at the worst possible times. Eleanor Roosevelt liked <i>The Gremlins</i> so much that she invited Dahl to the White House, where he became friends with President Franklin Roosevelt. Disney tried to make the book into a movie, but couldn’t find a way to make creatures that caused Allied planes to crash seem lovable. </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVwJ-l0zfLowu8XKFxhE4wxTXYS-6YJJ-BZ0Gtx1eABLU9xghCJjYHZkmeSapJzkVvv9gnEiV6mzvBuJarqjvd6N3unrBtwM8bn9sfM981cKSS220b6fB97m84TWBflJ-8IdcaA1gnX0s/s1016/Dahl+and+Walt+Disney.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="569" data-original-width="1016" height="358" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVwJ-l0zfLowu8XKFxhE4wxTXYS-6YJJ-BZ0Gtx1eABLU9xghCJjYHZkmeSapJzkVvv9gnEiV6mzvBuJarqjvd6N3unrBtwM8bn9sfM981cKSS220b6fB97m84TWBflJ-8IdcaA1gnX0s/w640-h358/Dahl+and+Walt+Disney.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Walt Disney and Roald Dahl puzzling over how to make Dahl's "gremlins" cute</td></tr></tbody></table><p>Although it would be nearly two decades before he published another book for children, Dahl went on to write 19 children's books, as well as two adult novels, two autobiographies and dozens of short stories. </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhij2bqoSquzo6KgEfbaNJcxLYHqpQrkYkr0YbZuUo74rxh4fkGwo-zPdTWcu_MB0V71DohXJulkjln041TBnWPnwC_XX3TUQfmbU8aTleMrShLirB4ocxKgzTflbWmorjvxx0uYEL7SKk/s750/Roald+Dahl+outside+his+hut.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="560" data-original-width="750" height="478" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhij2bqoSquzo6KgEfbaNJcxLYHqpQrkYkr0YbZuUo74rxh4fkGwo-zPdTWcu_MB0V71DohXJulkjln041TBnWPnwC_XX3TUQfmbU8aTleMrShLirB4ocxKgzTflbWmorjvxx0uYEL7SKk/w640-h478/Roald+Dahl+outside+his+hut.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Roald Dahl outside his writing hut behind Gipsy House in Great Missenden</td></tr></tbody></table><p>Dahl was a man of enormous height – 6' 6" – which was the basis of one of his books, <i>The BFG</i>, or “Big Friendly Giant.” Many feel that ‘Willy Wonka’ also strongly resembles Dahl in his speech patterns and attitudes. When Dahl wrote <i>Charlie and the Chocolate Factory</i> in 1962, he first tested it as it as a bedtime story for his own children, Olivia, Tessa and Theo. </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiINOm8MkUYjLlPEfkfn-1Dq8Gw-xh41ig-U1Ecrd2VuzfTcIWvl1oOlqNQAblCZ6jf3zWN7unZEwhgAAd6HxMhQxS7Q1KcKeDRH7AxCxxkaxL7s1dgPO1SGLoDNVzSN_AleR4C2pEbkPc/s2048/Roald+Dahl+and+family.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1155" data-original-width="2048" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiINOm8MkUYjLlPEfkfn-1Dq8Gw-xh41ig-U1Ecrd2VuzfTcIWvl1oOlqNQAblCZ6jf3zWN7unZEwhgAAd6HxMhQxS7Q1KcKeDRH7AxCxxkaxL7s1dgPO1SGLoDNVzSN_AleR4C2pEbkPc/w640-h360/Roald+Dahl+and+family.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Roald Dahl with his wife Patricia Neal and his children Olivia, Tessa and Theo, circa 1960</td></tr></tbody></table><p>As a parent, he felt that stories meant to be read aloud to children ought to be more fun for adults. In <i>Charlie and the Chocolate Factory</i>, his commentary on spoiled children, greed and television were all aspects Dahl felt adults would appreciate. He also used puns he felt most adults, but few children, would get – for example, Wonka’s factory makes 'buttergin' as well as 'butterscotch.' </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRnyx3PSydndBdwOGtkJkzE2fyGVeunrDWEhajueMfp6Nku_-lM7wQJItCdf48TV6nN7ElqLJDwiDyZHr-uFfnu6Lj93ZfkVBfroXzzT-1yfegkq9VRpRpCzxkoH54PIGy6PZ05ZlnmPM/s1000/Roald+Dahl+in+his+hut.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="972" data-original-width="1000" height="622" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRnyx3PSydndBdwOGtkJkzE2fyGVeunrDWEhajueMfp6Nku_-lM7wQJItCdf48TV6nN7ElqLJDwiDyZHr-uFfnu6Lj93ZfkVBfroXzzT-1yfegkq9VRpRpCzxkoH54PIGy6PZ05ZlnmPM/w640-h622/Roald+Dahl+in+his+hut.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dahl at his customary station in a green wingback armchair in the writing hut</td></tr></tbody></table><p>On the other hand, Dahl believed that the secret formula for success in children's writing was "conspiring with children against adults." He said, “It’s the path to their affections. It may be simplistic, but it is the way. Parents and schoolteachers are the enemy. The adult is the enemy of the child – because of the awful process of civilizing this thing that is born as an animal with no manners, no moral sense at all.”</p><div>Sources:<br />William H. Honan, “Roald Dahl, Writer, 74, Is Dead,” <i>New York Times</i>, 11/24/90<br />Jeremy Treglown, <i>Roald Dahl: A Biography</i>, Faber & Faber, 1994<br />Gary Dexter, “How Did Celebrated Books Get Their Names?” <i>Sunday Telegraph London</i>, 5/8/05<br />Britt Peterson, “Special Relationship: the British Spies Who Slept Their Way Through Washington During World War II,” <i>Washington Monthly</i>, 8/1/08</div>AMANDA ERLANSONhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08802979669786762765noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9063374795773405407.post-10687792279263681242021-09-14T13:46:00.004-07:002021-09-14T13:46:30.704-07:00Turning Charlie Sheen into a "Wall Street" Player<p>When Charlie Sheen took the role of ‘Bud Fox’ in <i>Wall Street</i>, the 22-year-old actor knew little about shares, futures and commodities. “I didn’t really care about the stock market. I didn't think it had any effect on my life,” said Sheen. To prepare the actor for his role, director Oliver Stone asked <i>Wall Street </i>consultant Ken Lipper to design a six-week ''course'' that would expose Sheen to a cross section of the young traders who worked on Wall Street.</p><p>“I had a few weeks to go on this crash course,” Sheen said, “and I had to learn what these guys did in four years of business school.” Soon realizing the impossibility of that assignment, Sheen said he shot for a general working knowledge of the financial world, “so when I spewed numbers or threw facts around, at least I could lessen my insecurity.” </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9f7DjDtiWTKpPPywfct1Q6tSgMR0Fqr41Qcnr17iAy8VpGg_HD8PNG59i8jUs8G3Z1f94Beg8yy0Q7qWvWLpV-sCPOF-mzhNGZs5Ve3_k6xhka8_Jwz4KrGCjx0v4i83w1eVud7110TM/s1743/Wall+Street.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1743" height="440" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9f7DjDtiWTKpPPywfct1Q6tSgMR0Fqr41Qcnr17iAy8VpGg_HD8PNG59i8jUs8G3Z1f94Beg8yy0Q7qWvWLpV-sCPOF-mzhNGZs5Ve3_k6xhka8_Jwz4KrGCjx0v4i83w1eVud7110TM/w640-h440/Wall+Street.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><p>Charlie Sheen even wound up doing some costly “method investing” – he sank $20,000 into the market. “It was a pretty good hunk of cash,” he said. “I figured if I had something on the line, it would intensify my curiosity.”</p><p>To prepare, Sheen spent a couple of days talking with David Brown, a former Goldman Sachs trader who pleaded guilty to insider trading charges in 1986. Sheen also worked alongside the employees of Salomon Brothers and spent time with young brokers at after-work drinking establishments in the South Street Seaport area. </p><p>One of the brokers Sheen hung out with was a young hotshot named Liam Dalton. Dalton had spent his high school days as a runner on the floor of the NYSE, and joined the Bear, Stearns trading floor in 1983. Like all novice money men, Dalton started as a retail broker – cold-calling from the phone book, building a client base, and earning a reputation. Only two years later, he made partner, a stunning achievement.</p><p>One day, Dalton got a call from 20th Century-Fox, asking him to help out with some technical matters on <i>Wall Street</i>. Soon Dalton was showing Sheen around the trading room, helping him model his character. For almost two months, Sheen spent three or four days a week at Dalton’s desk, watching him trade. When he left to start shooting <i>Wall Street</i>, he borrowed Dalton’s trademark red suspenders – which he never returned. </p><p>Sheen discovered that a trader’s lifestyle is exhausting. ''I was impressed and very, very respectful of the fact that they could maintain that kind of aggressiveness and drive,'' said Sheen. ''I was also amazed at their dedication to the almighty dollar. It's the essence of life with certain people.'' </p><p>For Sheen, the tension he started to feel when preparing for the role never let up. “It was a tough shoot, unlike <i>Platoon</i>,” he admitted. “We were more physically exhausted in the Philippines than we were in the concrete jungle, but if I’m physically tired, I can take a nap and relax. If I’m mentally fatigued, it’s tough to put the brain to rest. It was exhausting.” </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiu-GKwt8ILUU73qJu18fNjhB2F4MIKCqDAAW0bPmakVraS8Dcp8khyphenhyphenF1JXKRKuWqdILb2ZoE83YHuGmXP_iYUjMlimHq-oFKXLlk-YjZA32L_zoy4PI04WtOBeTitqdcb0c2gVkBTWI0/s549/Charlie+Sheen+Platoon.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="439" data-original-width="549" height="512" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiu-GKwt8ILUU73qJu18fNjhB2F4MIKCqDAAW0bPmakVraS8Dcp8khyphenhyphenF1JXKRKuWqdILb2ZoE83YHuGmXP_iYUjMlimHq-oFKXLlk-YjZA32L_zoy4PI04WtOBeTitqdcb0c2gVkBTWI0/w640-h512/Charlie+Sheen+Platoon.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Charlie Sheen in <i>Platoon</i></td></tr></tbody></table><p>Although the role was quite a stretch for him, Charlie Sheen said he couldn’t resist working with Stone again, despite the fact that the director is a “perfectionist” and notoriously hard to please. “I’d do <i>Sesame Street</i> if Oliver was directing,” Sheen admitted. “He’s tough, but the most hated coaches of our era have had the best track records.” </p><p><br /></p><div>Sources: <br />Guy D. Garcia, “In the Trenches of <i>Wall Street</i>,” <i>Time</i>, 7/20/87<br />Steven Rattner, “From Vietnam to <i>Wall Street</i>,” <i>New York Times</i>, 8/30/87<br />Dave Hoekstra, “Teamwork Pays Off for Sheen,” <i>Chicago Sun-Times</i>, 11/29/87<br />Richard Lormand, “Charlie Sheen Passes a Crash Course in <i>Wall Street</i>,” <i>Chicago Sun-Times</i>, 12/23/87<br />Jim Jerome, “Travels With Charlie,” <i>Us</i>, 1/25/88<br />Ron Insana, <i>Trader’s Tales</i>, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1996</div>AMANDA ERLANSONhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08802979669786762765noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9063374795773405407.post-63460350435318770402021-09-13T13:36:00.000-07:002021-09-13T13:36:01.388-07:00Oliver Stone in the Trenches of "Wall Street"<p>Writer-director Oliver Stone came to Wall Street directly after winning an Oscar for <i>Platoon</i>. “I ran into a lot of Vietnam veterans on The Street, and they all told me that it’s an extension of combat,” said Stone. “There is a certain high to closing a deal, to taking the enemy to a raid, to a merger and acquisition. The language is brutal, violent. Everything is there but the machine gun… So <i>Wall Street</i> is a chance for me to wean myself away from the blood cycle and go do a more domestic, possibly more sophisticated, form of combat film.” </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAbuQKvA3EI3mu0hcwPDEDCXyj2AouWwjTF7oGoWp4yx4q-W1-xNA_53H47viCSFDQ_0UXNwDQfCCIYWkEyaD1PXeM17x8oyTpe_yKXrQlk5hIAqEchRvY-vVGG_hGWYVvoyJJF_Zt3K0/s2048/Oliver+Stone+Platoon.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1366" data-original-width="2048" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAbuQKvA3EI3mu0hcwPDEDCXyj2AouWwjTF7oGoWp4yx4q-W1-xNA_53H47viCSFDQ_0UXNwDQfCCIYWkEyaD1PXeM17x8oyTpe_yKXrQlk5hIAqEchRvY-vVGG_hGWYVvoyJJF_Zt3K0/w640-h426/Oliver+Stone+Platoon.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Oliver Stone in the Philippines on the set of <i>Platoon</i>, revisiting memories of his military service in Vietnam </td></tr></tbody></table><p>“Taking over a company is a lot like a military action,” Stone insisted. “In those raids, they stay up for weeks on end on an adrenaline high, and a lot of their terminology is war terminology – ‘We’re in the kill zone here,’ ‘I’m going to rip his throat out.’ I’m not talking about refined Morgan Stanley bankers, I’m talking about buccaneers.” </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi612Siyf1p7a9k3Xtld75_FilGTGjx1JOgdmolYDbUJhtgB7-M7D8R7BnGg7zC-AnJslxv5V1VtsF35XUpHJBQ1u3XLHqhStaO7tXm5jr_cG27icEfQVfAjH2jsYT-SnwjLmelvOD05kw/s996/Michael+Douglas+Wall+Street.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="711" data-original-width="996" height="456" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi612Siyf1p7a9k3Xtld75_FilGTGjx1JOgdmolYDbUJhtgB7-M7D8R7BnGg7zC-AnJslxv5V1VtsF35XUpHJBQ1u3XLHqhStaO7tXm5jr_cG27icEfQVfAjH2jsYT-SnwjLmelvOD05kw/w640-h456/Michael+Douglas+Wall+Street.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Michael Douglas as corporate raider Gordon Gekko in <i>Wall Street</i></td></tr></tbody></table><p><i>Wall Street</i> star Charlie Sheen also saw the correlation between high finance and military combat when he spent six weeks on the trading floors of Wall Street researching his role. “A lot of these guys on Wall Street consider themselves to be warriors. They say, ‘I’m going off to war today,’ and they’re not kidding,” Sheen said.</p><p>Stone examined the financial world by consulting with a wide assortment of Wall Street players. Among his sources were raiders (Carl Icahn, Asher Edelman and T. Boone Pickens), an insider trader (David S. Brown, formerly of Goldman Sachs), senior investment bankers (John H. Gutfreund of Salomon Brothers, Ace Greenberg of Bear, Stearns, Mike Milken and Jeffrey Beck of Drexel Burnham), and prosecutors (Charles Carberry of the United States Attorney's Office and Gary Lynch of the Securities and Exchange Commission).</p><p>The most influential of Stone's advisers was Kenneth Lipper, a former partner of Salomon Brothers. Lipper had also worked as New York’s deputy mayor under Ed Koch, and would later, with Stone’s encouragement, co-write and co-produce <i>City Hall</i>. “Initially, I told Oliver I wasn’t going to do it,” said Lipper. “I was worried. His views were so liberal and I’m more conservative on the subject of Wall Street. I didn’t want the film to end up as a dump on The Street. But Oliver was first to say it was a give-and-take situation. We had days of discussion – he let me rewrite the script. There were major changes… but I was there to do a job and it was Oliver’s movie, so it was important not to fall in love with my own expert advice.” </p><p>“The movie isn’t Wall Street bashing,” Lipper insisted. “It starts with the premise that Wall Street has a critical and necessary function, and that it has the ability to heal itself… We’ve tried to show that there’s been a disintegration of the culture on Wall Street. As the industry grew, a lack of control set in… Among many other things, the film is about the depersonalization of Wall Street. The more anonymous it becomes, the more it lends itself to this kind of behavior.'' </p><p>“Though it is really a separate culture, all the feelings everyone has are there, in this very special environment of Wall Street,” Lipper added. “All the universal emotions occur in a hyperbolic environment of money and action. The intensity is like combat – the action, the speed, the risk of losing big at any time. There’s no other business where you know the next moment whether you win or lose. If it goes up an eighth, down an eighth, you always have a scorecard on yourself. People are under incredible pressure to perform, and performance becomes so much a part of one’s self-esteem that they are driven to lengths that other people are not tempted to.” </p><p> </p><div>Sources:<br />Jerome Idaszak, “Acclaimed Director Turning Platoon of Cameras on <i>Wall Street</i>,” <i>Chicago Sun-Times</i>, 4/8/87<br />Oliver Stone, “The Next Vietnam?” <i>Us</i>, 6/15/87<br />Guy D. Garcia, “In the Trenches of <i>Wall Street</i>,” <i>Time</i>, 7/20/87<br />Steven Rattner, “From Vietnam to <i>Wall Street</i>,” <i>New York Times</i>, 8/30/87<br />Peter Keough, “<i>Wall Street</i> Takes Inside Advice,” <i>Chicago Sun-Times</i>, 12/13/87<br />Roger Ebert, “Oliver Stone In the Trenches of <i>Wall Street</i>,” <i>Chicago Sun-Times</i>, 12/13/87<br />Alison Leigh Cowan, “Making <i>Wall Street</i> Look Like Wall Street,” <i>New York Times</i>, 12/30/87<br />Arlynn Nellhaus, “Lipper Service,” <i>Jerusalem Post</i>, 8/23/96</div>AMANDA ERLANSONhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08802979669786762765noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9063374795773405407.post-77370173971760075852021-09-12T13:13:00.012-07:002021-09-13T10:12:11.178-07:00A Father’s Wisdom Inspired "Wall Street"<p>Writer-director Oliver Stone is the son of Louis Stone, a well-known stockbroker who worked on <i>Wall Street</i> for 50 years. “The main motivation to make <i>Wall Street</i> was my father,” Stone revealed. “He took me to the movies, and he would bemoan the lack of a good business movie… He always said there were no good business movies, because the businessman was always the villain.”</p><p>“My dad was a very strong believer in Republican principles,” said Stone. “He hated Roosevelt all his life. He really raised me with the hatred of Communists, so I very much saw the Vietnam War in that context, that it was us against the Commies.”</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidjL90TMqSJ9_PnIbPG4hAkRv2ijpVbDc7zEJmuJYhHO68c56qzoGcXMPRiGhRI9BRFw_aGEAt1N38-aFcTlL40oqWMaK6bwFYyt0v3z4jahuM9UkeWRuw5ainX_kXARxnDmQ_eE-Mrro/s1564/Louis+Stone+in+newly+liberated+Paris+1944.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="980" data-original-width="1564" height="402" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidjL90TMqSJ9_PnIbPG4hAkRv2ijpVbDc7zEJmuJYhHO68c56qzoGcXMPRiGhRI9BRFw_aGEAt1N38-aFcTlL40oqWMaK6bwFYyt0v3z4jahuM9UkeWRuw5ainX_kXARxnDmQ_eE-Mrro/w640-h402/Louis+Stone+in+newly+liberated+Paris+1944.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Oliver Stone's father Louis in newly liberated Paris, 1944</td></tr></tbody></table><p>“My father believed that America’s business brought peace to the world and built industry through science and research, and that capital is needed for that. But this idea seems to have been perverted to a large degree. The Wall Street that my father worked in, the one I grew up around, is wholly different from that of today. There were no computers, they didn’t trade in such volume, and there were no fixed commissions.” </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqzPuAblgFlqTVIKDuRM26q7Ui3spWUo-dvFJfuZbaQUmqM1sQnRQDYVgGFPItmP1W4fyNDd-fol-Mwvb5xJCDuE-LEmqSwFTnDcuglnH7NWizNv91nlDsMmCl4r9o_mBybaPgAfiWw7M/s1600/Young+Oliver+Stone+with+his+father+Louis.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1508" data-original-width="1600" height="604" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqzPuAblgFlqTVIKDuRM26q7Ui3spWUo-dvFJfuZbaQUmqM1sQnRQDYVgGFPItmP1W4fyNDd-fol-Mwvb5xJCDuE-LEmqSwFTnDcuglnH7NWizNv91nlDsMmCl4r9o_mBybaPgAfiWw7M/w640-h604/Young+Oliver+Stone+with+his+father+Louis.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Young Oliver Stone adoring his stockbroker father</td></tr></tbody></table><p>Stone adored his father, but for a long time, he felt destined to disappoint him. “I would never have cut the mustard on Wall Street,” Stone admitted. “I did poorly in economics – I got a C, and my mathematics were suspect. I lost on every stock I ever invested in… I began to resent money as the criterion by which to judge all things, and there grew to be a raging battle between my father and me about it. I found ways to throw away everything I had, which pissed my father off. ‘Going into movies is crazy,’ he would say. ‘You aren’t going to make a dime.’” </p><p>“He thought I was a bum,” said Stone. “When somebody keeps saying it, you begin to think, ‘Maybe I am.’ Severe doubts. ‘What’s my purpose in life? What’s my meaning? What was I put on this planet for? Maybe I should have been killed in Vietnam.’ Although in a sort of paradoxical way, Vietnam did keep me optimistic. I did try to keep that faith, that I had made it out of there and I had to try to do something with my life.” </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8q6f8KXkH-jDJ1_wJRxfdhULAcGFXolg66_gaEqvzutwGfB2p69JowmkwWLNNQG4Mp5jJVmZ11kWNqAwKp5DFZbycM_guukRiiHn11YVDB2aRuS5BQ3TMFvJOFVuSN1fcH9zDBeq18zg/s900/Oliver+Stone+in+Vietnam+in+1967.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="788" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8q6f8KXkH-jDJ1_wJRxfdhULAcGFXolg66_gaEqvzutwGfB2p69JowmkwWLNNQG4Mp5jJVmZ11kWNqAwKp5DFZbycM_guukRiiHn11YVDB2aRuS5BQ3TMFvJOFVuSN1fcH9zDBeq18zg/w560-h640/Oliver+Stone+in+Vietnam+in+1967.jpg" width="560" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Oliver Stone in Vietnam in 1967</td></tr></tbody></table><p>“When I came back from Vietnam, I didn’t run into hostility, any you-killed-babies accusations,” Stone recalled. “I ran into indifference. Everyone was out making a buck. The guys I went to school with were making a bundle. What was Vietnam to them – five minutes on the news at night? I associated business with a get-rich-quick mentality, and it was not for me. I thought, ‘People are dying over there so you guys can get rich.’ It took me a while to see that, especially since my dad was in business.” </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJTJGY8_SJ_w9DZMNw4dBUay-RVlrY1WSabBivN6aQHit8h6fmvgNd71xvgn1dqVvYAKCIG96aDORwusYOkFscAdVH-GHDx7WrDJRoTjhVfPgxvIKWdBG0QsWH69yIwtheAvW5fu21UX4/s2048/Oliver+Stone+Ashau+Valley+1967.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1620" data-original-width="2048" height="506" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJTJGY8_SJ_w9DZMNw4dBUay-RVlrY1WSabBivN6aQHit8h6fmvgNd71xvgn1dqVvYAKCIG96aDORwusYOkFscAdVH-GHDx7WrDJRoTjhVfPgxvIKWdBG0QsWH69yIwtheAvW5fu21UX4/w640-h506/Oliver+Stone+Ashau+Valley+1967.jpeg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Oliver Stone (center) with fellow members of 2nd Platoon, B Company, 3rd Battalion, 21st Infantry Regiment, 25th Infantry Division in the Ashau Valley of Vietnam, 1967</td></tr></tbody></table><p>After years of struggling with their conflicting principles, father and son finally made peace. “I remember one conversation we had, right before he died,” Stone revealed. “He said, ‘You’ll do all right. There’ll always be a demand for great stories and great storytellers.’ So finally he forgave me for going into the film business.” </p><p>By 1987, two years after his father’s death, Stone said he had "mellowed" and gained more sympathy for his father’s viewpoint. In many respects, <i>Wall Street</i> was made as a fulfillment of his father’s wishes. “I always wanted to do a business movie,” said Stone. “My father used to take me to movies and would often say, ‘Why do they make the businessman such a caricature?’ Then he’d explain to me what business is. The business of America, as Calvin Coolidge said, is business. He made me aware of what serious business is.” </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPSWXcYw9YQ4IQhbJeJOsYg2ZNZWtSAy4bn0JQsdjmsBp7yraflKFrJoDhA4JJ4h9NiNgW6PC6lGhpGQOD6kg9dUkoAWx185GV6y5BvHO-kQC8ksayBYwGoahfWOBWqncP416NnPgmiDU/s1440/Oliver+Stone+on+the+set+of+Wall+Street.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="1440" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPSWXcYw9YQ4IQhbJeJOsYg2ZNZWtSAy4bn0JQsdjmsBp7yraflKFrJoDhA4JJ4h9NiNgW6PC6lGhpGQOD6kg9dUkoAWx185GV6y5BvHO-kQC8ksayBYwGoahfWOBWqncP416NnPgmiDU/w640-h426/Oliver+Stone+on+the+set+of+Wall+Street.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Oliver Stone on the set of <i>Wall Street</i></td></tr></tbody></table><p>Even so, Oliver Stone wasn’t sure he could achieve his father’s lofty standard and make an “intelligent” business movie. “When I was working on <i>Wall Street</i>, I felt my dad was sort of around in a ghostlike form, watching over me and laughing, because here is the idiot son who doesn’t know anything about the stock market, who can barely add and subtract, doing a film with the grandiose title <i>Wall Street</i>.” </p><p><br /></p><div>Sources: <br />Paul Attanasio, “The Long Inner War of Oliver Stone,” <i>Washington Post</i>, 1/11/87<br />Richard Corliss, “<i>Platoon</i>,” <i>Time</i>, 1/26/87<br />“Stone and Pressman Sked April Start on <i>Wall Street</i>,” <i>Variety</i>, 2/2/87<br />Guy D. Garcia, “In the Trenches of <i>Wall Street</i>,” <i>Time</i>, 7/20/87<br />Steven Rattner, “From Vietnam to <i>Wall Street</i>,” <i>New York Times</i>, 8/30/87<br />Peter Biskind, “Stone Raids <i>Wall Street</i>,” <i>Premiere</i>, 12/87<br />“<i>Playboy</i> Interview: Oliver Stone”, <i>Playboy</i>, 2/88<br />Marcia Pally, “Oliver Stone,” <i>Penthouse</i>, 4/90<br />Telis Demos, “Oliver Stone: Life after <i>Wall Street</i>,” <i>Fortune</i>, 9/21/07<br />Louis R. Carlozo, “Stone Seeks Greatness for <i>Alexander</i>,” <i>Chicago Tribune</i>, 9/25/07 </div>AMANDA ERLANSONhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08802979669786762765noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9063374795773405407.post-78150128248123422292021-09-08T14:23:00.001-07:002021-09-08T14:23:08.710-07:00Putting Together an All-Star Team for "The Natural"<p>One of the most difficult tasks in setting up a baseball movie is finding great baseball players who can act. As <i>The Natural</i> producer Mark Johnson recalled, “We looked first at who could play baseball, and then figured out who could act. Because often an actor will come in, and you’ll fall in love with that actor and find out he’s totally inept at playing baseball.” </p><p>The key to authenticity was filling out the teams with actors who could actually play baseball or baseball players who were natural actors. To cast these minor parts, director Barry Levinson recalled, “We had tryouts in New York. We had infield drills, outfield drills, and pitching drills for all the people auditioning for those parts.” </p><p>“I think we were lucky to get mostly ex-ballplayers,” producer Mark Johnson said. “There are a lot of actors out there who are real klutzes, and the odd thing is that most actors want to do a baseball movie.” </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_-LgjOgq8P5btupJu1TUg7RYi90IjAtOac3vswMLzxWYUtwQy6sGy2CK11Eml5ACDrGFvqsIdQrGQHJjoI_G3-8I8bYkx8gr1XsPWUJi1IOREJ3EcmStSvwe_zTk7nPWrg2bbbXpp3RU/s1280/The+Natural+team.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="1280" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_-LgjOgq8P5btupJu1TUg7RYi90IjAtOac3vswMLzxWYUtwQy6sGy2CK11Eml5ACDrGFvqsIdQrGQHJjoI_G3-8I8bYkx8gr1XsPWUJi1IOREJ3EcmStSvwe_zTk7nPWrg2bbbXpp3RU/w640-h320/The+Natural+team.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><p>During filming, Robert Redford wasn’t really getting pitches from the on-screen pitcher. In reality, Tony Ferrara (who also plays ‘Coach Wilson’ in the film), a 43-year-old batting-practice pitcher for the Mets and the Yankees, threw all the pitches at which Redford swung. Ferrara, who also served as the film’s technical advisor, said, “I think we got some pretty good ballplayers. We could’ve put a pretty good club out there.” Redford’s teammates included Joe Charboneau, the 1980 American League Rookie of the Year, and Phil Mankowski, a former Tigers and Mets infielder.</p><p>“My ballparking days were over,” said Mankowski. “I’d gone into the restaurant business. I was working one day when one of the waitresses, who’s also an actress, told me they were casting a baseball picture. She said, ‘Why don’t you leave a couple of photos of yourself with the casting director?’ I thought, ‘Why not?’ There must’ve been 300-400 guys trying out. I guess I hadn’t lost much, so they took me.” </p><p>The famously competitive Redford was somewhat worried about how he’d stack up against the real ballplayers in the cast. Redford: “I figured those guys would think of me as pretty lame, that they’d be saying, ‘Hey, who’s this guy here?’ Instead, they were really very helpful.” </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhI4JFbTAIxxpgZtaU_OqUAF37dDUMmHIlbiS1AoHcRpnnsKgMp338QP7CC-vyHgTHcGjlrkb0rc9rUITphPVMdMfamxJEmcpUJDI8A_UyYPlNdtQ3CqByWc2F7ygode1UfZ-_EJhS4JvI/s496/the-natural-homerun.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="280" data-original-width="496" height="362" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhI4JFbTAIxxpgZtaU_OqUAF37dDUMmHIlbiS1AoHcRpnnsKgMp338QP7CC-vyHgTHcGjlrkb0rc9rUITphPVMdMfamxJEmcpUJDI8A_UyYPlNdtQ3CqByWc2F7ygode1UfZ-_EJhS4JvI/w640-h362/the-natural-homerun.gif" width="640" /></a></div><p>Phil Mankowski didn't think Redford had anything to worry about. “He did really well. He hit the ball hard and he had a good swing. Hey, the man’s 46 years old. I was impressed.” </p><p>Tony Ferrara concurred. “Redford’s a coordinated man, a well-built guy. You can tell he plays a lot of tennis. He hit one out off of me in batting practice. He’s a natural.” </p><p><br /></p><div>Sources:<br />Ron Fimrite, “A Star With Real Clout,” <i>Sports Illustrated</i>, 5/7/84<br />Stephen Farber, “An All-Star Team Puts <i>The Natural</i> on Film,” <i>New York Times</i>, 5/6/84<br />Allan Malamud, “Redford, the Van Nuys Slugger, Class of ‘54,” <i>L.A. Herald-Examiner</i>, 4/11/84<br /><i>The Natural</i> DVD, “When Lightning Strikes: Creating <i>The Natural</i>” Featurette<br />Dave Anderson, “Sports of the Times: The Second-Strongest Arm,” <i>New York Times</i>, 7/6/86</div>AMANDA ERLANSONhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08802979669786762765noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9063374795773405407.post-38949862792753922752021-09-07T16:30:00.000-07:002021-09-07T16:30:15.074-07:00Transforming Redford into a "Natural" Ballplayer<p>Robert Redford, at 46, was 27 years removed from his days playing baseball in college, and had to learn to hit and throw all over again for <i>The Natural</i>. He visited former Yankee pitcher Frank ‘Spec’ Shea’s training camp to work on his pitching motion, and also worked out with a minor league team, taking endless hours of batting and fielding practice. </p><p>“Two hours is all we had with ‘Spec’ Shea,” said Redford. “The throwing came back to me pretty quickly. I’d done so much of it as a kid. But I had to learn the double-pump windup that pitchers used in the ‘20s.”</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6TotEMw6P9WGmzRnP49SCnFrYrwqET8ffPQKBKm1Y1r4-QkfWOqyzA5kaVy6_MlJtlQvwN5M7y24wrOa7iDDbBuOLcWwdlGTDT_bOUniGxJUsdjtaB8gL47sIdoMMY6cSUxOKhJ0Zn4Q/s500/Redford+pitching.GIF" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="274" data-original-width="500" height="219" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6TotEMw6P9WGmzRnP49SCnFrYrwqET8ffPQKBKm1Y1r4-QkfWOqyzA5kaVy6_MlJtlQvwN5M7y24wrOa7iDDbBuOLcWwdlGTDT_bOUniGxJUsdjtaB8gL47sIdoMMY6cSUxOKhJ0Zn4Q/w400-h219/Redford+pitching.GIF" width="400" /></a></div><br />“When I first started playing ball, about 1946, I used a big Trapper mitt at first base,” Redford recalled. “I’d snag everything one-handed. In 1939, they used those small gloves with the five stubby fingers and no webbing. In the movie, we use the same kind. So just about the first ball hit to me in the outfield, I wave everybody off and yell, ‘I got it.’ It looked like an easy catch. The ball bounced off that little glove and hit me right on the head.” <p></p><p>“It was a very small glove, not much bigger than your hand,” Redford described. “When the ball would come to you, you’d put that glove on it and that thing went through the fingers… and a couple good bounces on the head taught you to be very careful you didn’t put your glove out in front of your face. You caught it on the side and you took it.” </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsKYLU-XV7LdtvtnWi2FqeQkNgMXdjSA9_oEKzlCrt53sIQWgS1wOypHkAhvoxxKb0JJsmYeBrqOTDZiQ1-CpRq1nEhw-YiOF5g1MNVo48mHus9swYf0Dj2oXAGLVlCx46Ihzpi9fhrgA/s721/Redford+The+Natural+2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="721" data-original-width="500" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsKYLU-XV7LdtvtnWi2FqeQkNgMXdjSA9_oEKzlCrt53sIQWgS1wOypHkAhvoxxKb0JJsmYeBrqOTDZiQ1-CpRq1nEhw-YiOF5g1MNVo48mHus9swYf0Dj2oXAGLVlCx46Ihzpi9fhrgA/w444-h640/Redford+The+Natural+2.jpg" width="444" /></a></div><p>By many accounts, during rehearsals Redford slammed a few pitches into the upper right field deck of the filming location, Buffalo’s War Memorial Stadium. Screenwriter Roger Towne confirmed that Redford was a formidable batter in real life. “It was really a thrill to see Bob hammering that ball,” Towne said. “Seeing him step up to the plate and poke those babies out there.” </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8boFHKbpWEm5gte_cSUaIc1b-yullxdYNZHwbbedPZBbrqY9PMqN8NzZozlADNP-LdOVAoAGBDhSrvrmEN8X6tJRamHSXA4a8AN44W7O95EF2bbZfjYfbhJW7xxZ7QevEE4gwSrzTDyY/s1194/Redford+The+Natural.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="498" data-original-width="1194" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8boFHKbpWEm5gte_cSUaIc1b-yullxdYNZHwbbedPZBbrqY9PMqN8NzZozlADNP-LdOVAoAGBDhSrvrmEN8X6tJRamHSXA4a8AN44W7O95EF2bbZfjYfbhJW7xxZ7QevEE4gwSrzTDyY/w640-h266/Redford+The+Natural.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><p>“You know, until we made this movie, I hadn’t realized how much I liked coming up to bat,” Redford mused. “I’d forgotten how oddly peaceful it felt. It was great being able to do my own hitting, even hit my own home run.” </p><p><br /></p><div>Sources: <br />David Falkner, “The Actor as Athlete: A Subtle and Complex Portrait,” <i>New York Times</i>, 2/7/88<br />Ron Fimrite, “A Star With Real Clout,” <i>Sports Illustrated</i>, 5/7/84<br /><i>The Natural</i> DVD, “When Lightning Strikes: Creating <i>The Natural</i>” Featurette<br />Peter Rainer, “It’s a <i>Natural</i>,” <i>Vanity Fair</i>, 5/84<br />Army Archerd, “Redford’s Plans For Future Pics,” <i>Variety</i>, 11/16/83</div>AMANDA ERLANSONhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08802979669786762765noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9063374795773405407.post-27986333814685163932021-09-06T14:16:00.001-07:002021-09-06T14:16:51.789-07:00A Real Hero of Baseball Inspired "The Natural"<p>In Bernard Malamud’s novel <i>The Natural</i>, the character of ‘Roy Hobbs’ was patterned after the lives of several famous ballplayers – ‘Babe’ Ruth, Bobby Feller, Eddie Waitkus and ‘Shoeless’ Joe Jackson. As screenwriter Roger Towne attested, “Almost all of the historical baseball allusions in the movie were Malamud’s.”</p><p>When ‘Roy Hobbs’ made it to the big screen, however, one more baseball legend was added to the mix. Towne explained, “Some have asked if the on-screen Roy Hobbs was modeled after Ted Williams. In a way, yeah, but that was mostly because Williams was a hero of Redford’s, and both were lefties, so Bob decided to wear number nine. Redford even wanted Williams to visit the set, but unfortunately the ‘Splendid Splinter’ was on one of his extended fishing trips.” </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqj3VHsAv1sBfj4Mo2jcjh18JCzE0R4BB4dIo3hC3fY6wbMtbGyUbCdZv0bYbCNdBytUDjRGEIb0J7UXnc6E1_JJflrKMNqSR1ACzDMZIozSv1iHSNuAx3nVDRRta7Pl11Ma-m7qOwi9Q/s2000/Ted+Williams.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1125" data-original-width="2000" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqj3VHsAv1sBfj4Mo2jcjh18JCzE0R4BB4dIo3hC3fY6wbMtbGyUbCdZv0bYbCNdBytUDjRGEIb0J7UXnc6E1_JJflrKMNqSR1ACzDMZIozSv1iHSNuAx3nVDRRta7Pl11Ma-m7qOwi9Q/w640-h360/Ted+Williams.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Red Sox legend Ted Williams</td></tr></tbody></table><p>“Ted Williams was my hero as a kid,” said Robert Redford. “This was really before television… I could just see him in my mind’s eye in Fenway Park. I copied his stance the way I’d seen it in pictures.” </p><p>Ted Williams was an outfielder for the Boston Red Sox from 1939 to 1960. Much like <i>The Natural</i>’s ‘Roy Hobbs,’ he stated early in his career that his goal was to be “the greatest hitter who ever lived.” Also like ‘Hobbs,’ his baseball career was interrupted for several years – though Williams wasn’t shot by a mysterious stalker. Instead, he served as a Marine Corps flight instructor during World War II and flew bombing runs during the Korean War. Though he was shot down over North Korea in 1953, he was able to ‘limp’ the fighter jet back to an Air Force base over the South Korean border. All in all, Williams’ military service took five years out of his baseball career, which significantly limited his career totals. When he was released from military service, he returned to major league baseball as a star. </p><p>Redford recalled, “The first time I was ever in New York – must’ve been 1957 – I was standing on top of the RCA Building asking the guide what all the buildings were, when off in the distance I saw this flash of light. ‘What’s that?’ I asked. The guard said it was Yankee Stadium, and I realized the Red Sox were playing the Yankees that night. I got in a subway and rode out to the ball park and got a seat in the bleachers… Williams came up to pinch hit in the ninth. I said to myself, ‘Bob, this is for you.’ And I’ll be damned if he didn’t hit one right over my head for a home run… I’d had some good days myself, but that was my biggest thrill in sports.” </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQyKYRMp3toxoJwZBQFW2kKw7nG3-aCbXzzIs-i-A-bfnfuWGRLkZSuZee_X8fiw7fA5nUB5OVTV5DA3yg59Qw-ScBnMrN77-6QODIzCKy961CUAQG5297A5MK6bs8I5cjgsqCDi_hKI0/s1452/Ted+Williams+2.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="566" data-original-width="1452" height="250" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQyKYRMp3toxoJwZBQFW2kKw7nG3-aCbXzzIs-i-A-bfnfuWGRLkZSuZee_X8fiw7fA5nUB5OVTV5DA3yg59Qw-ScBnMrN77-6QODIzCKy961CUAQG5297A5MK6bs8I5cjgsqCDi_hKI0/w640-h250/Ted+Williams+2.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ted Williams demonstrating "the science of hitting"</td></tr></tbody></table><p>While making <i>The Natural</i>, Redford got a chance to emulate his childhood hero. “I didn’t really play ball again until I filmed this picture,” Redford said. “Then, 27 years later, I discovered what it was I liked about baseball. Everybody in life wants his time at bat, after all. And there I was, standing up there and hitting one out. Yes, I did, before a crowd of thousands – all extras. Of course, the rightfield foul line was only 310 feet, but I did get one out of there. Like Ted Williams.” </p><p><br /></p><div>Sources:<br />Peter Handrinos, “Baseball Men: The Storyteller,” <i>scout.com</i>, 12/20/06<br />Ron Fimrite, “A Star With Real Clout,” <i>Sports Illustrated</i>, 5/7/84</div>AMANDA ERLANSONhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08802979669786762765noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9063374795773405407.post-88498244381173124352021-09-05T13:44:00.001-07:002021-09-05T13:44:41.359-07:00Zero-Gravity Training for "Apollo 13"<p>In order to shoot a realistic film about space travel, director Ron Howard first had to figure out how he was going to depict weightlessness. During a visit to NASA, he learned that real astronauts trained for a weightless environment in NASA's KC-135 weightless trainer – the “Vomit Comet” – a hollowed-out, windowless, padded Boeing 707 jet that climbs to 30,000 ft. and then arcs into a steep dive, creating a 23-second period of weightlessness. When the jet reaches the bottom of its dive and arcs back up, the zero-gravity environment instantly disappears, becoming a crushing two gravities. As it begins to climb, the passengers and crew hit the deck.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxIjOWNvig4b23I2_dMk3hBMFU_-Q-ak6_X0zdJciP2fHbklfVz3orjFbJK3TA0YYRsFjcZj2q4qFwCG-y6nCqoP59vZilTmKcTAThqHvDwzH4knh46q-i6jSmZCwsR1zIxYYMkzho_E4/s898/Apollo+13+Zero-G+1.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="590" data-original-width="898" height="420" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxIjOWNvig4b23I2_dMk3hBMFU_-Q-ak6_X0zdJciP2fHbklfVz3orjFbJK3TA0YYRsFjcZj2q4qFwCG-y6nCqoP59vZilTmKcTAThqHvDwzH4knh46q-i6jSmZCwsR1zIxYYMkzho_E4/w640-h420/Apollo+13+Zero-G+1.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The <i>Apollo 13</i> filmmakers first had to solve the problem of how to realistically depict zero-gravity</td></tr></tbody></table><p>Kevin Bacon recalled, “Ron called me up and said, ‘We’re going up in this zero-g airplane. And it’s for research. You don’t have to go. Absolutely no pressure. If you don’t want to go, you don’t have to go. Tom’s going to go. Gary’s going to go. Bill’s going to go. I’m going to go.’ You know, everybody was going to go. So, of course, I’m not going to look I’m an idiot. I mean, there is a certain element of my personality that is slightly male.” </p><p>To experience the “Vomit Comet,” Tom Hanks, Bill Paxton, Kevin Bacon and Gary Sinise joined director Ron Howard and producer Todd Hallowell at Ellington Air Force Base. For their first zero-gravity flight, the KC-135 flew out to a distant spot in the Gulf of Mexico – remote waters hundreds of miles from a populated area. That morning, NASA medics prescribed to each of the “actor-nauts” a potent drug cocktail of scopolamine and Dexedrine to relieve motion sickness. In the breast pockets of each man’s suit was what NASA technicians call the “airman’s corsage” – two plastic bags with sealable tops, just in case. </p><p>For the first few dips, the passengers stayed strapped in their seats. On the fourth one, Paxton unbuckled his restraints and the others hesitantly followed suit, floating weightless for the first time. “Bill loved it,” said Ron Howard. “He took to it like a duck to water. He just absolutely loved being weightless. We all did.”</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgp4DX3W8Qj9GLt9HREmmHO1U21v4FdQSCFNaawfagn9delyUJ-YjVf08gr1X-vJ0cBJRo-L7yCdjiGypDpm45SmwzUn76C9nGDRiBve2i91kB-g_-MCXOCy4qDJze398z6pgVzP9l034/s1200/Apollo+13+Zero-G+test+2.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="831" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgp4DX3W8Qj9GLt9HREmmHO1U21v4FdQSCFNaawfagn9delyUJ-YjVf08gr1X-vJ0cBJRo-L7yCdjiGypDpm45SmwzUn76C9nGDRiBve2i91kB-g_-MCXOCy4qDJze398z6pgVzP9l034/w278-h400/Apollo+13+Zero-G+test+2.jpg" width="278" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Tom Hanks and Kevin Bacon experiencing weightlessness for the first time</td></tr></tbody></table><p>"I was the wimp," admitted Kevin Bacon. "I thought we'd go up in the plane once. We went on 40 zero-g trips." Before the flight ended, Bacon and Sinise both lost their lunch. </p><p>Afterward, Howard bragged, “Test directors came up and said, ‘You know, we expected you to be a bunch of Hollywood wimps.’” Hanks said, “We assured the guys down there that we were kind of up to it, and then we were saying, ‘Boy, is it possible to put a set in here and shoot part of a movie?’” </p><p>Kevin Bacon wasn’t so keen on the idea, but tried to seem game. “Ron comes to me and says, ‘Well, our stunt coordinator Mickey Gilbert had an idea. He wants to go up there and film it. I don’t know if we can do it. We’ll check with NASA.’ I was like, ‘Oh.’” </p><p>Producer Todd Hallowell started working the phones, hoping to get permission to place the Command Module and Lunar Module sets inside the KC-135 for filming weightless effects. “We kept pushing on this and finally got it all the way to Washington, to NASA Administrator Dan Goldin’s office,” said Hallowell. “And they finally came back and said, ‘Well, let’s do that.’” </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRDQmj4zsgBM8AUw0IuVsDGEiN1tSK3oxEGTS__iNDjo2W8RJTLpNAnwaAqJJ1MJlSPx7QHZBnWb33SSkZW7ULoPW56sK1EzVWv8vlsoTQbJLDLuMcnvbVY2M3SrsmUS-KU6ZtiRyTM_c/s1024/Apollo+13+Zero-G+filming.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="1024" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRDQmj4zsgBM8AUw0IuVsDGEiN1tSK3oxEGTS__iNDjo2W8RJTLpNAnwaAqJJ1MJlSPx7QHZBnWb33SSkZW7ULoPW56sK1EzVWv8vlsoTQbJLDLuMcnvbVY2M3SrsmUS-KU6ZtiRyTM_c/w640-h640/Apollo+13+Zero-G+filming.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The <i>Apollo 13</i> crew filming on the "Vomit Comet"</td></tr></tbody></table><p>That was a big relief for Ron Howard. “If we’d had to do it with wires – if we really would’ve had to try to create the weightlessness with wires, I shudder to think what the movie would have looked like,” he said. “Ultimately, every director has to bear the final responsibility for what goes on in shooting a movie. If I had really understood before going into it what was involved in shooting in the KC-135, I might have backed away from it. There were the financial issues to consider, there were logistical issues, like how we were going to make the set fit inside the confines of the plane, there was the simple question of whether it really was possible to stage the scenes we wanted to stage in a zero-g environment. At a certain point, I just said, ‘If the actors are willing to give it a try, I’m willing to. If it works, it’s unprecedented, if it doesn’t, it doesn’t.’ I certainly wasn’t on an irrational mission, but I also knew that no matter how wonderful the special-effects wizards working on the movie were, there was no way simulated weightlessness would look as good as the real thing.” </p><p><br /></p><div>Sources:<br />Cindy Pearlman, “The Making of <i>Apollo 13</i>: A Countdown,” <i>Chicago Sun-Times</i>, 6/25/95<br />Cindy Pearlman, “Space Race,” <i>Chicago Sun-Times</i>, 6/25/95<br />Jeffrey Kluger, <i>The Apollo Adventure</i>, Pocket Books, 1995<br />Richard Corliss, “Hell of a Ride,” <i>Time</i>, 7/3/95 <br />Malcolm Jones, Jr., “Out of this World, Really,” <i>Newsweek</i>, 7/3/95<br />Lynda Jones, “<i>Apollo 13</i> Takes a Dive,” <i>Science World</i>, 10/6/95<br /><i>Apollo 13</i> DVD Extras: <i>Lost Moon</i> Featurette <br /><i>Apollo 13</i> DVD Extras: Director Commentary</div>AMANDA ERLANSONhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08802979669786762765noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9063374795773405407.post-46960451389826824102021-09-04T14:27:00.000-07:002021-09-04T14:27:35.464-07:00Tom Hanks: Space Geek Extraordinaire<p>When he was a boy, Tom Hanks was obsessed with the space program. “Man, I became addicted,” said Hanks. “From <i>Apollo 7</i> on up, I lived this stuff. I knew the crews. I’d run home for the launches. I got A’s in physics, thinking maybe I could be one of those guys. I was Space Boy. I thought I was so lucky to be alive at a time when man was gonna walk on the moon.”</p><p>Young Tom Hanks spent countless hours assembling models of lunar modules and imagining what it would be like to blast off into space. “I would sit at the bottom of our swimming pool with a brick stuffed in my swimming trunks, breathing through a garden hose stuck in my mouth, just so I could see what it was like floating, pretending I was a guy in space. I would go underneath the ladder with a fake wrench and pretend I was tightening the bolts, sucking on that garden hose, because to me, there was nothing in the world that was more interesting.” </p><p>“I was always dazzled by the idea that frail human beings of flesh and bone could go off in these vacuum-packed little spacecraft and travel half a million miles. That’s the thing that would always get me.” Hanks remembers running all the way home from school to watch the newscasts about the imperiled <i>Apollo 13</i> astronauts when he was 13. “They’ll live the rest of their lives up there,” he thought. “It’s like being buried alive.” </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAZvhbY_EUr40_Ppb-XPLAQUbtzJAPq8pO6DkLuixE3iBjkgCR6jlRNVPHXwernH0xUlmTHc6LizFPnatt06Vz5z4hhOsJkvXQ2qsAbQei2aVTxUUDODnEZpGZmxfmiXo4Mj_k0dvhLFY/s1440/Jim+Lovell_Jack+Swigert_Fred+Haise_Apollo+13.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="858" data-original-width="1440" height="382" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAZvhbY_EUr40_Ppb-XPLAQUbtzJAPq8pO6DkLuixE3iBjkgCR6jlRNVPHXwernH0xUlmTHc6LizFPnatt06Vz5z4hhOsJkvXQ2qsAbQei2aVTxUUDODnEZpGZmxfmiXo4Mj_k0dvhLFY/w640-h382/Jim+Lovell_Jack+Swigert_Fred+Haise_Apollo+13.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Jim Lovell, Jack Swigert and Fred Haise in the Apollo 13 command module preparing for re-entry, <a href="https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/inside-apollo-13-enhanced-photos-reveal-life-on-ill-fated-space-mission/2QWWGLOWNZPR6OVF3UDDN3OZI4/" target="_blank">remastered image by NASA imaging specialist Andy Saunders</a></td></tr></tbody></table><p>“There were nine Apollo missions to the moon, and I think they are nine of the greatest stories of all time,” said Hanks. “If you’re trying to tell the story about what the human consciousness can accomplish, going to the moon has never been topped.” For years, Hanks had told anyone who would listen that the <i>Apollo 13</i> story would make a terrific movie. Finally, in 1993, he came across someone who agreed with him – director Ron Howard, who had recently bought the rights to <i>Apollo 13</i> astronaut Jim Lovell’s book <i>Lost Moon</i>. </p><p>“I have always wanted to be in a pressure suit, somehow,” said Hanks. “I’ve always wanted to play an astronaut. I’ve always wanted to shoot a vast section of a movie completely encapsulated by nothing but metal, glass and switches, and I finally have a chance to do that. So this is real dream-come-true stuff, here.”</p><p>In Tom Hanks, director Ron Howard found a partner who would keep him honest on the myriad details of the <i>Apollo 13</i> mission. “Tom was a key collaborator in the process,” said Howard. “I was thrilled to learn of his interest in the project. When Tom and I met in New York about it, I saw that he had a long-standing love affair with the space program and had always been particularly interested in the story of <i>Apollo 13</i>. Due to his passion for all things NASA, he was miles ahead of me in knowledge of the basics of space flight and the details of the mission… He came to the project with an incredible knowledge of space.” </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHG8k4lmPOUS9k-QhfG_cdmLLdrXT-iFT4o7QXTMU8rLPom94QUFhvkQGpRdf-Jjc5dUK8GZ8ETMgtnE2dj_Fo0wHNGNtizOWbI7fd8kJ4NZyVihUf0XNYut0ObMF08IATCHlH7mTqHIE/s1200/Apollo+13+set.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="799" data-original-width="1200" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHG8k4lmPOUS9k-QhfG_cdmLLdrXT-iFT4o7QXTMU8rLPom94QUFhvkQGpRdf-Jjc5dUK8GZ8ETMgtnE2dj_Fo0wHNGNtizOWbI7fd8kJ4NZyVihUf0XNYut0ObMF08IATCHlH7mTqHIE/w640-h426/Apollo+13+set.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bill Paxton as Fred Haise, director Ron Howard, Kevin Bacon as Jack Swigert, and Tom Hanks as Jim Lovell on the set of <i>Apollo 13</i></td></tr></tbody></table><p>Hanks admitted that while making <i>Apollo 13</i>, he sometimes felt like "the most annoying person around," because he was a stickler for following procedure. He studied the air-to-ground transcripts of the <i>Apollo 13</i> flight to make sure he was mastering the technical language, cross-checked every detail and argued for accuracy in every plot twist. “I felt strongly about us sticking to what really happened,” said Hanks. “There was enough suspense and drama in the real experience, so there was no need to add anything extra.”</p><p><i>Apollo 13</i> astronaut Jim Lovell, portrayed by Tom Hanks in the film, was thrilled that Hanks took such an interest in the space program. “I couldn’t have been happier with Tom, because Tom, in reality, is a closet astronaut,” Lovell said.</p><p>Hanks insisted he’d jump at that chance to be a real astronaut. “I’d do it in a minute,” he said, “but it costs around $400 million to send one of those shuttles up, and there’s only seven seats. I don’t think they need to send someone up there just so he can have funny stories for the David Letterman show.” </p><p><br /></p><div>Sources: <br />Cindy Pearlman, “Space Race,” <i>Chicago Sun-Times</i>, 6/25/95<br />Jeffrey Kluger, <i>The Apollo Adventure</i>, Pocket Books, 1995<br />Malcolm Jones, Jr., “Out of this World, Really,” <i>Newsweek</i>, 7/3/95<br />Richard Corliss, “Hell of a Ride,” <i>Time</i>, 7/3/95 <br />Piers Bizoni, “The Film Director Ron Howard Is Riding High on the Back of <i>Apollo 13</i>,” <i>The Independent</i>, 9/18/95<br />Larry Rohter, “On a Mission to Dramatize the Space Race,” <i>New York Times</i>, 5/25/97<br />Don Aucoin, “Tom Hanks’ Space Odyssey,” <i>Boston Globe</i>, 4/5/98<br /><i>Apollo 13</i> DVD Extras: <i>Lost Moon</i> Featurette</div>AMANDA ERLANSONhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08802979669786762765noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9063374795773405407.post-20766753320350829122021-09-03T14:13:00.004-07:002021-09-03T17:00:39.888-07:00"Apollo 13" and the Space Race<p>The Space Race began on October 4th, 1957, the day the Soviet Union put <i>Sputnik 1</i>, the first artificial satellite, into outer space. As astronaut Jim Lovell (played by Tom Hanks in <i>Apollo 13</i>) recounted in his book <i>Lost Moon</i>, “The American space program was born not of ambition or passion or celestial wanderlust, but rather of something closer to fear – the fear of being second best. In 1957, the Soviet Union rocked the West with the announcement that it had placed the 184-pound <i>Sputnik</i> satellite into orbit around the Earth. Putting a satellite that weighted 184 pounds into orbit required globe-spanning missiles that packed a propulsive punch of more than 50,000 pounds. The United States had fallen behind the Soviet Union in both the technology game and the propaganda game – if it was going to close the gap, it was going to have to ramp up fast.” </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioY46PVbHVciBSIamm61rGuip-zfjWqxWoDJxulRNkOh74L6FNcFrUZfkXOmfTZqyjRC10kAGDolYPJSpb-nW5NSeSe8BrwTTcAKmvpijlyGPa0rpnj1oIdLDbzcXwk7G86UBApeDcJoE/s2048/Cosmonaut+Yuri+Gagarin.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="2048" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioY46PVbHVciBSIamm61rGuip-zfjWqxWoDJxulRNkOh74L6FNcFrUZfkXOmfTZqyjRC10kAGDolYPJSpb-nW5NSeSe8BrwTTcAKmvpijlyGPa0rpnj1oIdLDbzcXwk7G86UBApeDcJoE/s320/Cosmonaut+Yuri+Gagarin.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human to travel in space on April 12, 1961</td></tr></tbody></table><p>The thought of <i>Sputnik</i> orbiting overhead instilled Americans with a sense of dread and awe, and lent new urgency to the development of rocket technology. When the Soviets followed it up by launching cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin into space four years later in 1961, President Kennedy inaugurated the Apollo program, designed to close the purported “missile gap” between the US and the Soviets while at the same time proving the superiority of American scientific and technological prowess. “I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth,” Kennedy announced. “No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important for the long-range exploration of space, and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish. But in a very real sense, it will not be one man going to the moon – it will be an entire nation. For all of us must work to put him there.”</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6c3OkKmZnoykK3WLURLlhefd89rm1CcjkC0g0s9PSANN0M2S0RfGlGSbIrA-WdAqD7ikQ16UdK_WkNuAOlncYTz6V_SB_W0FEwEB-GlcjPs3QJCBX58Z6b-5u8OK8KpE1hKF6UyETH1w/s1377/Gene+Kranz.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1072" data-original-width="1377" height="311" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6c3OkKmZnoykK3WLURLlhefd89rm1CcjkC0g0s9PSANN0M2S0RfGlGSbIrA-WdAqD7ikQ16UdK_WkNuAOlncYTz6V_SB_W0FEwEB-GlcjPs3QJCBX58Z6b-5u8OK8KpE1hKF6UyETH1w/w400-h311/Gene+Kranz.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;">Mission Control Flight Chief Gene Kranz during the Apollo 13 mission</span></td></tr></tbody></table><p>“We were given the opportunity to show what America can do,” said Mission Control Flight Chief Gene Kranz (played by Ed Harris in <i>Apollo 13</i>). “It was almost like President Kennedy grabbed an idea from the 21st century and said, ‘Let’s do it now.’ It might have been more logical to do the space station then, and eventually go to the Moon later in this century. But we really got ahead of ourselves, because we were in a Cold War.” </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhr7ser7eeNkh7hILdPeiNJ2XSuw4neVErCF45rPUmZfqaZKaneJn8qTOqcdAt5Ak1Jl5JVhC5i2fcwka3tEofl8mlmmQduILWhH5nsrxfA9M61ySPa1cgGEP8EQJH_xOxciQWy5sdgonw/s2048/Apollo+13+astronaut+Jim+Lovell+1970.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1561" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhr7ser7eeNkh7hILdPeiNJ2XSuw4neVErCF45rPUmZfqaZKaneJn8qTOqcdAt5Ak1Jl5JVhC5i2fcwka3tEofl8mlmmQduILWhH5nsrxfA9M61ySPa1cgGEP8EQJH_xOxciQWy5sdgonw/w305-h400/Apollo+13+astronaut+Jim+Lovell+1970.jpg" width="305" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Apollo 13 astronaut Jim Lovell while training for the mission in 1970</td></tr></tbody></table><p><i>Apollo 13</i> astronaut Jim Lovell joined the space program in 1962, after flying for the Navy in the Korean War and spending four years as a test pilot at the Naval Air Test Center. He was there to witness the very earliest efforts of the Apollo project. “In order to stake their country’s claim in space in the short time they had been given, NASA’s engineers had to develop a whole new type of engineering ethos,” he said. “After 1961, when President Kennedy outrageously promised to put Americans on the moon by 1970, the space agency knew the old way of doing business had to change. There is a thin line between arrogance and confidence, between hubris and true skill, and the engineers and astronauts of NASA spent more than a decade sure-footedly straddling it.” </p><p>The Apollo project launched nine moon shots in all, over a period of four years. <i>Apollo 8</i> was a beacon of hope to a troubled nation at the end of 1968 – a year of assassinations, burning cities and political turmoil. The public marveled with the astronauts as they circled the moon ten times, celebrating Christmas in space and watching their first Earthrise over the lifeless lunar horizon. Six months later, on July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first humans to walk on the surface of the moon. President Kennedy’s audacious goal had been achieved. </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh01L4Q1Nul5dkyWxAH0tY98MLFUW7Gev-ZORk3LkDsZazyz0pZyXEd2NGRBpC-J7gVjJ2ZclDRJOQanGoVmcn-isfnPHYAL_MqCFSoQAHOLS1_9Yh53cjLmLTzViLVyJIiULADQQ2_6Ro/s1207/Apollo+11+moon+landing.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1207" data-original-width="1200" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh01L4Q1Nul5dkyWxAH0tY98MLFUW7Gev-ZORk3LkDsZazyz0pZyXEd2NGRBpC-J7gVjJ2ZclDRJOQanGoVmcn-isfnPHYAL_MqCFSoQAHOLS1_9Yh53cjLmLTzViLVyJIiULADQQ2_6Ro/w398-h400/Apollo+11+moon+landing.jpg" width="398" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Buzz Aldrin during the Apollo 11 moon landing on <span style="text-align: left;">July 20, 1969</span></td></tr></tbody></table><p>However, by the time <i>Apollo 13</i> was launched nine months later, the nation’s passion for lunar exploration had grown cold. The Vietnam War – in which nearly 50,000 American soldiers had lost their lives – had escalated into a national nightmare. The Kent State shootings of unarmed students protesting the invasion of Cambodia were less than a month in the future, and the self-assurance with which America had undertaken the Apollo project in 1961 had vanished. Beating the Russians to the moon was a goal of the past, and the public’s eye turned to more pressing matters. </p><p>Yet once the <i>Apollo 13</i> mission was in peril, the space program seized the spotlight once again. <i>Time</i>’s Richard Corliss recalled, “After the explosion, <i>Aquarius</i> became a lifeboat. In it, the astronauts would try sailing home on the gravitational breezes of the moon and the earth. To steer their vessel, they would refute the argument that astronauts were not so much pilots as passengers or cargo – they had to navigate using the sun and the earth as a compass. And with doom dogging their flight, newsfolk and viewers finally paid attention. Imminent death is great for ratings. The Apollo gang got a man on the moon in one urgent decade. Then they worked even more impressively to bring three men back safely from the beyond.” </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiz_BHJdZH-qM3dklQIBVThTTljIGW3fWQSNZMuGUuoc0uveNnCTpKVrzPJaWBkWDUTFyN4Th_lbJgld_4Z5uES85GmQDqQZ9ya9SnsJXxHCvrtm-yy1JezDWGqhiDwVt5QtaKKHGdiN3I/s1920/Gene+Kranz+in+Mission+Control+as+Apollo+13+splashes+down.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="736" data-original-width="1920" height="246" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiz_BHJdZH-qM3dklQIBVThTTljIGW3fWQSNZMuGUuoc0uveNnCTpKVrzPJaWBkWDUTFyN4Th_lbJgld_4Z5uES85GmQDqQZ9ya9SnsJXxHCvrtm-yy1JezDWGqhiDwVt5QtaKKHGdiN3I/w640-h246/Gene+Kranz+in+Mission+Control+as+Apollo+13+splashes+down.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;">Mission Control Flight Chief </span>Gene Kranz (in white vest) and the Mission Control team celebrating as Apollo 13 splashed down</td></tr></tbody></table><p>The Space Race officially ended in July 1975 with the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project, in which astronauts from the two rival nations rendezvoused in space as part of the policy of détente that the two superpowers were pursuing at the time. It was a great success that led to increased international space cooperation in the decades to come. </p><p>After the release of <i>Apollo 13</i>, <i>Time</i>’s Richard Corliss recalled the glory of the space race. “The 17 Apollo moon missions, from 1967 to 1972, provided cubic tons of melodrama, from the explosion of the <i>Apollo 1</i> test module that killed three astronauts to Neil Armstrong's buoyant lunar stroll from <i>Apollo 11</i>. The apogee of American know-how and teamwork, the program could, at the flick of a wrong switch, careen from triumph to tragedy. In this job, success meant you forged the ultimate frontier; failure meant you died with the whole world watching.” </p><p><br /></p><div>Sources:<br />President John F. Kennedy, “Special Message to the Congress on Urgent National Needs,” May 25, 1961<br />Jeffrey Kluger and Jim Lovell, <i>Lost Moon</i>, Houghton Mifflin, 1994<br />John Noble Wilford, “When We Were Racing with the Moon,” <i>New York Times</i>, 6/25/95<br />Richard Corliss, “Hell of a Ride,” <i>Time</i>, 7/3/95<br />Anne Lewis, “Apollo Creed,” <i>Austin Chronicle</i>, 1/7/99<br />Douglas Bailey, “Ex-Flight Chief Recalls ‘Let’s Do It’ Days,” <i>Boston Globe</i>, 4/18/00</div>AMANDA ERLANSONhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08802979669786762765noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9063374795773405407.post-47917031403193551222021-09-02T16:17:00.023-07:002021-09-03T09:55:02.493-07:00Nichols & May, Together Again for "The Birdcage"<p>Mike Nichols was born Michael Igor Peschkowsky in 1931 in Berlin. His Jewish parents were forced to flee Germany to escape the Nazis in 1939, and settled in the United States. While attending the University of Chicago in the 1950s, he had a fateful meeting with Elaine May.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2IhaCR8N0nNeFx3UijfPZDLVqd5fgztw3fAmSq-PHYlP0Jz5wLh0t1HUJ0T-pdHBUwaldRw_ZgHpooBzGB834R-fieUcIGwEsF1sdsTcCjhq52MnsCO3RRvD-wSrGQsiWrIZjTeDRA80/s2048/Nichols+And+May.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1868" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2IhaCR8N0nNeFx3UijfPZDLVqd5fgztw3fAmSq-PHYlP0Jz5wLh0t1HUJ0T-pdHBUwaldRw_ZgHpooBzGB834R-fieUcIGwEsF1sdsTcCjhq52MnsCO3RRvD-wSrGQsiWrIZjTeDRA80/w365-h400/Nichols+And+May.jpg" width="365" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Improv comedy partners Elaine May and Mike Nichols</td></tr></tbody></table><p>Elaine May was born Elaine Berlin in Philadelphia in 1932, the daughter of theater director and actor Jack Berlin and actress Ida Aaron Berlin. As a child, May occasionally performed with her father in the Yiddish theater he ran. She married Marvin May in the late ‘40s, while still a teenager, and gave birth to a daughter in 1949. The following year, May started attending classes at the University of Chicago.</p><p>For both Nichols and May, the pivotal event of their careers was their chance meeting in a train station in the spring of 1954. “Elaine May and I met at the University of Chicago,” said Nichols. “My first impression of her was of a beautiful and dangerous girl that interested me enormously, and scared me. We were both what was known on campus as ‘dangerous.’ We were introduced, and then we oddly met again in the railway station on the way back to the South Side of Chicago, where the university was. I said, ‘May I sit down?’ and she said, ‘Eeef you wish,’ and just like that, we were in an improvisation – we did a whole long spy mystery improvisation for the benefit of the other people on the bench. That’s how we met… and then we were friends. We did it later on one of the records, but we improvised it in the actual railroad station the first time, before we knew each other.” </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEANLqBNTFa53o6l1BnZIW1OiAwQhcpyaEGvk-xBFAJu4g1HQPB_w8B0NJkigNftpbqfyJ3KarumRFstSUGPdtu-oZQdxj1mI0JexXqy9yy6sayXj2TvHuh23KZoS4Eh5qDmAJuh4GoJA/s1440/Nichols+and+May+in+NYC+in+1961.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="1440" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEANLqBNTFa53o6l1BnZIW1OiAwQhcpyaEGvk-xBFAJu4g1HQPB_w8B0NJkigNftpbqfyJ3KarumRFstSUGPdtu-oZQdxj1mI0JexXqy9yy6sayXj2TvHuh23KZoS4Eh5qDmAJuh4GoJA/w640-h426/Nichols+and+May+in+NYC+in+1961.jpeg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Elaine May and Mike Nichols in New York City in 1961</td></tr></tbody></table><p>After graduation, Nichols left Chicago to study acting with Lee Strasberg in New York, but he soon returned to Chicago, where May was working with director Paul Sills and others in developing improvisational comedy at the Compass. “The Compass was what became Second City,” said Nichols. “The idea was that it would be improvised, and there wasn’t much of an idea after that, so there were weeks of desperation onstage. What was nice about the Compass was that we were very near the lake, and when something went really badly wrong, you could just run out back and jump in the lake.” </p><p>“Chicago is not a very fashion-driven place,” Nichols said. “Nobody says, ‘Oh, you’ve got to come see these fabulous people!’ Nobody cares. You know, they come and they laugh and then they go home. They’re not impressed with anything, which is the best possible training for anybody… As Elaine says, ‘It wasn’t such a big deal in Chicago.’” </p><p>Nichols and May developed new, reality-based takes on sex and relationships, and based their improv characters on themselves and the people they knew. By 1957, when they took their act to New York, nightclubs and TV, they had perfected it. “I guess it’s not dissimilar to jazz,” said Nichols. “Now and then you get hot, and you don’t know why, and it mostly consists of looking into your partner’s eyes and thinking, ‘Oh my God! I know what you’re going to do, and when you get there, I’ll be there, too!’” </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPlTkp8fjZ1M-gSk_K6IkiL49_uAXbNbWEZ7F0XM3V5b7ZVMI7ZcA9zQtgL4M62IbOyZd-HX-I11Npzu-0KdxAla-d48hl8o0AIQj7ZjhicPSPLS0xj0iajVHUTvM-1hfiOyO-hIrgeD4/s2000/Nichols+and+May+1960.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2000" data-original-width="1587" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPlTkp8fjZ1M-gSk_K6IkiL49_uAXbNbWEZ7F0XM3V5b7ZVMI7ZcA9zQtgL4M62IbOyZd-HX-I11Npzu-0KdxAla-d48hl8o0AIQj7ZjhicPSPLS0xj0iajVHUTvM-1hfiOyO-hIrgeD4/w318-h400/Nichols+and+May+1960.jpg" width="318" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Comedy duo Nichols & May took Broadway by storm with <i style="text-align: left;">An Evening with Mike Nichols and Elaine May</i> in 1960</td></tr></tbody></table><p>Dubbed “the world’s fastest humans” for their dry, whip-smart dialogue and lighting-fast improv, Nichols & May were enormously popular. “The nice thing was to make an audience laugh and laugh and laugh, and shudder later,” said May. In 1960, Nichols and May hit Broadway with their revue, <i>An Evening with Mike Nichols and Elaine May</i>, which ran for a year before the two decided to go their separate ways. </p><p>After his breakup with May, Nichols was in despair. His breakthrough, he said, came with a phone call from a producer who asked him if he wanted to direct a play. It was written by Neil Simon, and would later be called <i>Barefoot in the Park</i>. “I mean, those were the days,” said Nichols. “I said, ‘I’d like that guy I saw on <i>Playhouse 90</i> last night’ – it was Redford. On the first day of rehearsal, I thought, ‘Well, look at this. Here is what I was meant to do.’ I knew instantly that I was home.” He went on to his film directing debut with 1966’s <i>Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?</i> and followed it up the next year with the instant classic <i>The Graduate</i>, which led to many more critically lauded films.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinp2vG2gusOU6TXga2oS8-eOSl7-dFWQGGFVn95_zc0Ow-uWncAxQLdf5SEIUWx9gsooU9KWlOTIKEZyAdTd5lz2W_Up30XfOWhjhQDurRIqNiUpRLYPiDdqE1fHsipEfNq8qV-MXm7Kc/s2048/Mike+Nichols+directing+Whos+Afraid+of+Virginia+Woolf+in+1966.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinp2vG2gusOU6TXga2oS8-eOSl7-dFWQGGFVn95_zc0Ow-uWncAxQLdf5SEIUWx9gsooU9KWlOTIKEZyAdTd5lz2W_Up30XfOWhjhQDurRIqNiUpRLYPiDdqE1fHsipEfNq8qV-MXm7Kc/w640-h480/Mike+Nichols+directing+Whos+Afraid+of+Virginia+Woolf+in+1966.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mike Nichols directing Elizabeth Taylor, George Segal and Richard Burton on the set of <i>Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?</i> in 1966</td></tr></tbody></table><p>Elaine May also became a director, but with less success than Nichols. She made her film writing and directing debut in 1971 with <i>A New Leaf</i>, a screwball comedy starring herself and Walter Matthau. Her second movie as director was 1972’s <i>The Heartbreak Kid</i>. Critically lauded and mildly successful, it was based on a screenplay by Neil Simon. May followed up these two comedies with a bleak, almost completely improvised crime story entitled <i>Mikey and Nicky</i> in 1976. After that, she co-wrote 1978’s <i>Heaven Can Wait</i> with Warren Beatty, garnering herself an Oscar nomination. </p><p>However, May’s directing career would crash to a halt with her next directorial effort, 1987’s infamous <i>Ishtar</i>. Largely shot on location in Morocco, the production was beset by internal difficulties – going over budget to the tune of $30 million – and advance publicity was so negative that the picture became one of the biggest box-office failures of its time. “<i>Ishtar</i>” has since become synonymous with “box office flop.” Nonetheless, in retrospect many consider the film to be <a href="https://www.pri.org/stories/2019-06-06/injustice-against-ishtar" target="_blank">unfairly maligned</a>.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_NcZ13ZHxzJoCXFyoMbz3vwTBOCZUaQ1oX_8j8KK0j6I7yJ8A2y37A60ZG6FqrRIlkAbMb0PNNGVTVfGXG2gnSnHG0kOkuXlEkrr6daqh9Yr9rE4Lh653FKGiHvhbWoKmWcZjYVZt3WU/s2048/Elaine+May+directing+Ishtar.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1619" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_NcZ13ZHxzJoCXFyoMbz3vwTBOCZUaQ1oX_8j8KK0j6I7yJ8A2y37A60ZG6FqrRIlkAbMb0PNNGVTVfGXG2gnSnHG0kOkuXlEkrr6daqh9Yr9rE4Lh653FKGiHvhbWoKmWcZjYVZt3WU/w506-h640/Elaine+May+directing+Ishtar.jpg" width="506" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Elaine May directing <i>Ishtar</i> in 1987</td></tr></tbody></table><p>Elaine May has long been a highly-paid script doctor, and according to rumor, has ‘script doctored’ each of Mike Nichols’ movies since they reconciled in the ‘70s. They got back together officially in the mid-'90s, when May saved Nichols’ script for <i>Wolf</i>, a film which he had almost quit in despair. After May agreed to come out into the open as the screenwriter of <i>The Birdcage</i>, she collaborated with Nichols once more, on the Oscar-nominated screenplay for 1998’s <i>Primary Colors</i>.</p><p>“Elaine had a great rule,” said Nichols. “‘When in doubt, seduce. It’s a great rule for life, too.’” </p><p><br /></p><div>Sources: <br />Robert Rice, “Profiles,” <i>New Yorker</i>, 4/15/61<br />Gavin Smith, “Mike Nichols,” <i>Film Comment</i>, 5/1/99<br />Elaine May, <i>The Birdcage: The Shooting Script</i>, Newmarket Press, 1997<br />Phil Rosenthal, “Improv Duo Paved the Way,” <i>Chicago Sun-Times</i>, 3/6/00<br />Peter Marks, “Mike Nichols Honors Graduate,” <i>Washington Post</i>, 12/7/03</div>AMANDA ERLANSONhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08802979669786762765noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9063374795773405407.post-37767579377449506012021-09-01T13:47:00.004-07:002021-09-09T09:45:50.220-07:00According to Robin Williams, Drag’s a Drag<p>Director Mike Nichols loved the cast he chose for <i>The Birdcage</i>. “I can’t imagine anyone else in any of these parts,” said Nichols. “It’s the only time in my life that I haven’t thought, ‘Well, this one character, I should have gotten so-and-so.’ It was exactly the actors who should have been these characters. Every single one, right down to the non-speaking parts.” </p><p>Robin Williams was the first cast member to sign on, but he didn’t see a completed script until late February 1995, shortly before filming began. He admitted, “At first, when I heard they wanted to remake <i>La Cage aux Folles</i>, I said, ‘Are you out of your mind?’ But then when I read it – and they just sent a few pages – I was laughing so hard on the plane that the stewardess must have thought I was crazy.” </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiguxnrtuoJC83vx9gLHwcyzoYfe18IExM2MoTDNNGAKyu_QdtuTC7fYkplZYh94p_QneRDn-lao__vQPuBxjcbfM2oj1_eTlNzH3SSPXhe66YCo9sz4WqJo3altEJyTCSdKP_PkRN-0Yo/s500/Mrs.+Doubtfire+vacuuming.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="211" data-original-width="500" height="270" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiguxnrtuoJC83vx9gLHwcyzoYfe18IExM2MoTDNNGAKyu_QdtuTC7fYkplZYh94p_QneRDn-lao__vQPuBxjcbfM2oj1_eTlNzH3SSPXhe66YCo9sz4WqJo3altEJyTCSdKP_PkRN-0Yo/w640-h270/Mrs.+Doubtfire+vacuuming.gif" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Robin Williams had already played "a big, bad woman" in <i>Mrs. Doubtfire</i></td></tr></tbody></table><p>In the beginning, Nichols asked Williams to play ‘Albert,’ the drag queen role, but Williams balked. “I did that already,” he argued. “I’ve already been a big, bad woman and besides, with this one, I can’t use prosthetics in the makeup. Without prosthetics, let’s face it, I’m not very attractive.” Williams had evidence of this, because just after filming <i>Mrs. Doubtfire</i>, he makeup-tested for <i>To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar</i>. He had been tapped for the role of ‘Vida Boheme,’ the character eventually played by Patrick Swayze. After viewing the makeup test, Williams had to concede that he just wasn’t pretty enough to pull off winning a ‘Drag Queen of the Year’ contest.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgi9RDW0IHg5CSFD4K6LTJFimkcKYO4tVwslrUc7mjEsZGfc5dCqubMZ6qaTYuCVtzjuJrcUvsZ3pjiQkxzjEyI6yLadi1bA5XVwcLfofZE03gRTOEdDu2Z_UQFXP4MSsr-Ba3044x_o_U/s1920/To+Wong+Foo.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="1920" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgi9RDW0IHg5CSFD4K6LTJFimkcKYO4tVwslrUc7mjEsZGfc5dCqubMZ6qaTYuCVtzjuJrcUvsZ3pjiQkxzjEyI6yLadi1bA5XVwcLfofZE03gRTOEdDu2Z_UQFXP4MSsr-Ba3044x_o_U/w640-h426/To+Wong+Foo.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Patrick Swayze as 'Vida Boheme' in <i>To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar</i></td></tr></tbody></table><p>“I thought, ‘I want to try something different, something more elegant,’” said Williams. “People expect me to be the more flamboyant one. I wanted something new… It’s a dry, restrained comedy, versus being so outrageous, and that’s what was interesting for me. It’s like learning a whole set of different muscles.” </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgabaZVoDzmAT7IqwZRttsb_eSWfkBsb5NvLxc5CcC2q_oF-b9KgjcbgfmM_zGeuA2ZZMrmnce1PfWBDdWZZPASHIA8j86W7lBrmPqw8s7YKEltQd8VFgIG3521OwKADdQFle7R1H-b6c/s2048/The+Birdcage.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1377" data-original-width="2048" height="430" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgabaZVoDzmAT7IqwZRttsb_eSWfkBsb5NvLxc5CcC2q_oF-b9KgjcbgfmM_zGeuA2ZZMrmnce1PfWBDdWZZPASHIA8j86W7lBrmPqw8s7YKEltQd8VFgIG3521OwKADdQFle7R1H-b6c/w640-h430/The+Birdcage.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Nathan Lane and Robin Williams in <i>The Birdcage</i></td></tr></tbody></table><p>Once he understood the direction Robin Williams had in mind, Mike Nichols agreed. “I wanted Robin to be the relatively still center,” said Nichols. “I knew there would be great humor in Robin suppressing his desire to shriek.” </p><p><br /></p><div>Sources: <br />Elaine May, <i>The Birdcage: The Shooting Script</i>, Newmarket Press, 1997<br />Claudia Eller, “Sure He Can Wear a Dress, But Can He Look Cute in It?,” <i>Los Angeles Times</i>, 7/17/94<br />Jonathan Alter, “Robin Williams Uncaged,” <i>USA Weekend</i>, 3/1/96<br />Mal Vincent, “Director and Stars Talk about Making Hit Comedy <i>The Birdcage</i>,” <i>Virginian-Pilot</i>, 3/14/96<br />Bernard Weintraub, “<i>Birdcage</i> Shows Growth in Older Audience’s Power,” <i>New York Times</i>, 3/12/96<br />Brendan Lemon, “Nichols & … Timing,” <i>Interview</i>, 4/98</div><br />AMANDA ERLANSONhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08802979669786762765noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9063374795773405407.post-29287674559253307172021-08-31T15:30:00.004-07:002021-09-06T15:18:50.789-07:00"The Birdcage": “Family Values” vs. Valuing Family <p>Gays and lesbians have been fighting for the right to live openly without discrimination and fear since the end of World War II. Those struggles came to a head one night in 1969, on a routine police raid of the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in Greenwich Village which was operating without a license. The brutality of that raid triggered a riot that lasted for days, and it was that struggle that provided a rallying point for the gay liberation movement. Afterward, gay rights advocates began forming communities in large urban centers like San Francisco and New York City, organizing awareness campaigns and spreading the idea of “gay pride.” As a result, in the early ‘70s several states reformed their criminal code to decriminalize same-sex relations between consenting adults, and some cities passed anti-discrimination statutes. </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQ0NrGDuKF5vW8PPfI9oHcFYaU-m4kPKCJkd5HgSCjrWZUR399GWit0yNi991NQPoBSodnDP5h0qg6sieedWTf1x3Afc8X8ri7ENdkk3IHUDouh7tCeVx3SwdNnf77Uh-PI_flC3HNnW0/s1024/Marsha+P+Johnson_Sylvia+Rivera_Stonewall.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="576" data-original-width="1024" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQ0NrGDuKF5vW8PPfI9oHcFYaU-m4kPKCJkd5HgSCjrWZUR399GWit0yNi991NQPoBSodnDP5h0qg6sieedWTf1x3Afc8X8ri7ENdkk3IHUDouh7tCeVx3SwdNnf77Uh-PI_flC3HNnW0/w640-h360/Marsha+P+Johnson_Sylvia+Rivera_Stonewall.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Drag queens Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera are credited with triggering the uprising against police oppression that grew into the Stonewall Riots</td></tr></tbody></table><p>The following decade would see many reverses, however, as America entered a long period of neo-conservatism. In the ‘80s, social conservatives attempted to reverse a decline in “traditional family values” brought on by the political and cultural relativism of the previous decade, which had inspired some degree of tolerance toward homosexuality. In this new political climate, public leaders felt comfortable attacking gay people as immoral sexual predators and threats to the family. At the same time, a mysterious disease originally known as “Gay-Related Immune Disorder” began decimating the gay community. As a sign of the times, the government did little to prevent its spread. In fact, President Reagan didn’t speak publicly of the epidemic until six years after its discovery – and only after over 20,000 Americans had died of AIDS.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMDbGmqi9tnvnCJ3-uGyo_RzLoUUYQUBENQwijaFXYy2HmM3lHxbaLr6g4kTBY0h4GzbmCGCdGz2hKDG-3RLJlJsFjb__Yg1z_W-tEqwpa3medtfBeIVvGRPMWhzBaH3g7_4McNPoFHTo/s1400/Protest+at+Stonewall+monument+1989.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="933" data-original-width="1400" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMDbGmqi9tnvnCJ3-uGyo_RzLoUUYQUBENQwijaFXYy2HmM3lHxbaLr6g4kTBY0h4GzbmCGCdGz2hKDG-3RLJlJsFjb__Yg1z_W-tEqwpa3medtfBeIVvGRPMWhzBaH3g7_4McNPoFHTo/w640-h426/Protest+at+Stonewall+monument+1989.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">AIDS activists protesting at the Stonewall monument in 1989</td></tr></tbody></table><p>By the early ‘90s, conservative groups were advocating the idea that there was a secret “gay agenda” to make homosexuality acceptable to mainstream society. Gay and lesbian groups countered that there was nothing sinister in their desire to share the same civil rights as heterosexuals, and proposed that anti-gay extremists were simply trying to create a “climate of fear” in which to demonize them. It was into this polarized cultural climate that <i>The Birdcage</i> was released in 1996. </p><p>When Robin Williams agreed to star in <i>The Birdcage</i>, he hoped that it would be an important landmark in the struggle for gay liberation. “The whole thing is about reconciliation,” he said. “Reconciling a family, a country, right and left. People are more alike than everybody thinks, and families are families.” After seeing the finished film, producer John Calley agreed. “It’s curiously about family values,” he said. “While the family is obviously eccentric, there’s a sense of decency and honor. The relationships are very warm, very loving.”</p><p>Calley said the studio was initially a bit concerned about the politics of the film, especially its portrayal of the arch-conservatives as buffoons or hypocrites. “We had a twinge about this, but Mike Nichols told us, ‘By the time the movie comes out, you won’t be able to parody these guys anymore, they’ll be parodying themselves.’ He said the political climate would become so eccentric that it would make the film accurate. And he was right, wasn’t he?” </p><p>Though gay marriage was a radioactive topic in 1996, <i>The Birdcage</i> gently proposed that the most loving family in the movie is the one that society reviles. Though the suggestion was subtle, it was nevertheless revolutionary. After seeing the film, <i>New York Times</i> columnist Frank Rich noted, “From the start, the most eloquent proponents of gay marriage have not been gay people on the left, but gay conservatives who argue that marriage promotes mainstream ideals. As Rich Tafel, head of the Log Cabin Republicans, argues in debates with religious-right opponents of his party, ‘You can’t have it both ways – accusing gays of being promiscuous and then denying us the right to incorporate into monogamous, legally recognized relationships.’” </p><p>It would be nearly a decade before same-sex marriage became a legal possibility in the United States. In 1996, just months after <i>The Birdcage</i> was released, Congress passed The Defense of Marriage Act. In the following years, the controversial issue would prove a hot topic for conservatives, and they would succeed in passing constitutional amendments banning same-sex marriage in 26 states. </p><p>Yet as conservatives continued to pontificate and legislate against gay marriage, public opinion was shifting. Popular movies and TV shows like <i>The Birdcage</i>, <i>In & Out</i>, <i>Ellen</i> and <i>Will & Grace</i> played a major role in making gays and lesbians seem less strange and threatening – even charming and funny. Meanwhile, the media began to show gay and lesbian families in a more positive light. In 2004, America watched as 4,000 same-sex couples converged on San Francisco to get married under the auspices of then-Mayor Gavin Newsom, despite the fact that the marriages wouldn’t be legally recognized. </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhd7s5aAUI-jIU1rJQPFNTiU0gcafjIWw3ey9uC47xlaStjbrMW1UYifz1hGst77POnuzDrN3ZeBJC7hXz7LPU_6N-6aSWKhye2KIruQMEtuGmI3g9LWXFssEWvi-Sii842ru2NbHk1nDg/s920/Mayor+Gavin+Newsom+with+newlyweds+010205.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="613" data-original-width="920" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhd7s5aAUI-jIU1rJQPFNTiU0gcafjIWw3ey9uC47xlaStjbrMW1UYifz1hGst77POnuzDrN3ZeBJC7hXz7LPU_6N-6aSWKhye2KIruQMEtuGmI3g9LWXFssEWvi-Sii842ru2NbHk1nDg/w640-h426/Mayor+Gavin+Newsom+with+newlyweds+010205.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom at City Hall with two newlyweds, January 2, 2005</td></tr></tbody></table><p>Same-sex couples who had raised families together for decades attracted the media spotlight, and many onlookers saw the other side of the controversial issue for the first time. Two months later, Massachusetts became the first state to legalize gay marriage. In 2008, with polls showing that 51% of Californians supported the right of same-sex couples to marry, the California Supreme Court declared gay marriage legal in California.</p><p>Though director Mike Nichols tried to avoid getting caught up in the politics surrounding <i>The Birdcage</i>, he and screenwriter Elaine May believed that 1996 was the perfect time to reintroduce the subject of gay families. “Tolstoy said it a century ago – all families are the same,” he said. “It’s true. The movie concerns a gay family, a very loyal and loving family. It’s suggesting that the value of family is far more important than anyone’s notion of family values, and that the two are inseparable. What the film really says is that we’re all the same. We’re all people trying to get through life.” </p><p>“There are no politics to a joke,” Nichols insisted. “We live in a free society, and people should be free to live as they choose.” </p><p><br /></p><div>Sources: <br />Jonathan Alter, “Robin Williams Uncaged,” <i>USA Weekend</i>, 3/1/96<br />Bernard Weintraub, “<i>Birdcage</i> Shows Growth in Older Audience’s Power,” <i>New York Times</i>, 3/12/96<br />Frank Rich, “Beyond <i>The Birdcage</i>,” <i>New York Times</i>, 3/13/96<br />Mal Vincent, “Director and Stars Talk about Making Hit Comedy <i>The Birdcage</i>,” <i>Virginian-Pilot</i>, 3/14/96<br />Brendan Lemon, “Nichols & … Timing,” <i>Interview</i>, 4/98</div>AMANDA ERLANSONhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08802979669786762765noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9063374795773405407.post-16903529624517538622021-08-30T15:15:00.005-07:002021-09-06T15:18:32.481-07:00How Melanie Griffith Prepared To Play a Real ‘Working Girl’<p>When Melanie Griffith was cast as ‘Tess McGill’ in <i>Working Girl</i>, she moved to New York and rented a town house on a quiet side street in the far West Village. For three months, Griffith researched her character. “I do a lot of work on my characters, then I pretend I’m that person, throw all of that work away, and just be what I put into it,” Griffith said. “Then, no matter what happens, it works like a computer. You’ve already put the information in, so you just have to push a button and it comes up.” </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3hyphenhyphen_syLP2u32_aZfqOzv7CO1NatSRomoSrwK59O-hFmX3W7UEQNk1UVlKQC8PLt5i7zsMN2P9-EAGCgHWtlRjT7XpjTQev4prSBgGV1Cor5H-2cBrZPeKi39Eeermj7mc5zfHZn7w8fM/s955/Working+Girl+8.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="955" data-original-width="640" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3hyphenhyphen_syLP2u32_aZfqOzv7CO1NatSRomoSrwK59O-hFmX3W7UEQNk1UVlKQC8PLt5i7zsMN2P9-EAGCgHWtlRjT7XpjTQev4prSBgGV1Cor5H-2cBrZPeKi39Eeermj7mc5zfHZn7w8fM/w428-h640/Working+Girl+8.jpg" width="428" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Melanie Griffith as 'Tess McGill' battling a serious case of imposter syndrome in <i>Working Girl</i></td></tr></tbody></table><p>“For me, preparing for a role is a very private thing,” Griffith added. “I don’t discuss it with anyone. I seek out people I can get information from… but I don’t talk to anyone about how I’m going to do a role. I hung out with secretaries, and just talked to them about their lives and their ambitions, what they want.” </p><p>To help Griffith research her role, screenwriter Kevin Wade took her to Wall Street “to get the lay of the land.” They ended up at Bear, Stearns & Co., where Griffith met a couple of female merger and acquisitions executives and some secretaries. Griffith concentrated on three secretaries who worked for then-Bear Stearns vice president Liam Dalton, who was the technical advisor for <i>Working Girl</i>, as well as the model Charlie Sheen had used for his character in <i>Wall Street</i>.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8zpDxpraWkHiqpa-dlHggj6__qyG1B2l6RF2dWMLFCaz-4gOkzHVMCfcoRrekabca3WWaCNwDblDrnTnZ1ZlDrocBfMnQEm-kfWf7MVJYhoeXm4z6HoZWjZdElaSCiIXwubnI-JE2HZ8/s1200/Working+Girl+7.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8zpDxpraWkHiqpa-dlHggj6__qyG1B2l6RF2dWMLFCaz-4gOkzHVMCfcoRrekabca3WWaCNwDblDrnTnZ1ZlDrocBfMnQEm-kfWf7MVJYhoeXm4z6HoZWjZdElaSCiIXwubnI-JE2HZ8/w640-h426/Working+Girl+7.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><p>Liam Dalton recalled, “Melanie sat with my girls and just got to understand their mindset – what they talked about during the day, their wardrobe, their makeup, everything. She’d have a cigarette with them, go to the ladies’ room with them, walk from the ferry to the office with them and watch them file or type. She was always concerned with trying to portray the character as best she could, constantly trying to understand what would motivate Tess, so she wouldn’t come off as unrealistic. She worked hard at the nuances.” </p><p>Griffith explained, “I just talked to them about their lives. Were they happy? Were they content? They didn’t consider me a movie star. I don’t think they knew who I was. I didn’t meet anybody like Tess. Most of the secretaries were very happy with where they worked, or they had already gotten the higher job. So the rest, I just made up.” </p><p>Although Griffith “didn’t do the Method thing and get a job” on Wall Street, she admitted to having one more inside source of information and inspiration. “The guy who wrote the script introduced me to this 27-year-old whiz kid from Bear, Stearns – he’s the youngest vice president they ever had,” Griffith said. “We started dating.” </p><p>Griffith’s new love interest was <i>Working Girl</i>’s technical advisor, Liam Dalton, whom she dated for about a year. “She knew zero about business, but in a short time you could have put her in front of a monitor and she would have made money,” Dalton said. He recalled finding her curled up in front of the TV watching the CNN financial news when he arrived home from a long day at the office. “She picked it up really fast. I’d come home and she’d tell me what happened in the market that day.” </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPyf5Z9qhatUzAgRF0pkN0zRZxsHv_PoPexJPUEhsje_xNqpGeTM9lTbsutK6CXAmbNnbK3IT7SzipXjp_deQwxl4CNBr1D0VM4LhAofCGpROFtFO_3QUovWhN65KSHu8U1f9j3xRbc7Y/s643/Melanie+Griffith+in+1987.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="643" data-original-width="643" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPyf5Z9qhatUzAgRF0pkN0zRZxsHv_PoPexJPUEhsje_xNqpGeTM9lTbsutK6CXAmbNnbK3IT7SzipXjp_deQwxl4CNBr1D0VM4LhAofCGpROFtFO_3QUovWhN65KSHu8U1f9j3xRbc7Y/w640-h640/Melanie+Griffith+in+1987.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Melanie Griffith in 1987, before her transformation into 'Tess McGill'</td></tr></tbody></table><p>Griffith said she enjoyed her one-on-one high finance tutorials. “It’s really interesting. But I don’t think that I’m intelligent enough to be really involved. Lee was wonderful help, not necessarily in ‘do this or do that,’ but it was nice to be around his energy. And then it was over.” For his part, Liam Dalton took the breakup with good humor. “I do like the role of being the jilted lover,” he joked. </p><p>After some exposure to the world of finance, Griffith collaborated with screenwriter Kevin Wade and director Mike Nichols to make Tess more sympathetic. She was concerned that the audience might find her drive to climb the corporate ladder self-serving and her methods unethical. For example, in the original script, Tess unwittingly participates in insider trading. Griffith’s suggestions and contributions were valued by Kevin Wade. “I wrote <i>Working Girl</i> about an underdog, not about a woman,” Wade said. “Her lines are boys’ talk. Melanie chose to play against it with that breathy Judy Holliday voice. And that’s not her, that’s smart acting.” </p><p><br /></p><div>Sources: <br />Nikki Finke, “A <i>Working Girl</i> Makes Good,” <i>Los Angeles Times</i>, 12/17/88<br />Alison Leigh Cowan, “How Three Plum Movie Roles Took Shape,” <i>New York Times</i>, 12/18/88<br />Bob Strauss, “<i>Working</i> Partners: Melanie Griffith & Harrison Ford,” <i>Chicago Sun-Times</i>, 12/18/88<br />Jay Carr, “Melanie Griffith Poised for Stardom,” <i>Boston Globe</i>, 12/22/88<br />Guy Trebay, “<i>Working Girl</i>,” <i>Premiere</i>, 12/88<br />Jesse Kornbluth, “Melanie’s Place in the Sun,” <i>Vanity Fair</i>, 4/89</div>AMANDA ERLANSONhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08802979669786762765noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9063374795773405407.post-83233281707701375522021-08-29T14:17:00.002-07:002021-09-02T17:51:53.741-07:00"Working Girl" Immortalized the ‘Staten Island Ferry Look’<p>As one looks back at <i>Working Girl</i> across more than three decades, the makeup, hair and wardrobe of the secretaries who commute to Manhattan on the Staten Island Ferry might seem somewhat over-the-top. Yet assistant costume designer Gary Jones maintained that working with costume designer Ann Roth and director Mike Nichols on the movie was in fact “a big exercise in reality.”</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqEtr1Sni7ktI_ibehXv01qvt1Kuv6287Tyn2ATHznwcpiy7dNGE5wBZdntFccgsu1Ges4dBP-Z6sdmoNA34J4rA1sVPcx_m9UuXTuw2PHO0dfk7mjgJ_FDBgd8ikzpBm3HRljy13EVaA/s1280/Working+Girl+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="837" data-original-width="1280" height="209" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqEtr1Sni7ktI_ibehXv01qvt1Kuv6287Tyn2ATHznwcpiy7dNGE5wBZdntFccgsu1Ges4dBP-Z6sdmoNA34J4rA1sVPcx_m9UuXTuw2PHO0dfk7mjgJ_FDBgd8ikzpBm3HRljy13EVaA/s320/Working+Girl+2.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Melanie Griffith as 'Tess McGill' and Joan Cusack as 'Cyn' in <i>Working Girl</i></td></tr></tbody></table><p>“A great deal of research was done on the Staten Island Ferry, which is full of women who look just like Tess and her friend Cyn,” said Gary Jones. “In fact, when we started filming, we were in all sorts of downtown Manhattan office buildings, and you couldn’t tell our people from the real people.” </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSykx-Of4JQ7B8swhmd2ZMp_LYBh7inQY6l7p_r2blNrSTIq6ruI6qy70fYS2KXmA2w3dqX9z4T6FJ5eBoq1heUZiOlmtXBLW-gzlAGmAsxDCMn8P1ungg2beBNhs66KamUf-Hl0cldvs/s1200/Working+Girl+4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="783" data-original-width="1200" height="209" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSykx-Of4JQ7B8swhmd2ZMp_LYBh7inQY6l7p_r2blNrSTIq6ruI6qy70fYS2KXmA2w3dqX9z4T6FJ5eBoq1heUZiOlmtXBLW-gzlAGmAsxDCMn8P1ungg2beBNhs66KamUf-Hl0cldvs/s320/Working+Girl+4.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><p>Jones said that in 1988, New York secretaries “were very much into their eye makeup, their hairdos. That’s their persona. That’s the way they go to work. Once they’ve achieved a look, they work on it and improve it.” He noted that secretaries who had seen the movie “love Cyn’s wild skirts, funny jackets and her eye makeup.” </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTTh93dJLdqifCcSFv-KKkOJ4MrK_KIMgg2TbyXh4w6tEUg9_otkjAnrg0K80dicryt_mcShJ4PlD9YQ1QQcUqabF5DjyVHiS0OgZjUeHHmyLIrcEJ7JqGfV9alQK2Dn7VpSktHM2FLaY/s1386/Working+Girl+5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="752" data-original-width="1386" height="174" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTTh93dJLdqifCcSFv-KKkOJ4MrK_KIMgg2TbyXh4w6tEUg9_otkjAnrg0K80dicryt_mcShJ4PlD9YQ1QQcUqabF5DjyVHiS0OgZjUeHHmyLIrcEJ7JqGfV9alQK2Dn7VpSktHM2FLaY/s320/Working+Girl+5.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><p>Joan Cusack did her own study of New York’s “boat people” to come up with Cyn’s personal fashion sense. “I did the ferry thing for several mornings,” Cusack recalled. “I brought my makeup and applied it on the boat – all the secretaries do – and I made my hair very big. I made it stand straight up, aerodynamically correct, and then shoot straight backward and down. And I carried plenty of hairspray with me – that’s very ferry.” </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJu3uiF-jSCFBOeRA4zB_tYdTqcYiTtFkUO4tdeGJdSGku65Kwrdus5ccjmvLCTaShlrkI33S_tg_mjo2O7p_ahdch2oDq0CtGptdzYgxCbbvTufQjNWM_JXQrN5zs8XGdtxkmzQaDitc/s647/Working+Girl+3.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="353" data-original-width="647" height="175" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJu3uiF-jSCFBOeRA4zB_tYdTqcYiTtFkUO4tdeGJdSGku65Kwrdus5ccjmvLCTaShlrkI33S_tg_mjo2O7p_ahdch2oDq0CtGptdzYgxCbbvTufQjNWM_JXQrN5zs8XGdtxkmzQaDitc/s320/Working+Girl+3.png" width="320" /></a></div><p>Screenwriter Kevin Wade – who was inspired to write <i>Working Girl</i> after seeing those same secretaries rushing off the Staten Island Ferry in Battery Park one morning – felt that the extravagant fashion of Manhattan’s “working girls” was a kind of uniform. “The corporate battle atmosphere is a lot like the military, and you can tell someone’s more powerful just by looking at the uniform,” he explained. Yet not everyone in an army aspires to be a general – or to look like one. Wade noted, “Most of the secretaries I talked to made no attempt to look like the boss. And why would they? They look great. One girl prided herself on the days when she would wear yellow leather. She got tons of attention from the men in her office.” </p><p><br /></p><div>Sources: <br />Rose-Marie Turk, “Real Workers Spark <i>Working Girl</i> Wardrobe,” <i>Chicago Sun-Times</i>, 1/25/89<br />Alison Kalfus, “Funny Girl,” <i>Elle</i>, 12/88</div>AMANDA ERLANSONhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08802979669786762765noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9063374795773405407.post-26287985568398272612021-08-28T14:55:00.004-07:002021-09-06T15:18:11.245-07:00Manhattan Commuters Inspired "Working Girl"<p><i>Working Girl</i> was Kevin Wade’s debut as a screenwriter. Born and raised in Westchester, NY, Wade began working as an actor before writing his first play, <i>Key Exchange</i>, at the age of 27. <i>Key Exchange</i> was produced by the WPA Theatre in June 1981, just six weeks after Wade completed it. It turned out to be an off-Broadway smash, running for over a year, and was subsequently made into a film starring Brooke Adams. </p><p>The idea for <i>Working Girl</i> came to Kevin Wade in Manhattan’s Battery Park one morning in 1984. “People were pouring out of holes in the ground [the NY subways] and off the ferry,” said Wade. “If you looked right a little bit, you could see Ellis Island, where boats brought immigrants years ago. I wondered, ‘What is that immigrant story today? What is that land of milk and honey now?’” </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigf22_2R7M-DfJ7QkTd0776ungsvvl9LYGtDV30GFjvxUsYDMncxO2_Rgh-CrJ4v-SFFn2mTR5b8odEWwJIeF5gAmx1bdtXnaSXSC_C-0SBVf6VPvXTPYCiqhEeP9RfcIv0-vs-HrV44Y/s1280/Working+Girl+1.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigf22_2R7M-DfJ7QkTd0776ungsvvl9LYGtDV30GFjvxUsYDMncxO2_Rgh-CrJ4v-SFFn2mTR5b8odEWwJIeF5gAmx1bdtXnaSXSC_C-0SBVf6VPvXTPYCiqhEeP9RfcIv0-vs-HrV44Y/w640-h360/Working+Girl+1.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Melanie Griffith as Staten Island Ferry commuter 'Tess McGill' in <i>Working Girl</i></td></tr></tbody></table><p>Producer Douglas Wick happened to be walking in Battery Park with Wade at the time. Wick recalled, “Everywhere we looked, Kevin and I noticed smart-looking, pretty young women rushing to work in tennis shoes and carrying high heels. We started talking about them and realized that they all must have a story. Kevin went to work on the idea right away.” </p><p>Meanwhile, Doug Wick pitched the story idea to Carol Baum and Marcia Nassiter at 20th Century Fox. They liked the idea and put it into development, so Kevin Wade got to work writing a screenplay.</p><p>Wade decided to represent his heroine as “an immigrant every day, coming to the land of opportunity.” He fashioned his script to be a “contemporary equivalent to the story of the little immigrant called Giuseppe who sells umbrellas, and then 20 years later becomes the head of Macy’s.” </p><p>“But this is a little more than that,” Wade said. “It’s a story about the American Dream’s implicit promise that the door is open to anybody who has the smarts, and how America has evolved into a class system where white Anglo-Saxons run the country, and how hard it would be for someone like Tess to break through that.” </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJA2nNA4QFGqPn-erqNchbYhMWh6sZ3VRisNlap03ceCnO8RyIfrc2XwWby2Q4JfhVaLSuaYHi8zvShSazPen8bQyXla050ZQROy1UDBPQUruxBc2XqKVhK8gIcz5pt8hMX8B4g3LUDpk/s928/Screenwriter+Kevin+Wade_Producer+Doug+Wick_Joan+Cusack_Working+Girl.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="717" data-original-width="928" height="494" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJA2nNA4QFGqPn-erqNchbYhMWh6sZ3VRisNlap03ceCnO8RyIfrc2XwWby2Q4JfhVaLSuaYHi8zvShSazPen8bQyXla050ZQROy1UDBPQUruxBc2XqKVhK8gIcz5pt8hMX8B4g3LUDpk/w640-h494/Screenwriter+Kevin+Wade_Producer+Doug+Wick_Joan+Cusack_Working+Girl.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Screenwriter Kevin Wade, Producer Doug Wick and Joan Cusack as 'Cyn' in <i>Working Girl</i></td></tr></tbody></table><p>To add realistic details to his script, Wade spent months interviewing Wall Street secretaries, brokers and female mergers and acquisitions executives. “I read a lot of books, read the financial pages of <i>The New York Times</i>, and managed to come up with something that sort of holds water,” Wade said. In his research, he heard a legend about a secretary from Brooklyn who fought her way to the top at a brokerage, but he couldn’t find out who she was. “I never met her,” Wade said regretfully. “I sort of made Tess up out of the whole cloth.” </p><p>During a research session at Wall Street’s Bear, Stearns & Co., Wade was taken around the company by a 30-year-old broker and vice president named Liam Dalton. “As part of what he thought I wanted to hear, he looked at the cafeteria line as the women came through, pointing out – secretary, executive, executive, secretary, etc. – from 25 yards away. The corporate battle atmosphere is a lot like the military. You know someone’s more powerful just by looking at his uniform.” </p><p>The project rattled around the studio for a couple of years, until Mike Nichols was shown the script in early 1987 and almost immediately agreed to direct the film. “One of the things that’s hardest for a director to find in the ‘80s is a good story,” said Nichols. “There are so few good stories left, and this was a very strong contemporary story with a good and enjoyable plot. Kevin worked out a lot of the details very carefully, and the characters’ lines were very surprising. Kevin writes dialogue spoken by real people in the course of real lives, and it’s funny, it’s alive.” </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIkyt6mjJlFbmQnAlmCxHmWAbtMseXuFMZtD6La5NLLeCglgXjKjF25TKMSWPJ3LTTu3dPoIA87G1OD95m6ugn8unjO1pfPL5o81XWu6eHRtefw3-YrF6Y5tASDS2yiV5DZhXWaBZ-BNs/s1159/Mike+Nichols+Michael+Ballhaus+Working+Girl.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1159" data-original-width="1000" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIkyt6mjJlFbmQnAlmCxHmWAbtMseXuFMZtD6La5NLLeCglgXjKjF25TKMSWPJ3LTTu3dPoIA87G1OD95m6ugn8unjO1pfPL5o81XWu6eHRtefw3-YrF6Y5tASDS2yiV5DZhXWaBZ-BNs/w552-h640/Mike+Nichols+Michael+Ballhaus+Working+Girl.jpg" width="552" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Director Mike Nichols (left) and cinematographer Michael Ballhaus (standing) on the set of <i>Working Girl</i></td></tr></tbody></table><p>Mike Nichols could relate to the script’s central theme, as he was an immigrant himself. In 1939, when he was just a boy, his family fled Nazi Berlin to live in the United States. “When I started working on the script of <i>Working Girl</i>, the most important thing to me was the combination of immigrant and slave ship image,” Nichols explained. “The slaves, as usual, are imported from somewhere else – because nobody can afford to live in Manhattan – and then there’s the idea of the underground railroad, when Tess’ friend at the end leaps up in joy, because ‘one of us’ made it out. But the key was the immigrants, and the immigrant’s ear – immigrants develop a very keen ear for what is happening. They have to learn what is happening very fast. The Statue of Liberty, and the ferry, and the City of Oz aspect of Manhattan was what I started with.” </p><p><br /></p><div>Sources: <br /><i>Working Girl</i> Production Information, 20th Century Fox Press Release<br />Nikki Finke, “What Do the Real Secretaries Think?,” <i>Los Angeles Times</i>, 12/17/88<br />Alison Leigh Cowan, “How Three Plum Movie Roles Took Shape,” <i>New York Times</i>, 12/18/88<br />Jane Applegate, “<i>Working Girl</i> Hits Home With Wall Streeters,” <i>Los Angeles Times</i>, 1/8/89<br />Rose-Marie Turk, “Real Workers Spark <i>Working Girl</i> Wardrobe,” <i>Chicago Sun-Times</i>, 1/25/89<br />Richard Combs, “Slaves of Manhattan,” <i>Sight & Sound</i>, Spring 1989 </div>AMANDA ERLANSONhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08802979669786762765noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9063374795773405407.post-38713772421085815452021-08-27T15:36:00.002-07:002021-09-06T15:17:49.259-07:00A Son’s Insecurities Added Poignancy to "Stand by Me"<p>Director Rob Reiner was born in the Bronx to veteran comic genius Carl Reiner and his wife, singer-actress Estelle, and grew up in Beverly Hills. During his childhood, he was surrounded by show-biz personalities. "It wasn't glitzy, but there were always these brilliant people around, these really funny people," he said. His father's best friend was Mel Brooks, whom Reiner calls "the funniest person ever," and legends like Larry Gelbart, Neil Simon and Norman Lear were frequent visitors. "I didn't realize until I started visiting other people's houses that it wasn't quite as funny in other people's houses as it was in mine," said Reiner. </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJvdBHuszXPR23jfr_ZDOkvd-y1kVCHGkXFiGzeOgRmyglC_wtgZd_dMJj4Ih1RddD2jNnPmEdWGq29K0bcs4zIghwH5-nzEWFl4ODykvSXgUyqO0tEEp-IdmBlH74MDASMQ-K2119Tjk/s936/Dick+Van+Dyke_Rose+Marie_Carl+Reiner.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="561" data-original-width="936" height="384" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJvdBHuszXPR23jfr_ZDOkvd-y1kVCHGkXFiGzeOgRmyglC_wtgZd_dMJj4Ih1RddD2jNnPmEdWGq29K0bcs4zIghwH5-nzEWFl4ODykvSXgUyqO0tEEp-IdmBlH74MDASMQ-K2119Tjk/w640-h384/Dick+Van+Dyke_Rose+Marie_Carl+Reiner.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>The Dick Van Dyke Show</i> creator Carl Reiner (right) horsing around with fellow cast members Dick Van Dyke and Rose Marie</td></tr></tbody></table><p>Reiner grew up with complexes common to sons overwhelmed by the popularity of a famous parent. Just before <i>Stand by Me</i>’s release, he said, “Even though I am 39, I remember with great clarity my pre-teen problems with identification, trying to make a stand on my own in my struggles with my father, to a point where I could feel good about myself.” </p><p>“When I was a kid, I was shy, incredibly shy,” said Reiner. “I was very introspective. So I was probably reacting against my father’s personality. I know it was difficult for me to feel that I had a place in the house, because my father is so demonstrative, so much larger than life. I couldn’t figure out how I fit in there. When you’re little, you really can’t compete. I don't think he quite understood how I was as a person. He never thought I had a sense of humor, never thought I was funny.” </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3S7UjRfF1LjR73ix5ADkF2YsCkXcBmXQJOGnpADDv-UQ-Z54OqpkRuT0rG0yOPI0dCilMYlT0tlacgeiqdE1ai8uSzWZs4IW_8UsbAeYpaNZzd1JzgQGvAUt5epIo1PE-Q30V2gi6vEM/s572/Carl+and+Rob+Reiner+1965.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="572" data-original-width="460" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3S7UjRfF1LjR73ix5ADkF2YsCkXcBmXQJOGnpADDv-UQ-Z54OqpkRuT0rG0yOPI0dCilMYlT0tlacgeiqdE1ai8uSzWZs4IW_8UsbAeYpaNZzd1JzgQGvAUt5epIo1PE-Q30V2gi6vEM/w514-h640/Carl+and+Rob+Reiner+1965.jpg" width="514" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Carl Reiner and his 19-year-old son Rob Reiner in 1965</td></tr></tbody></table><p>“When I was 19, I directed a production of Sartre’s <i>No Exit</i> at a little playhouse in Beverly Hills,” said Reiner. “I’ll never forget it, because my father came backstage, looked me straight in the eye and said, ‘That was good. No bullshit.’ It was the first time I’d gotten that sort of validation from him.” </p><p>When Reiner was first handed the script for <i>Stand by Me</i>, nearly 20 years later, he was finally ready to reconcile himself with his childhood complexes. “Initially, the story of four 12-year-old boys who go off looking for a dead body struck me as a meandering tale in which not much happened,” he admitted. “The film only came into focus after I made my own personal connection to it.” </p><p>In order to better identify with the characters in the script, Reiner took Stephen King’s autobiographical tale and added a layer of detail from his own childhood memories. “A lot of the little things that happened in this film, the little rank-outs of their mothers and ‘two for flinching’ and ‘pinky swear,’ all these are things that I used to do as a kid,” Reiner said.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXOe7-rw_eWy0hpnplj1ypwkPfu0cJwyNYezfTvNi7UY9SNvvLiknY57moRw-grq0mkNZGtJrp5NdnUM-_O7exjV_fC6CeOGlHs1-okCKGqkBYKM6MKvJ4B65hFQOH_eMkoDjeCYZY_KQ/s1981/Stand+by+Me+3.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1324" data-original-width="1981" height="428" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXOe7-rw_eWy0hpnplj1ypwkPfu0cJwyNYezfTvNi7UY9SNvvLiknY57moRw-grq0mkNZGtJrp5NdnUM-_O7exjV_fC6CeOGlHs1-okCKGqkBYKM6MKvJ4B65hFQOH_eMkoDjeCYZY_KQ/w640-h428/Stand+by+Me+3.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><p>“I pinpointed the main focus of <i>Stand by Me</i>, and it was basically rooted in my own ongoing personal struggle at the time. What I came up with was this little boy who thinks little of himself, who has a gift for writing, who is a creative person. Through the encouragement of his best friend, he is able to start realizing himself and liking himself, and going on to become a success. Then we folded in this idea of the father not understanding the kid, which was alluded to in the original novella by Stephen King, and that connected up with my life story, which was the struggle I had when I was growing up with a father who certainly loved me deeply, but never understood me.” </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJd-ow3p5d2MwEgEQpl238pGi6uzf6-BKADT-ZHA1kXjT5nD8R95ymxPTBjSBIDBbzDLT5vJxgpOFTqZl0OwDq2ujRsnQSK9LpHgPL7CfeQ7ez7MSnHFR7knNyZJZYs7awArsC5iAl31E/s1735/Rob+Reiner+and+River+Phoenix.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1149" data-original-width="1735" height="424" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJd-ow3p5d2MwEgEQpl238pGi6uzf6-BKADT-ZHA1kXjT5nD8R95ymxPTBjSBIDBbzDLT5vJxgpOFTqZl0OwDq2ujRsnQSK9LpHgPL7CfeQ7ez7MSnHFR7knNyZJZYs7awArsC5iAl31E/w640-h424/Rob+Reiner+and+River+Phoenix.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Director Rob Reiner working with River Phoenix on the set of <i>Stand by Me</i></td></tr></tbody></table><p>“I’m starting to do work that reflects who I am,” Reiner said at the time. “Most of what I’ve done until now has been things that came from what I learned at my father’s knee. <i>Spinal Tap</i>, for instance, is satire, and my father was one of the great satirists of all time. With <i>Stand by Me</i>, I’m making a movie my father would never begin to make. He’ll appreciate it, I think – I hope he loves it – but I don’t think it’s a choice he would ever make. It’s scary, because I don’t know if I’m going to get accepted this way.”</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxuBeF6cPeNNS60yiT-rcQBzCYu9BGcI1P_HmUEYMuQOl2yHR3qp240oTTmACz6Ps9I3Uid1s0p0FCLGzD5C_HUO2XqhK060Sa3J2WG1NG3a-FBDD1Vk_VByYd642NL837AwVjEJ4y7u0/s400/Rob+Reiner+on+set+of+Stand+by+Me.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="400" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxuBeF6cPeNNS60yiT-rcQBzCYu9BGcI1P_HmUEYMuQOl2yHR3qp240oTTmACz6Ps9I3Uid1s0p0FCLGzD5C_HUO2XqhK060Sa3J2WG1NG3a-FBDD1Vk_VByYd642NL837AwVjEJ4y7u0/w640-h480/Rob+Reiner+on+set+of+Stand+by+Me.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><p>Reiner wound up getting the approval he craved – <i>Stand by Me</i> was a surprise hit, proving that he could be successful outside his father’s sphere of influence. “The tone of <i>Stand by Me</i> was so connected to my own personality and what I felt was the kind of film I wanted to do,” Reiner said. “It was the seminal film for me that allowed me to differentiate myself from my father.” </p><p><br /></p><div>Sources:<br />Vernon Scott, “Rob Reiner Taps Pre-Teens as Heroes,” <i>Chicago Sun-Times</i>, 7/4/86<br />“Interview with Rob Reiner,” <i>Playboy</i>, 7/86<br />Stephen Holden, “At the Movies,” <i>New York Times</i>, 8/8/86<br />Myra Forsberg, “Rob Reiner Applies the Human Touch,” <i>New York Times</i>, 10/18/87<br />"Family Man's Making a Living in Movies," <i>Los Angeles Herald-Examiner</i>, 7/14/89<br />Robert Emery, <i>The Directors – Take Two</i>, TV Books, 2000<br /><i>Stand by Me</i> DVD: Director Commentary</div>AMANDA ERLANSONhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08802979669786762765noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9063374795773405407.post-56618359895761173922021-08-26T13:06:00.002-07:002021-09-06T15:17:12.125-07:00Stephen King’s Childhood Inspired "Stand by Me"<p>Author Stephen King was born in September 1947 in Portland, Maine. His father deserted the family when he was two, leaving his mother to raise him and his older brother David by herself, sometimes under great financial difficulties. Though for several years she kept the family on the move to find work, they returned to Durham, Maine when King was 11, where Ruth King’s siblings paid her to care for her parents until their death. In Durham, for the fifth and sixth grade, King attended a one-room schoolhouse with four other children – the kids who would inspire the characters his novella "The Body," which was adapted into the movie <i>Stand by Me</i>. “There’s a lot of stuff in ‘The Body’ that’s just simply history that’s been tarted up a little bit,” said King. </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEib-W6YgTb74u2g66s28XIwfDUrmFggMqEq9nAHHcoomqtpH_Xl3obgOWQviMQte1L6P3E07f0FqU_u6S4HLZpEsbjjtsx3HqXmZkax4MfwpzfKuK88BsKP2sy4HYNXLs7KHDw4ed4v7GU/s2048/Stand+by+Me+cast.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1229" data-original-width="2048" height="384" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEib-W6YgTb74u2g66s28XIwfDUrmFggMqEq9nAHHcoomqtpH_Xl3obgOWQviMQte1L6P3E07f0FqU_u6S4HLZpEsbjjtsx3HqXmZkax4MfwpzfKuK88BsKP2sy4HYNXLs7KHDw4ed4v7GU/w640-h384/Stand+by+Me+cast.jpeg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Gordie LaChance, Chris Chambers, Teddy DuChamp and Vern Tessio were inspired by King's fifth and sixth-grade classmates<br /></td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table><p>“For 10 years, my family lived a virtual barter existence, practically never seeing any hard cash,” King recalled. “If we needed food, relatives would bring a bag of groceries, if we needed clothes, there’d always be hand-me-downs. I guess in many ways it was a hardscrabble existence, but not an impoverished one in the most important sense of the word. Thanks to my mother, the one thing that was never in short supply, corny as it may sound to say, was love. And in that sense, I was a hell of a lot less deprived than countless children of middle-class or wealthy families whose parents have time for everything but their kids.” </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4wKS605kop1zpbyJNE-K34S0imrBkydMRBY2g-FeJuPdI0QG-JAEAV7agONs1Q9qrc5368gonf3GNH1WoSBQ2NjxloLU209QSC2d5bNG5wdlWAtNoWzK4gfc4S64xUIz20Y1BWd5jpaA/s750/Stephen+King+circa+1952.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="561" data-original-width="750" height="478" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4wKS605kop1zpbyJNE-K34S0imrBkydMRBY2g-FeJuPdI0QG-JAEAV7agONs1Q9qrc5368gonf3GNH1WoSBQ2NjxloLU209QSC2d5bNG5wdlWAtNoWzK4gfc4S64xUIz20Y1BWd5jpaA/w640-h478/Stephen+King+circa+1952.jpeg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Stephen King circa 1952</td></tr></tbody></table><p>As a young child, King witnessed a horrifying accident. “The event occurred when I was barely four,” King recounted. “According to Mom, I had gone off to play at a neighbor’s house – a house that was near a railroad line. About an hour after I left, I came back, she said, ‘as white as a ghost.’ I would not speak for the rest of the day. I would not tell her why I’d not waited to be picked up or phoned that I wanted to come home. I would not tell her why my chum’s mom hadn’t walked me back, but had allowed me to come home alone. It turned out that the kid I had been playing with had been run over by a freight train while playing on or crossing the tracks… My mom never knew if I had been near him when it happened. But I have no memory of the incident at all, only of having been told about it some years after the fact.” </p><p>Some critics have suggested that this event may have been the catalyst that awakened King’s dark imagination, but King himself has dismissed the notion. “I believe this is a totally specious idea – such shoot-from-the-hip psychological judgments are little more than jumped-up astrology,” he said.</p><p>Instead, King believes that what changed him was the discovery of a box of his father’s old paperbacks from the mid-‘40s. “For me, on a cold fall day in 1959 or 1960, the attic over my aunt and uncle’s garage was the place where that interior dowsing rod suddenly turned over, where the compass needle swung emphatically toward some mental true north. The box I found that day was a treasure trove of old Avon paperbacks. Avon, in those days, was the one paperback publisher committed to fantasy and weird fiction. The pick of the litter was an H.P. Lovecraft collection from 1947 called <i>The Lurking Fear and Other Stories</i>. I took the books out of the attic with me. That day and the next, I visited the Plains of Leng for the first time, visited the towns of Dunwich and Arkham, Massachusetts, and was, most of all, transported by the bleak and creeping terror of ‘The Color Out of Space.’” </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4mc_autjKEyEAYUdw9MgDuYHTftM2D00Y-X3jR8Iv1sAKyIB6k2MutUA_Qv3uoC9uQ5DVsjmzkmYiTac7uOJKWc1SZbSpnnOVxgVD40OVyzo3ZSktRwvNyvR2slcSKUFsGC7hPuo9w6o/s1789/The+Lurking+Fear+and+Other+Stories.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1789" data-original-width="1177" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4mc_autjKEyEAYUdw9MgDuYHTftM2D00Y-X3jR8Iv1sAKyIB6k2MutUA_Qv3uoC9uQ5DVsjmzkmYiTac7uOJKWc1SZbSpnnOVxgVD40OVyzo3ZSktRwvNyvR2slcSKUFsGC7hPuo9w6o/w422-h640/The+Lurking+Fear+and+Other+Stories.jpg" width="422" /></a></div><p>“I was prey to a lot of conflicting emotions as a child,” said King. “I had friends and all that, but I often felt unhappy and different – estranged from other kids my age. I was a fat kid – ‘husky’ was the euphemism they used in the clothing store – and pretty poorly coordinated, always the last picked when we chose teams. I was terrified and fascinated by death – death in general and my own in particular. I was absolutely convinced that I’d never live to reach 20. I envisioned myself walking home one night along a dark, deserted street, and somebody or something would jump out of the bushes, and that would be it. So death as a concept and the people who dealt out death intrigued me.” </p><p>Like <i>Stand by Me</i>’s ‘Gordie,’ King’s literary career got off to an early start. “I began writing when I was about 6 or 7 years old,” King said. In elementary school, he contributed articles to <i>Dave’s Rag</i>, a newspaper that his brother published on the school mimeograph machine, and also sold stories based on movies he had seen to his friends. </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFsGggwgUycP9ZL8M4uL1XpIoF9XgMdTE-TrvdaeovRbY_VNDe1oTanfuYwa8eyo5IAedV5cpCphFWaFj2u9aUqfjctVZyty_0NaJb27ciGYtY1-vqlNT9zriX4oA8CpxlzyCqDbrjuQ4/s1080/Stephen+King+circa+1976.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="814" data-original-width="1080" height="482" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFsGggwgUycP9ZL8M4uL1XpIoF9XgMdTE-TrvdaeovRbY_VNDe1oTanfuYwa8eyo5IAedV5cpCphFWaFj2u9aUqfjctVZyty_0NaJb27ciGYtY1-vqlNT9zriX4oA8CpxlzyCqDbrjuQ4/w640-h482/Stephen+King+circa+1976.jpeg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Stephen King circa 1975 with various editions of his first two novels</td></tr></tbody></table><p>Stephen King wrote the story that was the basis for <i>Stand by Me</i> quite early in his career, although it wasn’t published until eight years later, in the collection <i>Different Seasons</i>. In 1974, just after finishing <i>‘Salem’s Lot</i>, King sat down and pounded out a novella called “The Body.” The story was one he had been thinking about writing for years, he said. “For a long time I thought that I would love to be able to find a string to put on a lot of the childhood experiences that I remember – a lot of them were funny and some of them were kind of sad – and the people that I’d known and some of the guys that I hung out with that really weren’t headed anywhere except down blind alleys. Nothing came and nothing came, and what you do when nothing comes is, you don’t push. You just put it aside… The most important things are the hardest to say. You can’t talk about them because once you start, they tarnish.” </p><p><br /></p><div>Sources:<br />Stephen King, <i>Danse Macabre</i>, Everest House, 1981<br />“Interview with Stephen King,” <i>Playboy</i>, 6/83<br />“Interview with Stephen King,” <i>Larry King Live</i>, 4/10/86<br /><i>Stand by Me</i> Production Info., Columbia Pictures Press Release<br />Naomi Epel, <i>Writers Dreaming</i>, Vintage, 1994<br /><i>Stand by Me</i> DVD: Making of Featurette</div>AMANDA ERLANSONhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08802979669786762765noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9063374795773405407.post-34861257965805176852021-08-25T13:58:00.002-07:002021-09-06T15:16:46.397-07:00A Classic Song Inspired an 11th-hour Title Change for "Stand by Me" <p><i>Stand by Me</i> originated as a Stephen King novella called “The Body,” and that was also the ‘working title’ under which it was filmed. In fact, director Rob Reiner didn’t rename his movie until just before its release. The title <i>Stand by Me</i> came from the song of the same name, which plays over the closing credits. Reiner recalled, “We had decided on the music ‘Stand by Me’ before we came up with the title. This music was always intended to be in the film, and then the title came from that.” </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUBI-qoXim0K5sPADFGrJqsKC5DKIXbdd1xlLWiXKfsNcuudsV1sEnK4aGsDXbF4276Mfru6q8ZCDSjWO7OECHuRRYr_dxSIl2cXZRPbbEmdEz6VoU8eeAa-quAz8ekIKkLR5GSMO2Ges/s694/Ben+E+King+1961.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="694" data-original-width="578" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUBI-qoXim0K5sPADFGrJqsKC5DKIXbdd1xlLWiXKfsNcuudsV1sEnK4aGsDXbF4276Mfru6q8ZCDSjWO7OECHuRRYr_dxSIl2cXZRPbbEmdEz6VoU8eeAa-quAz8ekIKkLR5GSMO2Ges/w534-h640/Ben+E+King+1961.jpg" width="534" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Songwriter Ben E. King in 1961</td></tr></tbody></table><p>The song “Stand by Me” was written by Ben E. King in 1959 and arranged by producer/songwriters Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller. Leiber and Stoller are also known for writing such hits as “Jailhouse Rock,” “Hound Dog,” “Yakety Yak,” “Love Potion No. 9” and “Leader of the Pack.” </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhui-rH5AsIJqKGwqkwcPlaVHK7PVIFXV1Dktk6bShDAUF13FMueaLr_IIXBkv8wkCj3wJ_2ZAji2ZVH219HmhSFJzosqDGlSHy8waZ-6sB7Suw1S_fHp7plGOdldpUkNdPiLDWNDidoy0/s2000/Leiber+and+Stoller+1959.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1250" data-original-width="2000" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhui-rH5AsIJqKGwqkwcPlaVHK7PVIFXV1Dktk6bShDAUF13FMueaLr_IIXBkv8wkCj3wJ_2ZAji2ZVH219HmhSFJzosqDGlSHy8waZ-6sB7Suw1S_fHp7plGOdldpUkNdPiLDWNDidoy0/w640-h400/Leiber+and+Stoller+1959.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Producers Leiber and Stoller in 1959</td></tr></tbody></table><p>Ben E. King had planned to give the song to the original Drifters, but that group disbanded in 1959. Instead, King, who was part of the doo-wop group the Five Crowns, which became the new Drifters, took his song to Leiber and Stoller, who rearranged it. In 1960, after failing to get a salary increase, King left the new Drifters and went solo, recording “Stand by Me” only because there was some studio time left over after a recording session for his single “Spanish Harlem.” </p><p>“What prompted me to write it was a spiritual called ‘Lord, Stand by Me,’ said King. “I was raised on gospel music, and those were my roots… I was also newly married and I thought that enhanced the song. I had a feeling of love in my heart and romance in my soul. It didn’t take but a couple of days to complete the whole song. But I never thought ‘Stand by Me’ would live to have the recognition it is having.” </p><p>“Stand by Me” established Ben E. King as a prominent soul singer of the early ‘60s. In its first release in 1961, the song peaked at #4 on the US charts, and was later covered by John Lennon, Muhammad Ali, Otis Redding and countless others. Twenty-five years later, the film <i>Stand by Me</i> reintroduced the original song to the Top 10. “It’s wonderful,” said Mike Stoller. “It’s like a whole new career for Ben.” </p><p>“It just shows a good song can last forever,” said Ben E. King. “I keep telling my wife ‘Stand by Me’ pays for all the doughnuts whenever we drink our coffee.” </p><p><br /></p><div>Sources:<br />Craig Modderno, “’Stand by Me’ Gets a New Life,” <i>Chicago Sun-Times</i>, 9/28/86<br />Richard De Atley, “Rock History Stands by Hitmakers Leiber, Stoller,” <i>Chicago Sun-Times</i>, 1/2/87<br />Dave Hoekstra, “’Stand by Me’ Still Is Special to Ben E. King,” <i>Chicago Sun-Times</i>, 11/10/89<br /><i>Stand by Me</i> DVD: Director Commentary</div>AMANDA ERLANSONhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08802979669786762765noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9063374795773405407.post-11367205284022378402021-08-24T14:23:00.002-07:002021-09-06T15:16:28.232-07:00In "Die Hard," Bruce Willis Took Risks For Realism<p>Though <i>Die Hard</i> employed 37 stunt men, not all of the movie’s seemingly death-defying stunts were done by doubles. Director John McTiernan recalled, “The first time we got to the point in a scene where you would insert a stuntman, I told Bruce he would only have to take it up to here, and he then could go sit down. He said, ‘No, I want to do it.’ And all of a sudden, you saw that New Jersey street kid in him come out. It’s not that he did anything dangerous, but it was a side that he had not shown us before.” </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhj2W4xcOeYtO8tJxrzeHz9TBgUxu2Uz1zeWh7jCuPnkCSLtn1Yg2jJlsB0IwnSYag7OSNn874cFsD7-M7UMijofANATCLkqqIwFw9ojghMbAV0YPF53iBCPE8zohxAJNQACUxS49-XTQY/s931/Die+Hard+Bruce+Willis.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="490" data-original-width="931" height="336" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhj2W4xcOeYtO8tJxrzeHz9TBgUxu2Uz1zeWh7jCuPnkCSLtn1Yg2jJlsB0IwnSYag7OSNn874cFsD7-M7UMijofANATCLkqqIwFw9ojghMbAV0YPF53iBCPE8zohxAJNQACUxS49-XTQY/w640-h336/Die+Hard+Bruce+Willis.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><p>Since <i>Die Hard </i>was Bruce Willis’ first action role, the stunts were more challenging than any he had attempted before. Nevertheless, Willis was game to try. “First off, I think doing my own stunts whenever possible adds a lot to the production value of the film,” Willis said. “John can get the camera close, because he doesn’t need to disguise the stuntman. But on a personal level, it satisfies the little boy who still lives in me who gets to shoot guns, kill the bad guys and be a hero while doing jumps and falls and swinging from ropes.” </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQgPxqyi_d3kFUlI_sj0Mvo9fP8ld7FYejONyS9oSMWd8V3MUl_mIREzHCsLJQNCRii2CkSl-L6o_fJvNIKJLHF1QEDGDh1NODQEac5b9RM94TlRAJwxtdjnr3XBIZ3yAPWKc30QcELkg/s1000/Bruce+Willis+Die+Hard.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="563" data-original-width="1000" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQgPxqyi_d3kFUlI_sj0Mvo9fP8ld7FYejONyS9oSMWd8V3MUl_mIREzHCsLJQNCRii2CkSl-L6o_fJvNIKJLHF1QEDGDh1NODQEac5b9RM94TlRAJwxtdjnr3XBIZ3yAPWKc30QcELkg/w640-h360/Bruce+Willis+Die+Hard.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><p>Director McTiernan was pleased that both Willis and Rickman were willing to do some of their own stunts, but since the actors were generally well-protected and attached to harnesses, he was never terribly worried about their safety. “For example, when you fire a weapon, you have to use ear protection for the actor and ear and eye protection for everyone out front,” he explained. “I get asked all the time about how dangerous it was to shoot <i>Die Hard</i>. Part of the nonsense of shooting a movie is that you have to pretend that it was incredibly dangerous. It’s basically a sales illusion. These are movies made by a major corporation that have to function in the real world of lawyers and insurance policies and lawsuits and all that sort of stuff, so you don’t do things that are dangerous. If they are dangerous, by definition you can’t do it – and certainly not with a star.” </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiW1Dwx_bLN5wMvGFjFEm_icbkMAO1XntSl_culXxCWnUkEgSSgy5uIdwOlQd9CYsu1lBHzIP1HKrkq_etKpv0koPbVi_TFtrIbxJHk93P2kX70YBdCpN2RRcnezn8lSrNpTjS4lZ1rGkQ/s900/Die+Hard+McTiernan+Willis+Rickman.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="592" data-original-width="900" height="420" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiW1Dwx_bLN5wMvGFjFEm_icbkMAO1XntSl_culXxCWnUkEgSSgy5uIdwOlQd9CYsu1lBHzIP1HKrkq_etKpv0koPbVi_TFtrIbxJHk93P2kX70YBdCpN2RRcnezn8lSrNpTjS4lZ1rGkQ/w640-h420/Die+Hard+McTiernan+Willis+Rickman.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Alan Rickman, Bruce Willis and director John McTiernan on the set of <i>Die Hard</i></td></tr></tbody></table><p>McTiernan continued, “Often, stars will talk about the incredibly dangerous things they did, and I suppose many times the things they do are at least frightening. For an inexperienced person getting into it for the first time, it’s scary. But if you have a stunt, you have to work it out to the point where you are pretty damned certain of how it’s going to work and that it is safe.” </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguYl1HkFRPXYQ50pQqy3v4PnKiqZBBuJ_bZQAkMszlcPQfAWz7zUIi01HN1FwcXzGzGKhqBY5Rt8c3CSvmODt8Dc778FAj1Qxg6j5p5erF-0YAAE-8uz2lYSP6odUjsOwrFxBP_OCJGsM/s512/Die+Hard+Alan+Rickman.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="216" data-original-width="512" height="270" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguYl1HkFRPXYQ50pQqy3v4PnKiqZBBuJ_bZQAkMszlcPQfAWz7zUIi01HN1FwcXzGzGKhqBY5Rt8c3CSvmODt8Dc778FAj1Qxg6j5p5erF-0YAAE-8uz2lYSP6odUjsOwrFxBP_OCJGsM/w640-h270/Die+Hard+Alan+Rickman.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><p>Nonetheless, McTiernan wasn’t entirely worry-free while filming <i>Die Hard</i>. “Most of my nightmares were not to do with anyone getting hurt by a stunt, because the precautions were so heavy,” he said. “I was more concerned that a stupid accident might happen, that a crew member might fall off the building. I literally had these nightmares, and would come in the next morning screaming and insisting on limited access to the roof. So they thought I was the sissy, but I just didn’t want to have to talk to somebody’s wife.” </p><p>Though Bruce Willis enjoyed the adventure of doing his own stunts, he admitted that it wasn’t easy. “It was a stretch for me,” he said. “Every day, I felt like I had been in a fight.” Even so, Willis believes the benefits of doing his own stunt work are worth the pain. In fact, he still did much of his own stunt work 20 years later, in <i>Live Free or Die Hard</i>. “Do the math,” said the 52-year-old Willis. “It was still fun, but really difficult. I thought I was in shape, but I had to get in a little bit better shape.” </p><p><br /></p><div>Sources: <br /><i>Die Hard</i> Production Information, 20th Century Fox Press Release<br />Todd McCarthy, “McTiernan Keeps Highrise Action Earthy,” <i>Variety</i>, 7/25/88<br />Peter Keough, “Bruce Willis Finds Image as Bad Boy Dies Hard,” <i>Chicago Sun-Times</i>, 7/17/88<br />Robert Emery, <i>The Directors: Take Two</i>, 2002<br />Curt Holman, “Bruce Willis: The Last Action Hero,” <i>Creative Loafing</i>, 6/27/07</div>AMANDA ERLANSONhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08802979669786762765noreply@blogger.com0