“MEN CRIED OUT TO HER AT DAWN”

I am 11 years old and it is late in the evening on a Saturday night. I sit cross-legged on the floor in front of the television set with rabbit ears watching the Shock Theater premiere of DRACULA’S DAUGHTER. The scene unfolding in front of me takes place in a forest shrouded in darkness, the ground swirling in mist, the trees filled with fog. In the distance a wolf howls at the moon. In the foreground is a tall, aristocratic woman clothed in the blackest of velvet. A hood covering her head, she stands in front of a huge funeral bier blazing with fire. She lets the hood fall from her face revealing a chalk white beauty, then turns to her left and lowers her hand to the ground, seizing a large make-shift cross fashioned from two pieces of oak. As she raises the cross skyward she turns her head away in fear, speaking these words as the flames consume the mortal remains of her father, Count Dracula.

” Unto Adoni and Aseroth, into the keeping of the lords of the flame and the lower pits, I consign this body, to be evermore consumed in this purging fire. Let all baleful spirits that threaten the souls of man be banished by the spilling of this salt. Be thou exorcised O Dracula and thy body, long undead, find destruction throughout eternity in the name of thy dark unholy master. In the name of the all holiest, and through this cross, be this evil spirit cast out until the end of time.”

I have seen this film countless times since but the power of that moment has never diminished in its ability to bring an audience into a spider-webbed world of fantasy that was Universal pictures from 1925 until this film was wrapped in March of 1936, effectively ending the first golden age of Horror in American cinema. The film itself was always a curiosity in the genre, mainly because it lacked the star power of a Karloff or Lugosi to keep the flames of cult worship alive in the thousands of baby boomers that were being exposed for the first time to the first cycle of horrors flooding our TV screens in the late fifties where most of would see films like DRACULA and FRANKENSTEIN along with THE MUMMY and THE WOLF MAN.

Since the legendary star of DRACULA, Bela Lugosi, was nowhere to be found in this sequel, the film has taken decades to find its audience. The actress who was given the role of a lifetime, Gloria Holden, was unknown at the time (1936) having worked on Broadway and then radio, doing several weeks on the popular Eddie Cantor program. Once you finally get over the loss of the Vampire King, whose presence is seen ever so fleetingly in a coffin, fully staked by Von Helsing (still played by the stalwart Edward Van Sloan) in the lower regions of Carfax Abby, the film takes up exactly where DRACULA left off – with the romantic team of David Manners and Helen Chandler walking up the staircase into light, and well out of camera range, dissolving into the end credit roll.

I am writing this during the very month the film wrapped 74 years ago, and since that time the entire cast and crew have gone on to their respective rewards. What makes this so relevant for me is that I received in the mail a soft bound book from a colleague of mine (who has been in and out of my life for the last 35 years) named Phil Riley. He has edited together an early draft treatment of DRACULA’S DAUGHTER by John L.Balderston, and then the real find is a draft by R. C Sheriff that was submitted to the Breen office by James Whale when it seemed like the director of FRANENSTEIN was going to helm it with an all star cast and a lavish budget. The cover has a faux poster of the film had Whale directed it, boasting Jane Wyatt as the Countess and Lugosi, of course, as the Count. Phil has done the genre a favor in bringing to light this particular bit of history that almost fell into the cracks of time and space. Now we can read for ourselves what might have been if James Whale had been given carte blanche while the production code looked the other way.

Gloria Holden with Dracula star Bela Lugosi, and producer David Diamond. Feb 24th 1936.

Gloria Holden with Dracula star Bela Lugosi, Gloria Stuart and producer David Diamond. Feb 24th 1936.

In 1981 I was working as a researcher for a number of writers including John Kobal, Kenneth Anger and especially Richard Lamparski who was still writing his very successful series of “Whatever Became Of?” books, I owe a huge debt to Richard for putting me in touch with the tragic “little Maria” whom Karloff tossed into the lake to drown in FRANKENSTEIN, and he would also connect me with the fabulous Countess Marya Zaleska, or at least the actress that made such a lasting impression – Gloria Holden, then Mrs. William H Hoyt of Redlands, California.

I went the way of a mailgram to her home in the desert community where she had been living all these years, introducing myself and hoping she would not feel intruded upon and perhaps grant an interview since nobody had gotten around to asking about her career, at least in print. Gloria Holden ended her Hollywood career after filming THIS HAPPY FEELING for director Blake Edwards in 1958. I received a typed response in which she acknowledged that she was indeed the Gloria Holden, but wanted to know just what I had in mind, and especially how I discovered her address and married name. This was more than fair considering I was invading her privacy.

Gloria Holden with Dracula star Bela Lugosi. Feb 24th 1936.

I sent her some copies of my work as well as a letter from Richard giving me a clean bill of health and assuring her I was not some crazed stalker bent on terrorizing her. Gloria responded with great charm and candor after that. She explained that her life in Redlands was a quite one with a close circle of friends cultivated by her husband from his days of teaching at the local college. After the first letter came another, which explained her current state of mind, as well as why she had been reclusive for the last ten years. In 1970, her only son, Chris, had just graduated from Redlands university and, as a reward for such hard work, his parents gifted him a red sports car to begin his new life. On the way back from a post grad party at the college he drove by a hillside that dislodged a 60 pound rock on top of his car, crushing Chris Hoyt to death. Gloria was inconsolable, went into mourning, and never really came out of it. By the time I reached her she was a fragile woman with a heart condition that made visits impossible, but she agreed to talk to me on the phone.

The first response from Gloria Holden was one of reluctance to break her silence, partly out of grief, but also, after so many years, who could possibly care about “some horrid old film best left forgotten?” It took all my powers of persuasion to make her think otherwise. I began to ask her about some of her other films like THE LIFE OF EMILE ZOLA and STRANGE HOLIDAY. She warmed to recollections of Paul Muni. “Muni was a beautiful man, a real artist, it was my pleasure to be in his company and I feel we did good work, I thought ZOLA was a wonderful film. I played Madame Zola once again on radio after we did our film.”

On the subject of Claude Rains and the film STRANGE HOLIDAY, “Claude Rains was next to Muni my favorite actor to play opposite, a total professional blessed with a magnificent voice. I wish our film together had been a better one as so few people actually went to see it”

Gloria Holden in Strange Holiday with Claude Rains.

Gloria sent me a letter after our phone call and had this to say: “I have worked with so many of the film greats, and that experience was a valuable part of my life. Yet it seems, looking back, too small a contribution to say it was a life’s work. I can at this time (1981) do no more than try to overcome a serious heart condition, and keep the home fires pleasant and bright. I cook–I write–I watch KCET 28/TV and read. Your attention to me and my work has me amazed that things I did thirty years ago really matter anymore… I am living in the world today. I mean if I write a fine poem today, make someone happy today, help someone today, and of course I pray for those whom it is my duty and privilege to keep in mind and heart. When I get well and stronger I will likely be more responsive to the outside world, mostly I want to work, complete so many unfinished projects. I am fortunate to have a good strong husband who is a professor at a college, he is active and athletic. We have good friends in his profession. I was always so incredibly shy and afraid of people in my own profession. It is also strange and wonderful how Mr. Lugosi is still bringing people into my life with his curse of the Draculas. In this case may I say it was a blessing and not, thank God, a curse. Love Gloria Holden Hoyt…

During the time I was in touch with Gloria it became known that she had resurfaced, not through me but from a married couple who were autograph hounds known for acquiring arcane signatures of the most oddball kind. They have become infamous in fan circles for not taking ‘no’ for an answer, which of course is not a good thing. They made a pilgrimage to Redlands, staying nearby and telephoning until Gloria finally gave them what they wanted just to get them off the porch. A month or so after Gloria passed away they began selling her signature for $150. This is a primary example of the “fandom” William Shatner was lampooning on Saturday Night Live, only it is not so amusing in real life.

The result of this situation for me was receiving a telephone call one evening from the most eccentric of the “undead cult” that surrounds the myth of Count Dracula – the President of the “Count Dracula Society” Dr Donald A Reed. If you wish to learn more of this weird little man with the high-pitched voice, I highly recommend “My life with Count Dracula” written and produced by the Oscar winning writer of MILK, Dustin Lance Black. This must have been one of his first projects, and to his credit he stayed with it to the bitter end where we as an audience follow this deluded passionately devoted fan to his grave. Now Donald could be charming in a morbid kind of way if he was in a social situation like an awards ceremony, however I saw both sides now as Join Mitchell would have put it, and it wasn’t pretty.

French 2-sheet for the film

I remember this as if it were yesterday. I dressed in my best black suit and drove down to the location Dr Reed sent me to hopefully mount the stage and explain just how fragile Gloria Holden was at this time, and how grateful she was to be so honored. I also had a short thank you speech signed by her to give to Dr Don as a sort of memento even though he had been such a moron about the entire situation.

I parked my car and noticed there was no shortage of spaces. Then the ‘coup de grace’: the location was correct but it had been held the night before, not only that but I was later told by an Academy member who was there that night: “Dr Reed used the event to announce in a ballroom filled with industry notables as well as fanboys and such that Gloria Holden would have been here personally to collect her award, however a certain villain named David Del Valle was simply too selfish to share her with the fans that waited all these years to pay their respects. Well I was pissed to say the least, and time does heal all wounds as they say. To this day I cannot muster even a tear for the loss of such a pathetic yet fascinating creature of the night.

Gloria Holden performing a vampires last rites including the Holy Cross for which she may not gaze upon

At least we have this document to give a taste of the forbidden.

Those of us that admire DRACULA’S DAUGHTER have little reason to sing to the choir, however if you have not had the pleasure let me enlighten you on a few things regarding the movie itself. Like all films of this period they are not without their faults. This film suffers from what Gloria described as a film made during the collapse of a regime. It is ironic that DRACULA’S DAUGHTER would be one of the most expensive of the lot and yet it looks like a programmer compared to say the BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN. The budget for DD was taken up in writers fees paying Bela Lugosi $4000 to stand about for photo ops, and at one point he had to sign a contract permitting the making of a dummy to be placed in the coffin at the beginning of the film even though it looked nothing much like him. This would later help the Lugosi family in settling a longtime lawsuit with Universal over the rights of actors who create characters so vivid that the movie- going public can think of no one else in the role.

Unaurthorized model kit done in the late 90's fully painted of Gloria Holden.

Nan Gray as Lili about to undress to pose for a sculpture..regarded as a Lesbian proposition that escaped the censor's of 1936.

The rarest moment in Dracula's Daughter as it is seen today and perhaps the rarest artifact in the golden age of Horror from Universal, a tapestry is glimpsed for a second on camera of Bela Lugosi as Count Dracula imperally standing at the center of his court before the wizard transforms his court into swine and the Count into a vampire from the R.C Sheriff script.

I must thank once again my college Phil Riley for providing me with a copy of DRACULA’S DAUGHTER–from Bear Manor Media press [the forgotten version by RC Sherriff] which upon reading instantly rekindled the fire allowing me to write this long overdue tribute to a great actress, a loyal friend whose kind heart and generous nature touched me in ways I am still discovering

…after all “There are far more things in Heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your…psychiatry.

Dan O'Bannon at home in Santa Monica during filming of Return of the Living dead. Photo by Dan Golden.

The recent passing of genre writer/director Dan O’Bannon caused me to unearth my picture file on his directorial debut, RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD, which since its first screening has steadily built a substantial horror fan base as a classic zombie film in the tradition of the original NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD. This act created a Pandora effect, unleashing a flood of memories I thought long forgotten about my time on the LIVING DEAD set during the months of May and June of 1984. When the Mike Dalling Company first asked me to cover this film for them I thought it was a vampire film, agreeing at once to go down to the Burbank location with my photographer, Dan Golden, and check out the scene.

Looking back I can better understand why Dan O’Bannon was so paranoid about the press in Hollywood, especially concerning his image, since he was after all an outsider, a maverick railing against the system he so wanted to be a part of. Yet he refused to play the game. It is very telling then that when I asked him what his favorite H. P. Lovecraft story was he replied, “THE OUTSIDER,” a short story filled with the intense longing to escape from a desolate castle into the outside world only to discover at the climax that he, too, was a monster unable to take his place among the living. When I asked about his favorite work of Poe he chose the poem ALONE, a piece in which even Lovecraft could see himself in the words, “From childhood’s hour I have not been as others were.” Neither Dan O’Bannon nor his literary idols could see themselves as part of the mainstream no matter what endorsements came their way in terms of praise or success. Dan wrote blockbuster screenplays like TOTAL RECALL and ALIEN, yet never achieved the kind of mega-success of, say, a Joe Eszterhas, who could turn in a treatment and receive a million-dollar advance for rubbish like SHOWGIRLS. The last time I spoke to Dan was about the time of his second directorial effort, THE RESURRECTED, ironically an adaptation of Lovecraft’s THE CASE OF CHARLES DEXTER WARD (filmed once before by Roger Corman as THE HAUNTED PALACE). Dan had chosen to frame the tale in the present-day with a neo-noir motif and, to his credit, it was somewhat successful as a stand-up Lovecraft film with Chris Sarandon giving a creepy performance in the dual role of Charles Dexter Ward and his evil ancestor Joseph Curwin. Dan was, as usual, at odds with the company who produced it, as they cut his film without his approval, de-fanging the film of its blood and gore and trimming away his vision yet again. Dan would get his revenge at the end of his life by writing his own adaptation of Lovecraft’s most famous creation, THE NECRONOMICON. Dan himself was always an outsider, first as a child his parents did not understand, then arriving in Hollywood after film school only to find the same situation on a larger scale, failing to adapt successfully in what he regarded as a nest of vipers cannibalizing themselves in franchise film-making.

Dan O'Bannon rehearsing zombie attack...with assistant at window.

Dan rehearsing James Karen and Clu Gulager onset.

Sometimes these on-set encounters can be fun, since you get to not only engage with the director and crew while they are at work but (as with this film) also lunch with the actors and hopefully stay long enough to observe some cinema magic in the process. My first experience on the LIVING DEAD set was anything but fun since I arrived just in time to witness actor Clu Gulager square off with his director in a verbal shouting match that left the crew silent and tense. Now, before I go on with this it is important to know that both Clu and Dan, who would lock horns several more times before this film would wrap, came out of the process the best of friends and remained so until Dan’s death this past December.

After witnessing this encounter I stayed away from both men until lunch broke. As I entered the area set aside for the cast and crew to eat I saw Clu heading straight in my direction, whereupon he greeted me like a long lost relation. “You are the journalist from the Mike Dalling office, are you not? I am Clu Guluger. Please just call me Clu.” He then walked me over to where the food was being served and together we took a table and sat down to our lunch. Clu was concerned about what I had just witnessed and was determined to deflate any bad press that might come from it. He explained that what I observed was a very heavy scene in the film where his character was supposed to react with rage and frustration over the hopelessness of the situation his character was in and at that moment someone had walked into his range of vision causing him to lose his concentration altogether, which in turn caused him to lose it for a moment since, in his view, the director is supposed to keep the set free of distractions, among other things.

It was impossible not to like this man. He and I became fast friends during that first lunch and I for one understood how that might just be the straw that would break the camel’s back at that moment. I later discovered that Dan had made more than a few enemies on this shoot and he knew it. O’Bannon was a product of USC FILM School and was at that moment practicing the auteur theory they teach so well at that institution. In other words the director has a vision and in order for that vision to reach the screen he has to take command of every department, telling each and every crew member and technician their job so they can do it better, thus making a better film all the way around. Most of the other actors found Dan to be somewhat difficult but it was all for a good cause since he was, after all, the very talented screenwriter who wrote ALIEN. Almost everyone on the set was in agreement about one thing and that was Dan O’Bannon had written a great script for them to make, which accomplished the difficult task of making a Horror film funny. It was a parody of George Romero’s film and that was exactly what was needed.

Zombie masks on display in prop dept.

Clu Gulager's autographed photo with personal drawings in green.

The next time I went on-set was to watch the scene where the yellow cadaver played by Terry Houlihan comes to life and causes all kinds of havoc. Terry was covered in this yellow body make-up with a bald cap in place so he all but resembled a mannequin from hell. The set was filled with faux toxic fumes from the gas leaks that set the stage in the script for the living dead to return in the first place. This made the whole set smell like black flag insect spray. It was never a comfortable shoot under any circumstances, both in temperament and design. There was a tenseness going on with Dan as he was under great pressure not only from the producers but from his special-effects people, including make-up which had to be checked and doubled-checked as so much depended on every aspect of the zombies looking just right. I remember that the producers were worried about the zombies moving way too fast in some scenes to match what they thought an audience had come to expect from their zombies onscreen. If only they could have imagined the end result, everybody would have just chilled and really dug the scene.

As I watched Terry the yellow cadaver come to life, check his marks once more, then go back behind the door, there was a break for some tech stuff and I had my first chance to speak to Dan face-to-face. He was polite with me but there was always a distance since I was after all the press, so watch out! I kept thinking all during the rehearsals for this scene that it was so like that scene in Howard Hawks’ THE THING, where all the men are watching the door knowing that at any moment a bloodsucking thing was going to break in and kill them. I had this scene running in my head so I mentioned it to Dan and bang! It was like a bell went off in his head, and he looked at me as if he had just discovered my existence. “I fucking love THE THING! Hawks is like one of my heroes. You know, I was hoping for that moment with this scene as well, and now you have confirmed my thoughts. This is great! Thank you so much for noticing.” From that moment on Dan O’Bannon liked me and respected the fact that we both were film buffs. I was no longer the dreaded press but a colleague. This was as good as it got on the set of RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD, and a memory I will always hold dear when I think of Dan.

Production sketch of the most famous dialogue in the film...

James Karen autographed still from sequel to Living Dead.

Dan O’Bannon arrived at this point in his career with an enviable resume of credits, the most exotic of which was his involvement with Alejandro Jodorowsky’s ill fated adaptation of Frank Herbert’s DUNE. Dan flew over to Paris where he literally wowed Jodorowsky with his talent and creativity. He was put in charge of all the special-effects, working for six months before returning to LA to do more work on the project. This all came to an end when Dan received word from Paris that the money failed to materialize, ending a magical experience with the dean of avant-garde filmmakers. His career from his days after USC, beginning with the filming of DARK STAR alongside John Carpenter, are well documented elsewhere so let’s just say that Dan had more than enough background to direct. He just needed this baptism of fire with LIVING DEAD to understand that a good director hires the right people from day one, allowing them to do their job while you as a director involve yourself, keeping it all in focus. Dan was never much of a “people person” and this led to much of the animosity felt by cast and crew during the making of the film. There were moments during the filming like the day Dan was set to film the weird little guy they brought on set to play one of the misshapen zombies. One of the more unpleasant requirements was that he actually eat calf brains on-camera. Well the crew was up in arms about this and Dan, to his credit, walked over and ate some calf brains in front of everyone present, remarking afterwards, “I would never ask an actor to do anything on camera I would not do myself.”

James Karen remembered the shoot as being very physical from his standpoint because his character was so manic and did so much jumping around. But there is one thing on which both Jimmy and Clu both were in agreement, and that was how good the script was, really funny and edgy in ways a zombie film had never been allowed to be; even ZOMBIES ON BROADWAY left their zombie to react by the book, relying on the two comic actors to add the humor (which on that film was in short supply, making Lugosi the only reason to remember it now). I will always be grateful for RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD as the film which brought both Jimmy and Clu into my circle of friends where they have remained all these years later.

It is well known that Tobe Hooper was set to direct RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD when his schedule changed abruptly, allowing Dan, the screenwriter, to take over. Time has been more than kind to this film, allowing it to turn into a classic first-of-its-kind punk-rock zombie flick, and this in turn caused a change in Dan himself as time went by. He actually got involved with the fans’ grass roots campaign to get RETURN out on DVD, sending the internet fans flocking to dozens of websites devoted to the film to write and email their demands to the studio directly, the result of which was the deluxe edition of RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD. The real pleasure of this DVD is Dan O’Bannon’s personal observations about the film while he was still well enough to make them.

James Karen with wife Alba at wrap party for Living dead at my Beverly Hills Apt.

James Karen's death scene in RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD...

Soon after the film was completed I was invited to spend some interview-time with Dan at his small house in Santa Monica where he greeted both myself and photographer Dan Golden in his bathrobe because his stomach was bothering him that day. Looking back it is now clear Dan suffered far more than he let on about the illness which would ultimately take his life. Away from the set Dan was more laid back and reflective about the experience. I think he was beginning to feel he had created something that was unique, although at that point there was no way of knowing just how popular the film was going to be. Dan was a like a proud dad, showing off his “outer office” which contained floor-to-ceiling scripts, drafts and treatments of his entire output as a writer. In rows divided by shelves, he had every draft of ALIEN from the early THEY BITE right through to the STAR BEAST and beyond, to the version we all have come to know as Ridley Scott’s masterpiece. Dan was always savvy enough to acknowledge Ridley’s contribution which sort of reminded me in a strange sort of way of how Robert Bloch regarded Hitchcock, the only difference being Dan O’Bannon was a far more accomplished screenwriter than Bloch. Bob was really a novelist with a real talent for the short story. His screenplays were always rather routine in comparison to his writing.

The afternoon went by pleasantly enough with Dan regaling us with tales of Jodorowsky and a couple of rather wicked observations on John Carpenter, not to mention producer Tom Fox. At one point I asked if we could do stills of the two of us together and then some portraits of just him. Dan reflected for a moment and then asked if we could hold back printing them for a time since he really wanted to enjoy being private a bit longer, reasoning that it was just a matter of time before his fame would overwhelm his life to the extent that he would be mobbed in public once his fans knew what he looked like. And you know what turns out to be sublimely funny about Dan O’Bannon? He really meant it.

Martine Beswicke in a test make-up for Ken Russell's VALENTINO entire concept and photography by Leonard J Pollack.

I was raised in a “No, you don’t” world overrun with rules, to lift a line from the “woman in the moon” from the second remake of A STAR IS BORN; so imagine if you will what it was like for someone like me to be living in Hollywood during the Disco era of the late 1970’s where one could reinvent oneself in a glittery world of “Yes, you can”–anything you want is there for the asking. It would then be no surprise to find yourself partying with larger-than-life characters that once dazzled you on the silver screen.

There is one very special woman of all the show business characters I encountered during my decades in Babylon. She became in time more like a sister to me, sharing most of my ups and downs in the process. Martine Beswick came into my life like a bolt from the blue. The signs of the Zodiac were in full swing and Jupiter aligned with Mars that night in the summer of 1978 when I blissfully walked into the Blue Parrot (a long-ago watering hole on the corner of Larrabee and Santa Monica in West Hollywood, named after the bar in CASABLANCA run by Sydney Greenstreet) to meet my friend, Steve Tracy (an actor soon-to-be somewhat of a household name as a semi-regular on LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE). Steve and I went way back to my college days in San Francisco when he got his start in the first 3-D soft-core gay film, HEAVY EQUIPMENT, with Jack Wrangler and Al Parker. Steve was a curly-haired guy with a great sense of humor who stood about 5′4.” Everybody loved Steve. It would be hard to believe that in a few short years (1986) we would lose him to HIV. Steve loved Hollywood so much that he requested his ashes be scattered under the Hollywood sign. To this day I always think of him whenever I pass in its direction.

Now, the mad British director Ken Russell figures into this as well, since I was carrying with me that evening a set of 11×14 photos taken by David James, from Russell’s THE MUSIC LOVERS. By the time I arrived, the bar was in the process of filling up, so Steve and I found a place by the window facing the boulevard where I could show off my latest treasures. As we examined the photos, another attractive curly-haired guy was watching us with great interest (which in the Blue Parrot was not unusual). Looking back, this would prove to be a life-changing moment. The curly-haired guy finally came over and introduced himself as Mark Baker, asking if he could see the photos and recognizing them instantly as from a film by Ken Russell. Steve looked at Mark for a minute, then asked, “Weren’t you Candide on Broadway?” I then gave him another look and said, “I just saw you at a cast-screening of SWASHBUCKLER in Westwood last week!” Mark playedPeter Boyle’s boy-toy, complete with long silver nails that dripped poison. Well, it turns out that our boy Mark knew Ken Russell far better than any of us, because he played a small role in VALENTINO, acting alongside the great man himself.

Martine Beswicke in a test make-up for Ken Russell's VALENTINO entire concept and photography by Leonard J Pollack.

Steve and I had a couple of drinks with our new friend before he drifted off into the night, leaving Mark and I to our own devices. This was a Friday night so Mark stayed with me until Sunday morning, where we then met actress June Gable (who appeared on Broadway with Mark) at Joe Allen’s for brunch. It was during that brunch that Mark insisted I hook up with another friend of Ken Russell’s, Leonard Pollack, giving me his phone number on the spot.

The afternoon that I first met Lennie was another of those life-altering moments as I instantly got who he was and knew I wanted this talented man as a friend. Lennie was packing to go off to London the next day so our first visit was cut short; but with Lennie ten minutes can be illuminating, so during my first glimpse of his flat (which was decorated with his designs, artwork and photographs) I noticed a double-exposure of a very Art Deco woman posing with a beaded scarf around her neck. Her hair was almost Afro in design. I later learned the entire concept, make-up and hair, was Lennie’s. Lennie told me that she was Martine Beswick, an actress he observed sitting in an outdoor cafe in London while he was working on VALENTINO for Ken Russell. He thought she would make an amazing Nazimova so he approached her for contact information, which he then passed on to Ken. Lennie took that photo of Martine in the manner of Nazimova; the results were fantastic. When he said her name I knew instantly who she was as I had long admired her work in films like DR. JEKYLL AND SISTER HYDE as well as PREHISTORIC WOMEN for Hammer Films of England. Most movie fans would know her from the two James Bond films she appeared in, FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE and THUNDERBALL. I would later discover that Russell would have loved to use her but United Artists insisted on a “name” actress in the role so he gave the part of Nazimova to Leslie Caron, who emoted quite well, but it would have been a tour-de-force if “La Beswick” had been given a chance.

Director Michael Carreras kneeling before the great white rineno while Martine Beswick takes a nap during the filming of PREHISTORIC WOMEN

I made such a fuss over Martine once I realized he knew her that even though we had just met, Lennie gave me Martine’s phone number, explaining that she now lived in West Hollywood and would most likely enjoy having a drink with me. After leaving a message for Martine on her answering service introducing me, my new friend was off to the UK, having done me a kindness neither one of us could even begin to appreciate until much later.

The first encounter with Martine was simply a Mardi Gras of the mind, and leave it to my other new friend of the moment, Lennie Pollack, to have known simply by his remarkable instinct for connecting people that it would turn out that way. I first spoke with her on the phone, explaining how amazed I was that she was living in Hollywood, to which she replied, “Darling, one simply has to be where it all is happening, don’t you know? And right now that place is Hollywood. After all, you’re here as well, aren’t you, Darling?” I invited her on the spot to come over to my Beverly Boulevard abode for drinks the next evening and so she did. My first glimpse of La Beswick was equally unforgettable. She arrived wearing a tricked-out Minnie Mouse combo of red and black; her black-and-red jeweled top was sleeveless, her mini-skirt was black with a bright red heart for a buckle and a matching heart in her hair, which was up. When I opened the door she looked me up and down and then said, “Well, Darling, as you can see, your phone call gave me a heart-on so here I am wearing mine just for you!” I was hers from that moment on, and the rest of the evening was one huge admiration society for all things Beswick.

Martine and David dancing the night away circa 1978 in Beverly Blvd Apt.

This first meeting was around the end of 1977 and Martine had just done an episode of BARETTA with Robert Blake. She played a belly dancer who entices guest star Strother Martin into some intrigue involving a stolen jewel, as I recall. She loved working with Martin, who told her she was an eye-full, and from that moment on they were a double act on-and-off the set. When I visited her place the following weekend she had a poster of herself made up as the belly dancer tacked on her bedroom door. Her charming apartment at that time was filled with flowers and hearts with a cat residing on its own pillow of pink and red. Martine was always filled with an optimism that came from an inner beauty she possessed, probably all of her life. When someone like Martine is born, invested with great beauty, some things in life come easy and this can lead to a certain hauteur or cruelty towards those not quite so blessed. In Martine’s case she was never too self-involved not to be aware of other people’s feelings and never in the twenty-plus years I have known her have I ever seen her be vindictive or unkind to anyone in her orbit. This is a quality she shares with Vincent Price, who also fell in love with her on the set of THE OFFSPRING some years later when I was the unit publicist for that film.

Martine and David recovering from a night at STUDIO ONE 1977.

Looking back now after all these years it is providential why we clicked so well. I think we both felt comfortable with each other; then came a trust that good friends have that allows a certain bond to develop. Up until I met Martine I tended to be the guy who always looked at a bottle that is half full and thought it half empty. After a lifetime dose of Beswick it was always to be half-full, and for that I am in her debt. One thing we shared in common was the love of talking on the telephone, and remember, this was well before cell phones, so we behaved like those teenagers in BYE BYE BIRDIE–always filling each other in on all the gossip that hovered over Hollywood like the smog it is so well known for. One of the first serious conversations we had was, naturally enough, about her career. I was stupefied that she was not already a huge star in Hollywood with that glowing personality she possessed, not to mention being gorgeous. It was her belief that her exotic quality, which separated her from the rest of the women she came up against for parts, played against her. Sometimes I think she simply overpowered the casting directors she read for and many of them were sadly lacking in imagination, so parts went to other less flamboyant actresses. This dilemma she tried to solve by consulting a numerologist, who suggested she add an extra letter to the end of her name so the gods of chance would once again smile on our Bond girl. Hence “La Beswick” became “La Beswicke.”

From the time Martine won the title of Miss Jamaica, winning a car (which she then sold to go to London and begin her career), her looks opened the door and then it was up to her to do the rest. Of course, luck always plays a role in there somewhere. Her first turn in a James Bond film was appearing in the credits of DR NO, and this followed with a speaking role as one of the gypsy dancers that vie for the attention of James Bond in FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE. Martine loved to tell the story of how much the other exotic woman who played her adversary hated her, leading up to the fight itself. The rehearsals went without incident but when the cameras started to roll this woman really put her claws into Martine and what you see onscreen is a bona-fide fight to the death. Her next experience with Bond proved to be one of the highlights of her early career. As Paula in THUNDERBALL she is given a bit more to do and never once had to perform a catfight again onscreen. THUNDERBALL’s director, Terence Young, liked her very much, making this a delightful time to be Martine, who was now officially a “Bond Girl.” Martine remembers the attention she received, which became so intense that the car she was riding in during filming was almost overturned by fans screaming for the “Bond Girl.” The set was overrun with millionaires wining and dining cast and crew in a style not seen since.

Martine Beswick with Sean Connery, Claudine Auger and director Terrance Young on location filming THUNDERBALL.

The kind of La Dolce Vita lifestyle Martine was leading in the days during and after the Bond films became what is now known as the golden age of film making in Europe. She became romantically involved with actor/model John Richardson while they were filming ONE MILLION YEARS B.C. for Hammer Films, a studio Martine would also work for a bit later down the road. Their relationship was so intense that many, including Hammer star Christopher Lee, thought them married even years after they parted company. Martine explained that being with John was always filled with drama, both high and low, because he was constantly being hit-on throughout their relationship, which she found to be quite a turn-on. While he was filming ONE MILLION YEARS B.C. he was required to wear a full beard. She remembered how the day he no longer needed it he would shave a portion of it off and then they would make love for awhile and then he would shave off a bit more and repeat the lovemaking. “I loved helping John remove that beard!” John had also starred opposite Barbara Steele in BLACK SUNDAY. Both Barbara and Martine were well-acquainted with one another by then, and Martine was frequently mistaken for Barbara on film sets since they both were dark-haired and exotic. Martine used to make me laugh with her impersonation of Barbara by folding her arms over her head and then pretending to be a Venus flytrap opening her petals for the unwary fly. They were night and day as people but they both found themselves cast as dark divas in horror films, although Martine never got as typed as Steele because of her connection to the Bond films. They kept her more action-oriented than Barbara, whose one and only film for Fellini gave her a more art-film allure at the time.

Martine Beswick with Alizia Gur during their all too real catfight for FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE.

“During the making ONE MILLION YEARS B.C. I became quite friendly with Hammer executive Michael Carreras and his wife, so as the film was coming to an end he approached me with this idea of doing a kind of spoof of B.C., which eventually became PREHISTORIC WOMEN. His pitch to me was, ‘Martine, you will play the Queen of a tribe of dark-haired amazons who falls for an English explorer who wanders into her domain.’ I of course said, ‘Absolutely, Darling. I am your Queen.’ We did this film very quickly with Michael directing, which was very much like making a home-movie Hammer style. Once again my leading man, Michael Latimer, was less than my idea of bliss but whatever. My character was such fun to play it didn’t matter. At one point my director brought out this enormous prop of the white rhino sporting a huge white tusk. Without really thinking about it, he suggested that I worship the tusk by rubbing my hands up and down it while invoking some chant. I simply looked at Michael Carreras and burst out laughing. ‘You really want me to do that? I mean, really Michael, I’ve been asked to do some outrageous things in my time but giving a 1200-pound rhino a hand job has to be in a realm of its own.’ The film is a cult classic today and while I was living in Hollywood I would get asked about this film almost more than any other. In fact I was at a party at Curtis Harrington’s one night that was being given for Helmut Newton and his wife. Helmut was such a fan of bad movies that he made a deal with me that if I got him a tape of PREHISTORIC WOMEN he would love to photograph me for one of his projects. I of course was happy to oblige.”

Martine in a publicity pose with James Bond (Sean Connery) FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE.

“The other Hammer I did was of course DR JEKYLL AND SISTER HYDE, which is a cult film as well. The interesting thing about that one was the actor who played Dr. Jekyll, a lovely fellow named Ralph Bates who sadly is no longer with us, began the film looking nothing like me at all and yet as the film progressed we really began to resemble each other in some strange way that only the camera picked up on. I mean, our hands began to look alike, etc. We did some publicity stills where we did look like brother and sister. The director on this one, Roy Ward Baker, was a seasoned pro to be sure, so we got along fine. However the producers kept after him to do more nudity than the script called for and at that point I had to put my foot down. I mean they even had second unit guys putting cameras under stairwells and such to try and get some extra bits, but it was all for nothing and in the end I think we did a classy film considering what they were really after.”

THE SILENT SCREAM OF BARBARA STEELE

When Barbara Steele, {the star of quite possibly the greatest Italan Horror film ever made THE MASK OF THE DEMON (aka BLACK SUNDAY) vowed “to never crawl out of another fucking coffin again,” she would have been wise to have included attics and hidden rooms in her pronouncement. The reason I make this distinction is the current release on DVD of a film that marked the only screen appearance for the Queen of Horror for the year 1980. For years this film existed only on botched VHS releases and one attempt on Laser disc, fans that were far too young to have seen it first run had to make do with this situation. As one who knew a bit more than most about how this box-office gross-er came to be made with Barbara in the first place, I was more than mystified as to its new status as a “classic” slasher film in the tradition of HALLOWEEN (1978). As far as I was concerned, the one and only reason to sit through this catalogue of cliches was to see an icon at work. She appears only at the film’s closing moments and she is worth the wait. With no dialogue Barbara uses her amazing face to register every emotion required and then some, dominating every frame she is in. As I sit in the glow of my computer screen, reading all these online reviews, I have to smile. Read on and see why….

The name of this classic bit of hokum is SILENT SCREAM, made by the late Denny Harris at the crest of the ’slasher’ craze that began with the superior HALLOWEEN. I know something about this film, since I was the one who got Barbara Steele the part and negotiated the contracts as her agent at the time. This was the only feature film she did in 1980 after three disappoints in a row, beginning with Louis Malle’s PRETTY BABY (a film Barbara first suggested to Malle during an affair in Italy in the 60’s that took place during her reign as the Queen of Terror when her beauty and fame was at its zenith). I had just gotten to know Barbara when this film opened in Westwood, with all the attention focused on the underage Brook Shields. Barbara had shot for weeks in New Orleans in this controversial film by a world-class director, hoping it would bring her back to the screen with dignity. However, the shoot turned out to be a rocky one, with Barbara hiding in the background, having made it clear to Louis that Susan Sarandon was not on her wish-list of co-stars to be filming with for weeks in an old house in the Big Easy. Apparently Sarandon was having a fling with Malle, which just rubbed our Barbara the wrong way. She did however make friends with Antonio Fargas and most of the other “ladies of the night” in the cast.

After PRETTY BABY premiered she lamented, “If only Louis had given me just five more minutes of screen time I might have emerged as someone this town would employ.” The next film to come along was I NEVER PROMISED YOU A ROSE GARDEN by Anthony Page. In this, Barbara was cast as a figment in the imagination of a young girl suffering from mental illness. Barbara looked amazing in her fantasy costume with an elaborate headdress. Unfortunately the whole sequence was cut prior to the film opening, so this became another lost opportunity in the re-emergence of the Queen of Horror. The last film at least kept her front and center and was directed by the fannish Joe Dante, who knew her work but made no attempt to help her look her best. In fact he paid no attention to her until the end of the film where she has the last line and the final close-up; but in a film entitled PIRANHA, the gesture was more akin to throwing pearls before swine.

I began working in earnest with Barbara immediately after the Dante film since we had discussed her lack of visibility in Hollywood after she returned from the Texas locations where PIRANHA was shot. Placing Barbara in the Academy Players Directory, which in those days published two books a year, was the first step to get the word out that she had U.S. representation and was actually living in Hollywood rather than Europe (The Academy Players Directory is a comprehensive list of actors and actresses containing pictures and contact information, often used by casting directors). In those days before cell phones and lap-tops, actors had to make the rounds of the studio casting offices regardless of who they were. The big stars were, of course, offered scripts through their agents, but for my clients at DEL VALLE, FRANKLIN AND LEVINE I had to rely on the daily Breakdown Service to give me the lowdown on what films and parts were coming up on any given day. Looking back, I sent Barbara on some pretty lame projects for a woman of her ability and grace. I tried episodic television at first, sending her to both Bert Remsen and his partner, Dick Dimman, as well as Bobby Hoffman over at Paramount. She actually read for things like BARNABY JONES, if you can believe that! It was humiliating for me to do this and I still remember receiving a call from her after the BARNABY JONES reading: “David, I went to this fucking thing looking–if I do say so myself–rather good. In fact, I got whistled at as I walked across the street to the casting office.” One of the issues in those days was an actor’s TVQ, which in layman’s terms meant, “How many shows have you had done?” and “What were the ratings of each?” This was then tallied into a score and that was how they rated you. Barbara read for the part of Morgana in the TV movie DR. STRANGE with Sir John Mills, only to lose the part to Jessica Walters who had a much higher TVQ than Barbara.

Barbara Steele's represetation page from the Academy players directory.

The first project I tried to involve Barbara in as her agent was a made-for-TV movie with the ridiculous title DEVIL DOG: HOUND OF HELL. The only reason I felt this might help her is that number one, it was being directed by our mutual friend, Curtis Harrington, and secondly, it might at least start to build a TVQ rating for Barbara, who had up till then done very little American television. The film turned out to be a new low for Curtis, whose reputation did not need to go down this road in the first place, since the network gave him no opportunity to display his talent other than to direct the train wreck put before him. The part that suited Barbara to a ‘T’ on paper at least was that of the high priestess to a coven of witches. The part was no more than a cameo but it was work and I wanted her to have it. All went according to plan and Barbara went down to read for Curtis at the offices of CBS. Later in the day I received a call from her, laughing about the whole experience. “David, there I was standing in front of Curtis and some 20-something casting director trying to summon a sense of urgency to lines like, ‘O Satan, appear before us…Let us offer you this puppy for your infernal desires,’ or some shit like it. I mean, give me a break, I began my career summoning the Devil. I mean, I just give up, David.”

I will always remember one of the perks in knowing Barbara was to be privy to her off-kilter sense of humor, which saved many a situation like this one. I assured her that she didn’t need to worry, Curtis would cast her on reputation alone for a part like this….Well, I could not have been more wrong. The part went to our dear friend, Martine Beswicke, whom Barbara had known in Rome at the start of both their careers in movies. Martine’s behavior always amused Barbara, who described her to me once as, “A double Long Island Iced Tea disguised as a teenage nymphet.” Martine had always been the Bond glamour girl while Barbara proclaimed her disdain at “climbing out of anymore fucking coffins.” As fate would have it, Martine was having a “White Party” in Santa Barbara the very next weekend and both of us were invited along with Curtis Harrington. Martine lived at that time with her manager/agent Robert Walker and at least three of his other clients, in a large, rambling house in a joyful commune atmosphere…at least that was the way Martine described it at the time.

David Del Valle and Barbara Steele in 1979 posing by a vintage poster for DRACULA'S DAUGHTER

I was a bit down for the occasion as I was still focused on getting Barbara some work and not much in a party mode; however, the creme of the jest was about to take place. The day before the party a group of Italian film journalists had arrived in Hollywood to interview the “Queen of Italian Horror,” and Barbara wasted no time in inviting them as well to what she described as “her” celebration on the park-like grounds of her Santa Barbara friend…neglecting to mention it was Martine’s affair. The afternoon of the White Party, all went as planned. Curtis and the rest of us turned up for cocktails and a buffet in this beautifully landscaped park by a pond. Barbara looked amazing (as always) in white, but of course so did Martine, who was also celebrating her new role in Curtis’ TV movie. At the end of the day Curtis stood up from his little group of friends and said, “Excuse me, I must say hello to a very special lady.” He then walked over to Barbara and explained that he could just not bring himself to cast her in such a demeaning role and hoped in the future they could work together in a project worthy of their time.

A few weeks later Barbara received a copy of the magazine spread from Rome which heralded the event, “La Strega di Roma,” entertaining her friends on her Santa Barbara estate.” Martine of course was not amused, but later on laughed it off because after all this was Barbara Steele we were dealing with here, and to take a line from Charles Vidor’s GILDA, “If I was a ranch they would call me the Bar-nothing.” After all, there are no limits to the Queen of Horror.

The original Italian two sheet for MASK OF THE DEMON/BLACK SUNDAY

Having exhausted the acting breakdowns during most of 1979, the idea came to me to create our own vanity project with her fan base in mind. Vampires have always been a successful commodity in the cinema, with Dracula in any incarnation a compelling draw at the box office. Frank Langella had brought the character back that year both on Broadway and then as a film (with Olivier as Van Helsing, no less). One of my personal favorites of the Universal Golden Age of Horror films has always been DRACULA’S DAUGHTER, a direct sequel to the Lugosi film and yet underrated at its time of release. It became obvious that Barbara Steele was the perfect choice to play the Countess Zaleska, following in the footsteps of Gloria Holden, who made such a lasting impression in the original.

My idea was well received by Barbara so we set about to put together a treatment setting the whole thing still in the 1930’s, not realizing how expensive this was going to be if we ever did get a studio interested. The whole concept was to update the story only in terms of censorship, which prevented the original from addressing the sexuality of the Countess directly. Our version had the Countess seducing a beautiful cocaine addict named Lily, to be played by her old friend Martine Beswicke. In the script Lily chooses to become a vampire to end her addiction and begin life as an undead with Dracula’s daughter. The ideal director for this was to be Curtis Harrington; at least in this he would not have to work with children, pets or Shelley Winters.

Looking back I can blame the whole thing on the boogie. We never could get such a project greenlit in the Hollywood of 1979 with a star who was only revered in Europe and a director who was doing episodic television. All this was so unreal for someone like Barbara Steele, who could still remember when films were offered to her over an elegant lunch near the Spanish Steps, and it was her decision whether or not to accept. Now those days of La Dolce Vita were all but a dream as she and I contemplated our futures over margaritas at El Coyote. No wonder Denny Harris’s offer seemed so well-timed and providential.

I was desperate to find Barbara a decent part in something and then it happened. One morning the breakdowns came into my office with this notice at the top of the second page: “Denny Harris Productions is looking for an actress in her forties with a Horror-movie following. Dark hair, dramatic personality.” I took a resume and photo personally to Denny’s office and within a day Barbara went over for a meeting, signing the contract the same day. I got her special billing and $5,000. for the week she worked on the film. The best news for her was the fact she had no dialogue to memorize. It was a walk in the park for the Queen of Italian Horror. The whole thing was a bit of a holiday. She wore very little make-up, her wardrobe consisted of a worn-out pink robe and a butcher knife, and when she wasn’t sticking someone with the knife she cuddled a teddy-bear…her idea, since she was playing a traumatized teenager gone-to-seed in the mansion’s attic.

Chris Dietrich holding a wax head of Barbara Steele from Black Sunday

The second day on which Barbara worked, my partner, Chris Dietrich, visited her between takes of mayhem. I treasured a photo of the two of them which is now lost, in which Barbara is standing over Chris, who is doing his own silent scream, as she appears to be getting ready to stab him with her bloody butcher knife. Chris was always her biggest fan, having seen BLACK SUNDAY as a child in Danville, Illinois. He became her close friend and at one point lived with her on Lasky Drive, babysitting her then-eight-year-old son Jonathan. I think Barbara really enjoyed working before the cameras again, playing a silent force of nature, allowing her to act as if she were making a silent film, which we know is the truest form of cinema.

In the tradition of one of her previous films, YOUNG TORLESS, Barbara was cast after the film was made and then her sequences were added to it. In the TORLESS film it was to give the young lead a sexual outlet, which gave his character more depth. In the case of SILENT SCREAM, Harris had shot the film once in 1977 and then scrapped the better part of the footage, recasting it with recognizable names like Cameron Mitchell and especially Yvonne De Carlo. Barbara loved working with Yvonne the most. She would call me after she left the set and describe Yvonne’s arrival on a Harley with a leather-clad boyfriend half her age. “I want to be just like her at that point in my life, doing just what turns me on, and fuck everybody else!”

Barbara’s sequences were all shot on a soundstage dressed to look like the attic-in-question, with claustrophobic walls leading in and out of her hidden room, which was created like a teenage girl’s boudoir from the fifties, with a record player that played 45’s. The most tragic moments occurred when Victoria sat before the mirror of her dressing table, reflecting on the loss of her youth. It is a testament to Barbara’s ability that this cameo set this otherwise pedestrian film in a class by itself. In spite of all the internet ramblings about this being a sleeper hit or a genre classic, don’t you believe it for a moment; this film exists for one reason only, and that is the presence of an actress whose legend has grown more potent as time goes by. And in the years since 1980, more and more fans have sought out her classic Italian output to watch her at the top of her game as a cult figure, which as of 2009 is more available than ever.

The Scorpion release of SILENT SCREAM is anamorphic, with a commentary by the writers who went on to do PITCH BLACK, which gave Vin Diesel a career…something SILENT SCREAM didn’t accomplish for any of its leads in 1980.

This month’s Camp David is in memory of ROBERT CUSHMAN whose scholarship in the field of film history helped the Academy of Motion Picture arts and science accumulate an incredible collection of photographs during the decades he headed that dept. Robert was more than a colleague he was a friend. He read this column in one of it’s earlier edtions when it was to have been a sample chapter in a book to have entitled WOMEN WITH ISSUES…..perhaps one day it will be published and it will also be dedicated to this wonderful man.

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO PETER LAWFORD HAPPENED TO BABY JANE.

One of the most widely discussed yet under appreciated films of the 1960’s has to be Robert Aldrich’s WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE?

In spite of the fact that BABY JANE made millions for Warner Bros., not to mention restarting the careers of both Joan Crawford and Bette Davis, the film itself is trapped in Camp adoration by gay men who have placed a reality check at the theater door when it comes to just how much Davis and Crawford really did hate each other, and just how impossible it was to get them to appear together on camera without bloodshed. I mean, how many times have you heard the one about Davis actually kicking the shit out of Crawford during the scene downstairs when Crawford tries to use the phone? In reality a stand-in was used and if you watch the film itself it is clear Crawford is not being kicked at all. These two highly professional talents worked together seamlessly and made a classic in the process. Then we have the director, Robert Aldrich, who has more than proven himself in every genre he ever chose to make a film in, and still BABY JANE is regarded as a guilty pleasure that can only come out at Horror festivals on Halloween, or drag balls at New Year’s Eve.

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE? was the beginning of what genre buffs now refer to as the era of the “Horror Hag.” Hopeless as that phrase has become, it does cover the territory well enough when we are discussing films like LADY IN A CAGE, DEAR DEAD DELILAH, THE ANNIVERSARY, DEAD RINGER, BERSERK and STRAIT-JACKET. The real beginning came a bit earlier with SUNSET BOULEVARD, and the unforgettable moment when Gloria Swanson descends her staircase in search of “those wonderful people out there in the dark.” The role was supposedly based on silent screen star Mae Murray. Miss Murray was in the audience when the film was finally previewed in Hollywood. Her take on the subject was priceless: “None of us floozies was that nuts.”

As the 21st century is well upon us it is time to place WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE? back in the realm of serious filmmaking and reassess it as we have done time and again with Hitchcock’s PSYCHO. The comparison is certainly there if you wish to see it, as both Norman Bates and Baby Jane Hudson have been reduced to monstrous creations at the hands of family dysfunction. When Anthony Perkins was forced to make sequels to the Hitchcock film because, as he told those close to him at the time, “I want to make as much money as I can so my children will be looked after,” his character of Norman Bates (the role that forever became his doppelganger) was to become in these films a sympathetic pawn in the hands of others– especially his mother, the real monster of PSYCHO. Now if BABY JANE had been allowed sequels we might well have seen the character of Blanche become the real bitch of BABY JANE II, which would probably pick up at the beach after Jane goes for those damn ice cream cones–the ones she would not let Blanche have in the 1915 flashback.

Robert Aldrich must have realized just how much his work in this and its unofficial sequel HUSH, HUSH SWEET CHARLOTTE was a part of his legacy, as he requested that the songs from both films be played at his memorial. Aldrich had already worked with Crawford in the mid-fifties in AUTUMN LEAVES, which bears a number of similarities to BABY JANE in the dysfunction of Cliff Robertson’s character, traumatized by his father (an oversexed bully who ridicules his son from childhood and, as an adult, steals his young and willing wife away from him), leaving the scars for Joan Crawford (as the older woman starved for love as well) to heal. It was this relationship with Aldrich that probably led to insecurity on the part of Bette Davis who, as legend would have us believe, actually had a conversation with the director before filming as to whether or not he could work with Joan without favoring a former lover over Davis. Robert Aldrich apparently reassured Bette that there were no worries in that department.

In re-examining the film we must refrain from the diva-like behavior of its stars long enough to focus on just how well this film addresses the aging process, along with the trauma of family dysfunction, in the lives of two women living out their days in the worst place on earth to cope with the inevitability of losing one’s looks – Hollywood, and the motion picture business itself. All of the scenes where Jane goes forth on her own are cruel and spiteful; it is only because she is so wrapped up in her own reality that she can ignore the outside world for so long. The moment she can no longer do this is the “piece de la resistance” of the film. When Baby Jane sings “I’ve written a letter to daddy” into her own reflection, fantasy and reality come crashing together, allowing for the greatest primal scream in the history of movies as Jane Hudson finally gets her comeuppance many fold, to quote a similar moment in THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS.

If one can move past the rats and parakeets for din-din, and see beyond the clown-at-midnight facade of Davis, we move into the stuff operas are made of in the intense longing of acceptance both the sisters craved as Hollywood players, allowing only Blanche a spotlight from which to move up into the stars above Hollywood Boulevard. In a series of brilliant set pieces we see the Hollywood backlots of the early talkies where studio execs sit in screening rooms yelling, “Kill it!” to screen tests that might as well put another place-card up at Forest Lawn for the actors left hanging on the screening room wall. Jane Hudson made her share of early talkies and they use two of Davis’s early films, PARACHUTE JUMPER (1932) and EX-LADY (1933); it’s a shame they didn’t include THE CABIN IN THE COTTON where she utters one of her early howlers, “I’d love to kiss you but I just washed maw hair.” We are never allowed to see the women at this stage except in films clips. Crawford shines in her private moments sitting in front of the television staring at her own image in a scene with Edward Arnold. During it she mutters to herself, “I told Lloyd to hold that shot a bit longer. Oh, why didn’t he listen?” It is during these moments that the audience is allowed into the private world of these two sisters, both lonely and desperately in need of the outside world. Blanche remains indoors as her vanity prevents her from letting too many fans see her in a wheelchair. It is with the accident that put her there that the dysfunction began to erode the minds of both Jane and her sister, and it is not until the final reel that we fully learn the degree of guilt between them.

Perhaps only the casting of Joan Fontaine with her real-life sister (and bitter rival) Olivia De Havilland would have drawn the same amount of blood between real life and the make-believe world of Blanche and Jane.

Hollywood become a character as well. In one of the blacker moments in the early part of the film, Jane goes into the LA Times to place an ad, reminding the puzzled staff writer that he might just remember who is standing in front of him by declaring, “I am Baby Jane Hudson…You may have heard of me,” to which he replies with a sincere lack of conviction, “Oh yeah.” As Jane exits he then says after her, “Who the Hell is Baby Jane Hudson?” and so say all of us. In Hollywood the only thing worse than being dead is being forgotten.

It is with the revival of Blanche Hudson’s films at a local TV station that the drama begins to boil to overflowing as Jane reads and then tears up or writes profanity over the bags of fan letters coming to her rediscovered sister. The neighboring house has two more Blanche Hudson fans in a mother and daughter, played by Anna Lee and Davis’s real life daughter B.D. The character Anna Lee plays is called Mrs. Bates (considering this was made less than two years after PSYCHO, one can guess what Robert Aldrich was paying homage to here–or was it just an uncanny coincidence?) Bette Davis would live to disown her daughter for writing a warts-and-all memoir of life with Mom not that long after Crawford’s adopted daughter did her own poison-pen letter to Mommie. These two are also glued to the television during the Blanche Hudson festival. Overwhelmed, Mrs. Bates brings flowers over to Blanche, only to be told off by Jane and the flowers dumped into the trash, all this behavior brought about from decades of resentment going back to their childhood in 1915 when Baby Jane was the breadwinner and spoiled beyond redemption by her father. If PSYCHO had such a flashback we might have been allowed to see just what the other Mrs. Bates was up to with her gentleman callers at the motel while little Norman watched through keyholes and openings in the wall; this would have made him a victim as much as those he killed while assuming his mother’s role as avenger.

Hollywood History tells us that not only did Joan Crawford discover the novel for BABY JANE but brought it to the attention of Bette Davis in the first place, dispelling any notion of feuds to begin with. It seems Crawford had long been looking for a property to bring the two of them together in one film and at last this was it. The project could not have come at a better time since Davis was in debt to the tune of $30,000, with no nest egg except a guarantee of playing in Tennessee Williams’ NIGHT OF THE IGUANA, which turned out to be a living nightmare since the play’s leading man (Patrick O’Neal) hated Davis to the point of actually trying to strangle her before a run-through. These ladies needed each other at the time the film was made and it was only afterwards when the film was a hit and Davis was nominated for the Academy Award that things went toxic for the two divas, so much so that the second attempt to bring them together went so far south it would place Joan Crawford in the hospital, shutting down the production for weeks before a replacement could be found in–of all people–the woman with a sister-feud for real, Olivia De Havilland.

It is time to begin to give credit to these two stars for creating, together with Robert Aldrich, a masterpiece of suspense in the Hitchcock tradition, with such detail to the breakdown, as presented by Hollywood, of what are supposed to be “normal” family values within the American dream after World War Two. David Lynch has made a career out of mining the same territory while openly admiring this film for its artistry.

The process of aging is difficult at the best of times within a family as loved ones become a burden that leads to premature burial in a nursing home, and this was not lost on Jane Hudson when she discovered Blanche’s plan to sell the house they shared for years simply because Jane was a handful, to put it mildly. It was time to “take care of me” as Jane puts it to her sister.

The scene that always stays with me is one of the scenes between Blanche and her maid Elvira. At this moment Jane has been caught writing profanity on the letters marked for Blanche from the station when Elvira forces the issue of a rest home for Jane as “she is getting worse by the day.” Crawford plays this scene to perfection in close-up. “You didn’t know Jane as a child. It wasn’t that she was just pretty. She had something about her. She was special. I can’t just tell her, she will know. After all, Elvira, we’re sisters. We know each other very well.” Davis certainly had the plum role but it takes a great star like Joan Crawford to pull scenes like the aforementioned one to life and Crawford more than held her own with her old rival from Warner Bros.

This essay was originally prepared for a book project on women with issues for Fab Press a few years ago and read quite differently at that time. I became interested in it all over again when I discovered a casting choice early in the filming of BABY JANE that has gone unnoticed for decades and that is the role of Edwin Flagg (played so brilliantly by the late Victor Buono), which began filming with Peter Lawford, and was terminated by Lawford when he simply left the set and never returned. It is rumored that he could not reconcile the character’s flaws (ie: mother-dominated, possibly coded homosexual/loser living in Hollywood on welfare and his mother). It is interesting to notice that after the success of BABY JANE with its effect on the careers of both Crawford and Davis allowing them to continue on in films quite similar in tone to BABY JANE, that Davis made sure Peter Lawford had a substantial role in DEAD RINGER. Lawford plays a golf pro with a sideline as a gigolo, and a very butch one at that.

Peter Lawford’s career, as everyone that follows the Kennedy family knows, was dealt two death blows: one from Joe Kennedy himself (in making Lawford the messenger in a tactless response to Frank Sinatra) and the other from Old Blue Eyes himself, who blacklisted Lawford in Hollywood for the rest of his life. Lawford’s last days were tragic in ways that redefine the term. He was reduced to game shows and episodic television. His social life was ruined as only Hollywood can ruin it by making you a last minute replacement at posh dinners making you the z at an A list event.

My personal experience with Lawford came around 1979 when I was working for Paul Tiberio in Beverly Hills. Paul resembled Lawford and was frequently mistaken for him in public. One night Paul and I were in a landmark West Hollywood gay bar on Santa Monica known as THE FOUR STAR, which also booked entertainment from time to time on weekends. On this particular evening Peter Lawford came in, only to be told at the door that there was that guy that everyone thought was him, so Lawford came over to where we were sitting and introduced himself. I will always remember how polite and well-mannered he was in complementing Paul on how much they did favor each other and so on. Paul introduced me as a film buff who loved movies and when Lawford asked me what my favorite film of his might be I blurted out, “Well I just saw you in SHERLOCK HOLMES FACES DEATH.” Peter was taken aback by that because it was almost his first screen appearance (he has one line as a sailor at the bar). I spent the rest of our time together trying to make up for it by naming films in which he had a more substantial part. We discovered that he lived in West Hollywood and was there at the request of the woman who was booking a singer he wanted to hear.

After the initial shock of my discussing his cameo in the Holmes film, about which he remembered “What dear men Rathbone and Bruce were, and how much they were a team in films, like Laurel and Hardy, not to mention that black bird that could not be tamed during the brief scene in the pub, and how many takes were ruined by its missing its marks and running amok.” I mentioned what a favorite of mine THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY was and how good I thought he and everyone else was in it. Lawford smiled at the mention of this film and responded with, “You’re much too kind about me. I was a green kid who was in great company like George Sanders, who really hated acting even though he was meant to be one. I never understood why Hurd Hatfield was chosen; when I first heard about the film being made at MGM I remember Robert Taylor was being considered, since there was no man in Hollywood at that time as handsome as Taylor. Albert Lewin, our director, was a real intellectual and gave the film class, no question. The sets were stunning, especially the house they created for Dorian. That staircase–I still remember walking down it with Donna Reed for nearly ten takes before we got it to Lewin’s satisfaction. Hatfield was very professional and aloof during the film, staying in character I believe. Still, I will always wonder what Bob Taylor would have been like as Dorian, not that he would have understood the perversity of it one bit. I still see Angela. What a great actress she became after that film.”

I always remembered him fondly after that. A few years later his death was announced on ten o’clock news with a clip of him from what was his very last appearance on some sitcom playing himself, alone, sitting at the end of a bar nursing a drink; the image was unforgettable in its sadness.

It is rather ironic that Peter Lawford would balk at playing the personal references to his character in BABY JANE and yet in five years he would play a character named Steve Banks in the Harlan Ellison scripted THE OSCAR where fact and fiction merge with uncanny accuracy. As the films protagonist Frankie Faye’s career slides into the gutter he returns to one of the overpriced eateries located in the ever so posh Beverly Hills where he confronts former glamour boy/actor Peter Lawford whose own career is reduced to walk-ons and waiting tables to make ends meet. The painful dialogue between the two actors leaves little to the imagination as to just how fleeting fame can be in Tinsletown, and Peter Lawford didn’t have to give a performance because this was his life he was playing at.

Whether or not Peter Lawford would have worked in the role for which Victor Buono received an Oscar nomination we will never know. Buono became a sought-after performer on Television afterwards. Davis tried to get him fired as she thought him too young and inexperienced, however halfway through filming she confessed “I tried to get Bob to fire you but I am glad you stayed You are absolutely marvelous in the part.” Could this have also been partly because of Peter Lawford’s attempt to play the same role only to flee the set when the mama’s boy references proved too close to home?

Victor Buono’s own take on acting alongside Davis and Crawford was classic: “I felt like an altar boy being asked to the Ecumenical Council in Rome in an advisory capacity.”

THE ART OF ABSORPTION

One of the marvels of cable television is how quickly a new film or documentary can make the transition from “just released” to “already there for your viewing pleasure,” or in my case to take it all in before committing it to review. Such was the case with CHRIS AND DON: A LOVE STORY, the documentary about the three-decade-plus relationship between the celebrated writer Christopher Isherwood and portrait artist Don Bachardy. The past couple of years have been quite remarkable in the outpouring of documentaries on Gay celebrities of course. With Gay Pride celebrations across the country, coupled with the anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, it certainly makes sense to take inventory on who inspired a generation and who did not.

Earlier this year I watched documentaries on both Jack Wrangler and Peter Berlin, two iconic gay porn stars that could not have led more diverse lifestyles, which made a chronicle of their personalities that much more entertaining to discover. I had heard for months that Don Bachardy was preparing a number of things regarding his life with Isherwood, with a major biography coming out, not to mention the centenary celebration for Isherwood himself.

The most eagerly awaited of all the Isherwood projects is the film currently in production with Colin Firth, based on what many believe to be Isherwood’s masterpiece, A SINGLE MAN. This was Christopher’s personal favorite of his nine novels, not to mention a cornerstone of gay literature of the 20th century. Isherwood painfully placed himself in a literary situation where he has lost his younger lover and now, at 59, must cope with being a single man. The novel then becomes a day in the life…

What makes this novel unique is Isherwood’s abilty to make the central character of George a three-dimensional human being where his sexuality is not the focal point, nor is it the white elephant in the room . Those that were with more familiar with Isherwood’s private life knew only too well that the role model for the younger lover was Don Bachardy. Isherwood has said before that he could never leave Don unless he felt Don no longer needed him, and that was never to be the case. After completing the novel, Isherwood knew even more profoundly how much he had come to love Don, thus making the whole imaginary situation of losing him, even in a novel, almost unbearable. I have been told that Don has visited the set of A SINGLE MAN at least once since the filming began and felt very excited about the results.

This was to have been a review of CHRIS AND DON until I actually sat down and watched it. The documentary itself opened a floodgate of memories I had long thought devoured by time and loss, as I sat in front of my television watching beautiful color home movies I never knew existed of a hopelessly young Don Bachardy. When I first ventured into the murky waters of the Hollywood social scene in 1977 there were countless cocktail parties and art openings where I would first see Christopher Isherwood, the world-famous author of THE BERLIN STORIES, usually in the company of Don Bachardy, looking very much a couple. What struck me at first was how friendly and open they both were to meeting new people. I have to admit it was Don I spoke to first, and almost at once he introduced me to Chris. After a few encounters like this I felt like a bond could be made if one wanted to make an effort, and bring these amazing men into one’s life.

However this was not the way it worked, as meeting them in the social circuit that was Beverly Hill at that time was not really their style. Don and I both shared a love of movies and movie stars that would never have interested Isherwood to the same degree. It would take the combined efforts of two other men to place Don Bachardy and I on friendlier terms.

I think it was one of my agency clients, a would-be actor named William Franklin whom we all called “little Willie” (a name he did not deserve, but there you are) …anyway, for whatever ambition Willie may have had for acting, he was at that time a journalist for the trades and more importantly a close friend of Don’s. I know I was in the company of “little Willie” the first time I actually set foot in the home Chris and Don would share for the rest of Chris’s life on Adelaide Drive in Santa Monica.

While the likes of “little Willie” set the stage that evening–allowing me my first opportunity to see the house Chris and Don lived, loved and worked in–it would take more than one gentlemen caller to bring me full circle into the inner sanctum of this dynamic duo. The house itself rested on the side of a narrow road above the ocean of Santa Monica. It was a split-level affair, large enough for two but modest, allowing Don an upstairs studio in which to store his paints and paper. It was in this space, terraced with a view of the ocean (as well as the other homes).

That first visit we spent most of the evening standing around in the kitchen, always the center of these gatherings. Chris stood near the refrigerator cradling a drink, staring at his feet a good deal of the time. The house was filled from top to bottom with art and photos of two lifetimes…. David Hockney was well represented throughout the house and at that time the hallway was all Hockney. I think it was one of the most comfortable dwellings I had been in at that time in LA. It was not about furnishings and bookcases, it was more about ideas and personalities; everything was geared for conversations. The ticket into this world, as with most of Hollywood, would always be fame and beauty. The house, when in party mode, would always have its share of good-looking boys; or the opposite would take place and it would be a theme night of a celebrity with guests that wanted to meet said personality or those that would create the right mix. Thinking things through was the motto of this dynamic duo.

I would continue to run into Chris and Don, especially at some of Gloria Stuart’s art openings as Don had drawn her at least once and was a fan of her films (as was I). However it would be the presence of another young man that would bring Don into my life as a friend. Since I never kept a proper diary it is hard for me to recall just where or when I first met Rick Sandford, but once you met him he was difficult to forget. Rick was not only good-looking and witty but like both Don and myself, loved movies with a passion that made him an instant soul-mate. Rick read every book he could get his hands on. Already armed with a sharp mind coupled with a desire to learn, he soon surpassed many of his peers in knowledge and understanding of his fellow creatures. At this point he had not begun to write, outside of keeping a diary. Don was smitten and so was I; fortunately Rick was an equal opportunity date and soon we both were on his dance card, somewhat unaware, which was I believe for the best. Rick wanted to be an actor (naturally) and was doing a lot of walk-ons and voiceovers when we met. He confided in me that his alter-ego, Ben Barker, made the scene in a dozen or so gay porno films in the late 70’s and early 80’s.

Rick became my all-time favorite person to take to screenings because he wanted to see it all and since our tastes were so alike it was great fun to talk film with him late into the night. It was after one of these screenings that Rick told me Don was going to draw him au natural for a book he was doing on male nudes. I was at that time writing for John Russell Taylor’s ‘Films and Filming’ with my own byline, and Rick had this brainwave that instead of me using a photo of myself to introduce each column, why not a drawing by a well-known personality like Don Bachardy?

I rang Don up a few days later with this concept in hand. Within days after that I was sitting in his studio above the garage awaiting my close-up, minus Mr. De Mille.

Before discussing the actual sitting with Don I need to elaborate on Rick Sandford for a moment, since this sitting really started with him. Rick died from complications from AIDS in 1995 without really seeing the success of his one-and-only published book, THE BOYS ACROSS THE STREET. This was indeed tragic since the reviews reveal the makings of an artist not unlike his idol, Christopher Isherwood, with Isherwood’s masterpiece of gay fiction, A SINGLE MAN. Rick lived across the street from a Jewish boys’ school and loved to sit shirtless on his front steps observing the passing parade with a painter’s eye for detail. The book is uncompromising in its openly-gay perspective in dealing with his obsession with Jewish boys, and his issues with faith made this book unique in every way. I am convinced that had he lived we would have witnessed the rise of a major writer in Rick Sandford, so it is important to me to keep his memory alive, and I know Don feels the same way I do.

LET THE HIPS CARRY THE BODY

The power of television is staggering and always will be, especially in the world of classic sitcoms. The most revered of them all, I LOVE LUCY, turned a working actress named Lucille Ball and her Cuban bandleader husband, Desi Arnez, into the first family of television stars and anyone who appeared with them was assured some form of immortality. This is how I remember first experiencing the comic talents of actress Natalie Schafer, She was playing the instructor of a Charm School. Lucy and Ethel, once again feeling unappreciated by their hubbies, decide to become more glamorous by enrolling in Natalie’s high-class school of glamour. I was a child of eight, but I knew this woman was on to something as she gave Lucy and Ethel the once-over and then declared that the way to make your husband sit up and take notice was to “let the hips carry the body.” Natalie invested that line with every nuance of snobbery and elan from what I would discover later on to be her vast repertoire of mannerisms, developed from years on Broadway and Hollywood.

After Lucy I would notice Natalie on countless other television shows throughout the late fifties and sixties, not to mention her work in films like THE SNAKE PIT, ANASTASIA and a nifty film noir directed by Fritz Lang, SECRET BEYOND THE DOOR. The first time I would see her in person would be around 1968 when she was part of a national touring company of THE KILLING OF SISTER GEORGE with Claire Trevor; I believe she was playing the role that Patricia Medina played in the film version. I saw this show in San Francisco where the cast played to an appreciative, packed house. My memory of the show is almost non-existent after all this time, but I still remember that just about everything Natalie said onstage that night got a reaction from the audience.

When I finally made the move to Los Angeles in 1975, she was one of the first recognizable faces I spotted walking down Rodeo Drive. Wearing a bright yellow dress with matching hat and gloves, you could not miss her in a crowd. How could I have known that I was about year or so away from knowing her much, much better?

Around the end of 1978 I would actually be on a film set with her when one of my New York contacts, Nicky Courtland, got a small role in John Schlesinger’s production of Nathanial West’s DAY OF THE LOCUST. This was to be the expose to end all exposes on Hollywood in the golden era.

But first a word about Nicky: he was rather short, but blessed with cheekbones, attitude for days, and a hot body. I met him in New York through Bill Como, the editor of AFTER DARK. Bill had a crush on Nicky and very soon Nicky was an AFTER DARK cover boy (nude, of course). I was out and about in those days with another model, Todd DeCrespi, who was blond, hot, and came from money. It was Todd who set the stage for me to get to know Nicky. However Nicky was career-driven in those days in the big apple, and only magazine publishers, agents, directors, and Todd DeCrespi ever really got to know him better.

This time around I had become an agent myself, with an office bearing my last name, and Nicky was much more receptive to my attention this time around. He invited me to come onto the set and see him work his magic on John Schlesinger. His role, as it turned out, was opposite Natalie Schafer, as her boy toy….small world isn’t it? When I stopped laughing, Nicky was already in make-up wearing his white tux with extra-tight pants…our Nicky never missed a trick. We were at a location using an actual house, which was to be Natalie Schafer’s mansion/brothel where blue movies were run for guests as they drank and chose their partners for the evening. During a break, Nicky came over for some advice and I could not resist saying to him, “Now, remember Nicky, let the hips carry the body.”

The next time I would see Natalie would be at Hermione Baddeley’s house during one of the many parties I attended there over the next few years. I was always looking for clients at that time and when I finally had a moment to chat with the divine Schafer I made a point not to mention GILLIGAN’S ISLAND, as it was not a particular passion of mine and I knew she was probably tired of being chatted up about it anyway. My icebreaker was decidedly different. I came up to her with a drink and said, “I have always wanted to chat with someone who survived being directed by Fritz Lang.” The look she gave me was priceless. “Did I hear you correctly, young man?” “Why, yes. I’ve seen SECRET BEYOND THE DOOR many times over the years and I really think you are wonderful in it as Joan Bennett’s best friend.” She took a long pause and then said to me, “Joan Bennett does not have best friends.”

From that moment on I was hers to command. She was simply fantastic company and fun to be around, as any of her countless friends will testify.

I asked her to lunch with my partner Carol Franklin, and she accepted. Two days later we all met at the Old World on Sunset, which is gone today, but in 1977 it was an eatery much-frequented by show-biz folks. The lunch was friendly enough, but my partner really wanted to sign her and that made for a bit of tension during the meal. Natalie was charming but firm about representation. “You two really think you could get me work that did not involve me playing variations on Mrs. Howell?” Carol was adamant that we could but I knew in my heart of hearts that as an agency we were still so new to the scene that it might be harder than Carol realized to make the industry not typecast as they tended to do when an actor achieves the kind of fame Natalie received in GILLIGAN’S ISLAND.

I changed the subject while we were having dessert and asked about Fritz Lang again as my partner gave me the evil eye for taking time away from getting her to sign on the dotted line. Natalie welcomed the moment and told me this about making SECRET BEYOND THE DOOR: “All I have to say about Lang is, he was a sadist…He enjoyed making his cast suffer over and over again with endless takes of the same scene. At one point, I am standing by a walk-in fireplace in the home of Michael Redgrave and his new bride, Joan Bennett. Now remember, Joan had her own production company at the time, and Lang essentially worked for her. Now, the scene where I am standing by this roaring fire listening to Redgrave go on about Bluebeard or some nonsense…The heat was getting so intense that I felt like I was about to pass out. After twenty-four takes I felt my arm burning and I did something I had never done on a film set before: I yelled, ‘CUT!’ I then looked at that sadist and told him no film was worth being burned alive to make, and left the set. Joan went white and then left the set as well. I let her feel my arm and dress where I had been standing by that damn fireplace for the last 45 minutes. She asked if I was alright and then went to Lang’s trailer. After that, nothing was ever mentioned about it and work resumed without incident. I am sure Joan let him have it about that kind of obsessive shooting and the film wrapped and I never worked for him again, thank God.”

About three days later Natalie phoned the office and in the most charming way declined to be represented by DEL VALLE, FRANKLIN AND LEVINE. I must say, I was somewhat relieved as I am sure, looking back now after nearly three decades, that we could not have made her wish come true – to lift the typecasting she was forced to endure as Mrs. Thurston Howell III. As time went by and I saw more of her socially, I realized that there were really two Natalie Schafers. The first one was a fascinating woman of great bearing and charm who held her own in the world of show business and society and had done so for a very long time. Natalie was on Broadway throughout the late thirties and forties in productions both large and small. One of her longest runs was in a play entitled LADY IN THE DARK, which launched Danny Kaye to stardom as perhaps the first openly gay character in a major Broadway show. Natalie recalled, “Danny was simply aglow with talent in those days and very ambitious as well. He made the most of what he had to offer and that was a lot! You could hear the audience roar when he would finish his machine gun recitation of 50 Russian composers, all mentioned at once in a song called TCHAIKOWSKY that lasted about three minutes. That was a remarkable production not just for Danny but as a tour-de-force performance from Gertie Lawrence as well. She was electrifying in the BALLAD OF JENNY number, not to mention she was on stage almost throughout the play. The critics went wild for her. Victor Mature was in the show as well, looking like a stage-door Valentino, but he had style and Hollywood was his oyster once he turned up there to work.”

I really don’t think her television fans ever had a clue about this woman’s range or the life she led in New York. Natalie was married for nine years to actor Louis Calhern, who is primarily remembered for two screen performances: that of CAESAR, the title role in the Marlon Brando version of the Bard’s play, and the crime boss who “keeps” Marilyn Monroe in THE ASPHALT JUNGLE , directed by John Huston. Natalie tolerated Louis Calhern’s drinking as long as she could before she could take no more and left. They stayed in touch until his death and that story she recounted for me one night at her Rodeo Drive address. “Louis had been working on TEAHOUSE OF THE AUGUST MOON and was off the wagon. He went on a bender halfway through production and went into a seizure. The house doctor gave him an injection and it killed him instantly. If only they had taken him to a hospital he might have been saved. After a time I came to realize that sooner or later something else would have taken him since he simply could not stop–the disease was too far along.” After her marriage to Calhern she almost married another actor, Charles Butterworth, but he would die in a car accident just a year into their relationship. The next man to come into Natalie’s life was a surprise, since it would be the celebrated director Ernst Lubitsch, and their relationship was quite serious at the time. It is difficult to imagine just how bright and sophisticated Natalie Schafer really was to capture the imagination of a world-class film director, as she did long before there really was a television industry. Natalie also had a long-term relationship with playwright George S. Kaufman, and this man was known far and wide for not suffering fools gladly.

The Natalie I came to know was more and more Mrs. Thurston Howell III, or “Lovey,” the reason being she could slip into this persona like a glove; and her public seemed to expect it as well. Even as I write this, I can hear her voice and it is the voice of Lovey to be sure. I loved going over to 514 Rodeo Drive to visit, as she always had interesting friends (mostly writers). At the time I knew her best (1983 to 1987) George Eels (the biographer of both Mae West and Cole Porter) was staying with her, at one point living downstairs in the second level of her split-level home, which was modest by Beverly Hills standards, but comfortable. She bought the house for $50,000 during the forties and it was worth at least three million when she died.

Natalie loved her dogs and she had a teacup poodle named–what else?–Lovey. One evening my partner Chris and I were there and Lovey entered the room and scooted all the way across the floor, leaving a rather brown trail in its wake. Natalie looked at Lovey, smiled and said, “Lovey just adores to scoot, and if you think about it, who can blame her?” It was remarks like that, spoken of course as Mrs. Howell, which made such a non-event, well, eventful. She was about to have her portrait done by a mutual friend, Don Bachardy, and this was of course while Christopher Isherwood was still with us. I told her about my time with Don and suggested she get plenty of rest beforehand, as he tended to go for the warts-and-all approach, as his subjects discovered.

On one occasion I asked Natalie if she and her co-star Jim Backus ever socialized or developed a close friendship during the run of GILLIGAN’S ISLAND, and her reply was not what one expected regarding such a famous team like Thurston and Lovey Howell. “I loved working with Jim and we did have a certain frisson, to be sure, but we were never allowed to develop much in the way of an off-camera relationship because of his wife Henny. You see, Henny Backus could have given insecure lessons to Joan Crawford! Henny was always on set watching her husband and was fiercely over-protective of his every move. They were always a team; you never got one without the other. We were less than a year into the show when Henny confronted me one day about my having designs on her husband. I made it abundantly clear to Henny that I would never make a play for a married man. For one thing, and as much as I enjoyed working with Jim, I simply did not feel that way about him personally. I don’t think she really believed me and as a result of this confrontation I never socialized with him in any way off set.”

Natalie was always amazed at what the fans would buy as souvenirs of the show, and when the Gilligan’s Island Vodka was marketed, Alan Hale Jr. organized a special evening to launch it at his supper club known as Alan Hale’s Lobster Barrel on La Cienega Boulevard in West Hollywood, just down the street from another showbiz landmark, Casa Cugat, Xavier Cugat’s Mexican restaurant and bar (it was not unusual to see Cugat sitting in the back with his beloved Chihuahuas any day of the week). In any case, I was invited to come, and all I can remember after all these years is how much these two were loved by the fans that showed up to celebrate. It was in this atmosphere that one could really see just how much Natalie loved being in the spotlight, and by then had become reconciled with her celebrity as Lovey Howell, even at the cost of losing her former identity as one of the actresses of her day most sought-after by talented men of intelligence and taste.

The conversation turned at one point to Joan Crawford, as we were drinking bottles of Gilligan Island’s Vodka, so naturally I asked about what she was like. Natalie had done two pictures with Crawford, one at MGM just before she was let go by Louis B. Mayer (REUNION IN FRANCE) and one at Universal in the fifties (FEMALE ON THE BEACH). Natalie began to laugh and then recalled, “Joan was a very driven woman and very insecure. While we were working at MGM she was all about being a team and working for the good of the picture. I think she knew it was all coming to an end there, but she never commented on it to me. Now, FEMALE was another story…By this time I presumed Joan and I were friends, at least colleagues, so I made a point of stopping by her trailer for cocktails and such. Now the leading man on this film was Jeff Chandler, a terribly nice young man, very good-looking, and he and Joan were in the middle of a very steamy affair. I remember Joan staying on after filming and Jeff remained as well. We were about halfway through the film when Joan invited me to her house for a small dinner party and I really had made very definite plans and had to decline. Well, she seemed alright with it, until the next morning I arrived on the set only to find my trailer had been physically moved almost to the parking lot of Universal…You learn not to say ‘no’ to Miss Joan Crawford unless you wish to suffer the consequences.”

While we were on the subject of Joan Crawford, Natalie asked me to turn the living room light on as we were back in her den area where she had her built-in bar organized. Her living room lights were tall and had living plants around them that she had to water. However, in order to turn them on or off you had to literally slap the plant right on the leaves. I remember Natalie laughing and calling out to me, “Those are my Joan Crawford lamps, darling. They require discipline!”

As the eighties came to an end, I sort of lost track of Natalie, except for the odd phone call or Christmas card. She was always social and kept busy as far as I could tell. There was always something going on regarding GILLIGAN and its fan base. Natalie was by now a television icon, and well deserved it was. She once made some calls as a favor and got my partner Chris a job, which we never forgot, as that was the kind of person she was: thoughtful and caring, a real lady in every way.

In 1990 I got a call from a writer friend of mine telling me that Natalie was in a new movie-of-the-week with Anthony Perkins called I’M DANGEROUS TONIGHT. I made a point of seeing the film the first night it aired and there was Natalie Schafer in a wheelchair, playing a mute grandmother who gets murdered in the third reel. She looked in character, frightened and old. Somehow this depressed me to no end and I tried the next day to reach her; however my call this time was not returned, and the following year we lost Natalie to cancer. She died at home with her GILLIGAN’S ISLAND co-star Dawn Wells in attendance, I understand, and later there was a small gathering at 514 Rodeo Drive to remember that wildly talented lady of the dark, our Lovey, the unmistakable Miss Natalie Schafer.

“THE GIRL CAN’T HELP IT”

Gianna Maria Canale from THE DEVIL'S COMMANDMENT, 1956

“She’s got a lot of what they call the most

She can’t help it…The Girl can’t help it

The girl can’t help it: she was born to please”

Whenever I hear Little Richard’s contagious 50’s’classic “The Girl Can’t Help It” I always flash to that iconic image of Divine walking down that street in Baltimore with a piece of steak she shoplifted safely placed between she ample thighs. I am sure that Divine is thinking of Jayne Mansfield at that moment as she seemed to channel movie stars with her drag. In one of Divine’s last interviews he referred to his alter ego as “A cross between Bette Davis and Joan Collins…the woman you love to hate” This image from PINK FLAMINGOS is also my motivation to curate yet another Pop Culture photo exhibit of images from THE DEL VALLE ARCHIVE.

This exhibition of photography has been organized to challenge the traditional representation of the feminine in films from the 50’s and 60’s. Among the 30 images on display are Sue Lyon sucking on a lollipop in LOLITA….British nymphet Linda Hayden at 16 in her groundbreaking BABY LOVE…Patty Duke in the role that nearly ended her career in VALLEY OF THE DOLLS, Charlotte Rampling bare-breasted in suspenders hot to trot in Nazi Germany for THE NIGHT PORTER…Candice Bergen as Diana the goddess of the hunt in THE MAGUS, and Maryanne Faithfull in full leather gear as THE GIRL ON THE MOTORCYCLE. The beat does go on.

Sue Lyon in LOLITA

The subjects of this exhibit are actresses, most in some type of fetish gear, representing transgressive creations that men covet, since they are at once complex personalities with unrestrained sexuality. The defination of “transgressive” for my purpose being to go beyond…to rebel. These films were all made in a male-dominated society that attempts to define, limit and more importantly contain women. Some feminists put forth the concept that women in Cinema are really just projections of male fantasy and desire. The real power of these transgressive films is to lift women out of the shadows. to disrupt and challenge the patriarchal values of society. Since the feminist movement took hold in the mid-sixties, this transgressive feminine presence in films is seen as a response to the Atomic age, with all it’s paranoia from the revolt in the 50’s of domesticity.

The fifties output of Joan Crawford is particularly fascinating material for this exhibit since all her films beginning with her surprise hit SUDDEN FEAR function as an alternate universe for her ageless sex appeal and star power . I chose two images of Joan Crawford for this exhibit. The first from JOHNNY GUITAR, the Technicolor fever dream of Nicholas Ray, with duelling tour de force performances from both Mercedes McCambridge and Joan Crawford. The other is from FEMALE ON THE BEACH – the image of Joan standing in the middle of her bedroom drunk, clutching a fifth of bourbon, says it all. In this film Joan is well over 50 and yet the script refers to her at all times as a girl. She rejects and then falls for a male hustler (Jeff Chandler) who is part of an escort service run by Natalie Schafer and her hubby Cecil Kellaway, filling in for her later TV hubby Jim Backus. Reality is blurred here, since Joan was having an affair with Chandler on and off the set.

Linda Hayden from BABY LOVE

The Image from VALLEY OF THE DOLLS is one of my personal favorites as it defines Patty Duke’s character just as well as any of her over the top moments in the film itself. As Neely O’Hara our Patty is supposed to be playing an uber-talented triple threat of Diva, superstar, and pill-head alcoholic. Resplendent in an ensemble that can only be described as Hooker chic, Patty sports big hair and a micro mini skirt. Patty poses by a larger than life photo advertising her latest star turn in a musical headed for Broadway, still, shall we say, high on believing…moments after this photo she does her mega break-down in the alley in the scene we all remember forever darkening the image of a younger Patty Duke for whom a “hotdog could make her lose control.”

I wanted to include the amazing Charlotte Rampling in the exhibit and the image I could never forget is her cabaret turn, bare breasted of course, in THE NIGHT PORTER. This is an interesting failure from the decadent 70’s since both Rampling and Dirk Bogade had done Visconti’s film THE DAMMED prior to this and both were disappointed by the press’s lack of response when the film came out. I think placing Bogade in a sexual role like this is always risky since he tended to bring a subtext of homosexuality in nearly everything he did during this last period of his life. There is simply no frisson between them in this film; it is however beautifully photographed and the first half is filled with promise that ultimately collapses by the final reel. The flashbacks however are priceless, with our Charlotte recalling her time with the Nazi’s as “My blue Heaven.” It does not get more transgressive than this.

Patty Duke by a poster from VALLEY OF THE DOLLS

The Flaming image of Maria Montez, while not part of the era I was aiming for in this exhibit, still qualifies as transgressive Cinema because Montez epitomizes the woman who cannot help herself in transgressing the socially accepted behavior in any society she inhabits. The five films she made at Universal in the forties are iconic for her physical domination of the Technicolor process, ultimately becoming its official Queen. Of the five films, it is COBRA WOMAN which shines the brightest and is, of course, the most transgressive of the lot. In this film we have two Marias, one good, the other totally not. As the high priestess to King Cobra, Maria Montez set the standard for camp in the cinema. It would take an author like Gore Vidal to immortalize her in COBRA WOMAN by setting his character of Myra Breckinridge and its sequel in the very film itself. Film Historian both gay and straight have long been aware of this film and it’s many charms.

One aspect that all these women have in common in the narratives of nearly all of these transgressive films is their rejection of the law, which then leads to their punishment for behavior society finds disturbing. The empowered female was brought down for the good of the community. The order must be preserved. I included the epic Tura Satana from Russ Meyer’s FASTER PUSSYCAT KILL KILL since she is now an icon of the transgressive power of the female to dominate and win, if only for a moment, before facing her doom. The haunting specter of Jess Franco’s VENUS IN FURS is also included as one of the more fascinating images in world cinema, observing her torture and death at the hands of decadent playboys, only to witness her return from the dead to avenge the guilty in kind.

Arlene Dahl from SLIGHTLY SCARLET

LOLITA simply gets better with each viewing. I never tire of watching James Mason twitch and stutter as Sue Lyon forces him to eat his breakfast piecemeal, suspending his egg until he takes it whole into his mouth. I also feel we are seeing Shelly Winters at her very best as the devoted Charlotte Haze, going on that long train ride to nowhere. Peter Sellers is of course flawless as Quilty, forever taunting as the desk clerk at the hotel, or using a dazzling array of impersonations to achieve his desires. Sue Lyon was perhaps too old to be faithful to the source and yet I can think of no one else in the part but her… she will forever be Lo in the morning, iconic with her lollipop and hula hoop.

This exhibit might be the tip of the iceberg if it is well received, since we went through over 200 images to finally settle on the 30 represented in the current show. Perhaps we can look forward to “THE GIRL CAN’T HELP IT” PART TWO.

This exhibit will be running throughout the month of June at THE BRICKHOUSE GALLERY 2837 36th St. on Broadway Sacramento Calif.

REMEMBER

SHE’S GOT A LOT OF WHAT WE CALL THE MOST.

THE GIRL CANT HELP IT…..

THE RANDY GNOME OF KING’S ROAD

Those of you that have been following my exploits on this website are probably aware of my endless fascination with British character actors, and it has been my good fortune over the years to have made the acquaintance of some of the most eccentric as well as the most talented in show business. However, once in a blue moon an actor you have admired from afar turns up in your life and, through a series of seemingly unrelated events, becomes your worst nightmare instead of a warm and fuzzy addition to your memoirs.

Such is the case with the incomparable Aubrey Morris, a staple in British television and films since the late 1950’s, Mr. Morris looks and sometimes acts a bit like Freddie Jones but never had the opportunities which placed Mr. Jones in the stratosphere of the elite in the acting profession. Aubrey Morris is perhaps best known for his perverse turn in Stanley Kubrick’s A CLOCKWORK ORANGE where he manages in just a few moments of screen time to be creepier than Keith Moon as the lascivious “Uncle Ernie” in TOMMY. As Mr.Deltoid the “guidance councilor” Aubrey’s body language and line readings indicate a more homoerotic subtext in guiding young Malcolm McDowell into the nearest bedside for a quickie.

While the Kubrick film may be his finest hour for most fans, I came to know him best from countless British television shows like THE AVENGERS, DANGER MAN, THE SAINT and RETURN OF THE SAINT. Aubrey was also in the legendary BBC production of COLD COMFORT FARM with the fantastic Alastair Sims. I really began to appreciate his work when he started to turn up in horror films during the late sixties/early seventies like THE NIGHT CALLER FROM OUTER SPACE, BLOOD FROM THE MUMMY’S TOMB, and Tobe Hooper’s bloated vampire sci-fi epic LIFEFORCE.

A Clockwork Orange

Since I lived half of my life around Hollywood and its varied locations it is certainly not a surprise to find many of my favorite actors shopping and dining about the neighborhood. And it was on just such a night around mid 2003 that I spotted our Mr. Deltoid in the flesh, waiting in line for a prescription in the pharmacy section of PAVILLIONS, an all night market in West Hollywood on Santa Monica Blvd. At first I thought about treating this encounter like a birdwatcher sans keeping a diary, with entries like “spotted Aubrey Morris in the pharmacy….hope whatever is wrong with him isn’t fatal.” My partner Chris Dietrich was with me that night and, knowing how much I enjoy these sightings, pushed me onward into making myself known (since we all know being shy is not one of my hang-ups). Chris then said the magic words: “Why don’t you do an interview for Films in Review? You know Roy would get a kick out of you running into him like this.” Now that I had a purpose I got up and went over to where he was standing and spoke to him. “Mr Morris?” “Yes…” he said, looking me up and down before speaking again. “Do we know each other?” Here he added a bit of that half-smile he had down pat from years of mugging for the cameras. “No we don’t, but I am a fan of your work and would like to interview you for Films in Review which is now on-line” and on and on I went for about ten minutes until they called him over to the counter for his order. By then we had exchanged phone numbers and I was expected to call and set up a meeting.

The following day I called and got his answering machine. We played phone tag for a day or so until I finally caught him at home. This first conversation I had with him was slightly uncomfortable because of what he managed to say within the first few seconds of chatting…. “Oh before we go on are you planning to bugger me?..I mean, it’s been so long since I’ve had a really good shag.” Well I mean thanks for sharing but are you high or what? I assumed he was putting me on, and since I only really knew him from his films I just took it for what I always chalk up to being British as well as eccentric, not to mention that Aubrey was, after all, Mr. Deltoid. I mean really.

In spite of the little alarms ringing in the back of my head, I invited him over for a drink at the guest house I was then renting in the hopelessly pretentious section of Beverly Hills you are so used to seeing on TV shows like 90210. I was not too concerned about the randy behavior of our Mr. Morris because I was not going to be alone with him. Chris would be there to make sure I wasn’t fucked to death by this oversexed gnome from across the pond.

A Clockwork Orange - Reverse angle

Aubrey Morris arrived on time and since it was not easy to find the entrance to my part of the grounds unless you had been there before, I walked out to the front of the main house and walked him inside. I noticed that he was driving a new car and before I could comment further he explained that he needed a decent looking car to make the rounds of the casting offices, or for auditions. Aubrey is not unlike most of the actors I’ve met from England, like Michael Gough for example, who always refer to themselves as “jobbing actors,” which means these guys do not sit by the phone and wait for offers, they get out and make a difference.

Aubrey came in and immediately asked if we had any tea as he had a pill he needed to take…. I had been about to offer him a cocktail, so this changed the program ever so slightly as I had tea but no cream. Aubrey, always polite, explained that he was the kind of Englishman who always had his tea white, however he needed something to down his medication so he made an exception. Having survived our first obstacle, I then began to chat about his films. I had looked all day for some stills of him that I should have had in the archive and managed to find a really camp photo with his throat torn out from the Hammer film BLOOD FROM THE MUMMY’S TOMB. When I showed him the still he made such a fuss over it that I made a present of it to him on the spot. He then proceeded to tell about working with the director of BFMT, the late Selt Holt. “I was on set the day Selt had his fatal attack; in fact he collapsed in my arms. He got a severe case of the hic-cups which triggered his heart attack, and he died straight away.” Aubrey remembered being asked to arrive at the studio early one morning to choose a throat for his death scene. He was ushered into a make-up room that had an entire wall of torn throats to examine, as the entire cast except for the stunning Hammer queen, Valerie Leon, all die at one point or another by this gruesome means. “Jimmy Villars and I stayed drunk after Selt died, and so I never bothered to see the finished film at all.”

As we were in the midst of our interview Aubrey asked where the loo was and then took his leave…in a few moments he came back into the living room and nearly fell over. I asked what was wrong and he explained that he was diabetic and needed something sweet immediately, so Chris and I scrambled around the house, finally finding some of those little packets of sugar, which he ate at once. By this time he was looking really ill and both Chris and I felt he needed to rest, at which point he asked if one of us could drive him back home as he did not think it was safe for him to get behind the wheel feeling like he did. We decided that Chris would drive him back in his car and I would follow in mine to bring him back. We managed to get Aubrey into his car and then I followed them back to King’s Road in West Hollywood where Aubrey lived, in a complex of buildings that took up the entire block of King’s Road in the heart of boys town.

Aubrey insisted we come in until he felt himself again. At this point I was frightened that he was going to die at any moment as he was (2003) in his 70’s and not in the best shape as well. His place was at once comfortable and very much a bachelor pad, in so much as it was filled with books and scripts, with the basic clutter one accumulates having moved from another country. Hollywood never really feels like home for a lot of people in the first place.

Aubrey seemed to be coming around to his old self and began to act as host, showing us around his apt, giving both of us this weird little wink as he showed us his bedroom. I remember him remarking it was almost the largest room in the flat to have had so little in the way of activity…a line we just let slide away as I noticed he had a cabinet filled with video tapes. He quickly explained that these were his “show reels” and complete versions of some of his movies and tv appearances. I noticed one tape marked Suez 1956 and asked about it as I had no idea what is was. Aubrey took the tape out and said “Oh lets watch a bit of it, okay? I am very proud of this performance and if you are going to write about my work you will need to see this. I did this for the BBC in 1979 and I play Nikita Kruschev, complete with the Russian accent…in fact I learned some Russian for the part as you will see.” The tape was a bit dupey but I am very glad to have seen it because Aubrey was outstanding in it, with a cast that included Robert Stephens (who had just married Maggie Smith) and two Hammer stars – Michael Gough and Jennifer Daniels.

By now Aubrey was back in fine form, and as we finished watching his star turn as the leader of all the Russias, he asked if I would like to take anything back home to watch for the interview, so I chose his “show reel” which had his best bits from current shows like RED ROSES AND PETROL where he plays father Morton, and a cable horror film, SHE CREATURE (also known as the MERMAID CHONICLES), which I like very much.

One thing I began to notice was how almost all of Aubrey’s Hollywood performances were alike…..he had perfected the persona of an eccentric old sage with a love affair with the bottle, and seemed to play variations of it for most things he did in the states. Aubrey is not unlike my other actor friend Reggie Nalder in that he may not be right for most parts, but when he is there is simply no one else that van play it. Aubrey Morris has that quality in spades.

During this visit Aubrey kept looking for the scrapbook with all his reviews and photos, and simply could not remember where he had stored it, at one point phoning the manager’s office to see if any workmen had been in his apt while he was out. He did find two photos of himself from Robin Hardy’s now classic film THE WICKER MAN and insisted I take them and have them copied for the article I was to do, and I agreed, asking if I could make a print of one for him to autograph for me. At this point he seemed to be getting tired and we decided it was time for us to go. He had grown very nostalgic by now, reflecting about his mother who he told us lived to be in her 90’s, and how he missed telling her about his acting jobs, and how at the end he stood over her bed and held her hand, telling her as she was drifting away how much he loved her and would always be her little boy.

As he talked I could see that in spite of his age Aubrey Morris was just that – a little boy that never really grew up, much like James Barry’s creation Peter Pan. All this reflection made me feel very sad and it was time to take our leave. Aubrey walked out to the parking garage and apologized for frightening us so, and we left him by saying how much we enjoyed the time and felt like we were old friends even though we had just met.

The next day I received a call from Aubrey, and he sounded a bit off. And then he asked me the most extraordinary thing “When I began to clean up the place this morning I noticed one of my silver spoons was missing. Do you think your friend Chris nicked it?” I was so stunned that I said to him “You are kidding, aren’t you? I mean Chris does not steal and I can’t believe you saying this to me. We brought you home when you were ill and this is the way you behave?” Aubrey got very quiet and said, “Well, I’m just asking, and I can’t find my scrapbook either. You didn’t take that, did you?’ “Aubrey are you mad or what? If you remember, last night you couldn’t even find it, so how could I have taken it…besides you walked us to my car and we were in shorts. I mean think about what you are saying, will you?”

He finally just tried to change the subject, but I was really pissed off at the old poof for being so nuts, so I hung up on him. Afterwards he tried calling back and I simply decided that he was mad as they come and wanted nothing further to do with him. Also this was the end of 2003 and little did I know that Chris had less than a year to live and that I had more on my plate than to deal with a totally delusional, wildly out of control actor. Aubrey had told us the night before that for years he had a severe drinking problem and used to get really in-your-face when he had a bit too much. He remembered being on a tour with a group of very famous actors. They were traveling by train, and he got so out of it with Richard Burton or someone of that caliber that he was put off the train and woke up the next day without a clue where he was or what had happened.

This experience really spooked me, and I began asking around Hollywood about Aubrey. I soon discovered that he had a reputation for putting people off, and that it was affecting his ability to secure acting assignments. Apparently he mistook things for insults or sexual connections that simply were not there. He was fortunate to have in his corner actors like Patrick McGoohan who made it his business to see that Aubrey worked whenever he could find a project that had a small part for him. They went way back to what is perhaps the first film Morris ever did – THE QUARE FELLOW in 1962. Ian McShane also found work for Aubrey in his series DEADWOOD, and they too went way back in time. Ian had him on his English series LOVEJOY as well. During the time I knew him, Malcolm McDowell made a personal appearance at a screening of A CLOCKWORK ORANGE. Aubrey turned up and Malcolm made note of this and also found a part for his former acting partner.

After that phone call I began to remember other remarks Aubrey made that were strange, like his recollection of Patrick Stewart when they were filming LIFEFORCE in London. Aubrey told me that Patrick ran out of cash one night while they were in the middle of a night shoot and asked Aubrey if he could borrow 20 pounds, and he would return the money straight away. According to Aubrey, Patrick just forgot about it until one day Aubrey spotted him getting into a taxi and went over and asked if he could please have his money. Stewart was apparently so outraged at being asked in public to pay back a loan that he threw the pound note at Aubrey and drove off in a huff, and the two actors never spoke again. I mean, what an odd story to tell an interviewer, since it was meant to make Patrick Stewart look bad, especially now that Stewart is well known for the Star Trek series. (Aubrey also did his share of sci-fi with SPACE 1999 as well as the original Star Trek .)

After my last phone conversation with Aubrey I decided to simply drop the whole notion of interviewing him, even though if you look at the backlog of Camp David’s for 2003 you will see a column where I mentioned having met him, and was planning to share an exclusive interview in the near future. It has taken five years for me to return to this material and certainly not in the way either one of us would have expected.

The final confrontation came about because, by my not returning his call and such, he began going around Hollywood into memorabilia shops looking for his scapbook and asking if I had sold the two photos of him from THE WICKER MAN. I knew then that I would have to see him one more time in person and return his two original photos which were now back from the lab with the two additional copies for me which at the time I had wanted so he could autograph them for me. Now I could really care less.

I finally called him up and he was like a different person altogether… laughing and sounding as if he and I had just come from a dinner party or something. Anyway I suggested we meet across the way from his King’s Road apt in a corner coffee bar. I had his photos and I had planned to simply hand him the folder and say my goodbyes. When I arrived he was still at his place, so I went ahead and ordered a coffee, waiting for the Wicker man’s gatekeeper to turn up.

Aubrey Morris arrived in full flood wearing a fedora and a long scarf wrapped around his neck…..the movie star had landed. He came in with all eyes upon him, swept over to my table, and planted a huge kiss right on my mouth, then sat down, waving a waiter over to take his order. This was unlike anything I had encountered from him before, and as his coffee arrived he began to do our interview all over again by reminding me that we had never completed it and now here we go…

Aubrey started to sing a song from a show he did in the West End called ‘Expresso Bongo’ at the Saville threater in 1958. This was an entirely different show from the one Val Guest made into a film a couple of years later with Laurence Harvey. This ‘Expresso Bongo’ was very transgressive for it’s time, immoral, dark and sardonic, while the film version was cleaned up in order to be a Cliff Richard showcase. Paul Scofield had originated the role Harvey played in the film and was by all accounts stunning. Aubrey sang from memory a song called “Nausea,” and then informed me that Charles Gray (whom I expressed an interest in earlier when we discussed Hammer films) and he became lovers during the run, confiding that he was buggering good old Charles until doomsday. It seems Gray had the role Aubrey would have liked to play – the chic owner of the Diplomatique club. Charles even had a song – “The Dip is Dipping” – however it did not make it onto the soundtrack.

Aubrey was spellbinding in recalling the lost era of theater in London and a production that has since become legend. The film never came close to what he described as a landmark moment in theater history. The production is said to have inspired the classic Alexander Mackendrick film THE SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS.

Looking back, I wish the situation had been otherwise, and I could have really been friends with this man, since there is greatness in him. Long after all the petty remarks and crazy behavior is forgotten there will always be A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, and dozens of cameos that dazzle the imagination, with the talent and humor that will always be Aubrey Morris.

IN THE NAME OF HELLFIRE AND BLOOD: FERDY MAYNE

Whenever I am pressed to make a choice as to which actor in the history of movies gave the best performance playing a vampire my answer is simple: Bela Lugosi. Lugosi IS Dracula in thought, word and deed. He gave the devil his soul the moment he stepped before the cameras over at Universal in 1930 and he is quite beyond criticism because he OWNS the role of Count Dracula and always will, regardless of whoever assumes the mantle as time goes by.

Now, having said that, I would also say that of all the actors who ever played a vampire after Lugosi, the greatest performance definitely belongs to Ferdy Mayne for his magnificent turn as Count Von Krolock in Roman Polanski’s DANCE OF THE VAMPIRES. This masterpiece has been a long time coming in recognition by film critics, yet the fans always knew this was a very special film in the history of the genre.

I first saw this film at a drive-in under the title THE FEARLESS VAMPIRE KILLERS OR, PARDON ME, BUT YOUR TEETH ARE IN MY NECK. This version was cut and re-dubbed, however this was all yet to be discovered. Even in this bastardized form the magic was still there in Douglas Slocombe’s superb compositions, the enchanting score, unforgettable from longtime Polanski composer Krzysztof Komeda, and of course the performances, hand-picked by Polanski, then placed under the utter perfection of his direction. This film is now restored on DVD to the version Polanski meant for people to see, and it is now rightfully regarded as a classic.

I had loved this film for years before finally meeting the actor who played the master vampire Count Von Krolock. The timing could never have been better as I was at the time living in Beverly Hills and working in the business; yet I was still very much a monster kid at heart and Ferdy Mayne was horror royalty. I had been at a dinner party at the home of Marion Rosenberg, a powerful producer who had already done dozens of films including X, Y AND ZEE with Elizabeth Taylor and Micheal Caine, WHERE EAGLES DARE with Richard Burton and Clint Eastwood along with one of those little British sleepers that very few ever see (unless, say, you are reviewing films for FILMS AND FILMING, like I was at the time), THE WALKING STICK starring Samatha Eggar. Now the last two films also had the distinction of having Ferdy Mayne in small but showy parts, none of which gave him the majesty Polanski did for that one and only moment of time in the actor’s life when personality and performance became one.

Marion knew just about everybody worth knowing in show business, so try and imagine just how funny it was for her to be asked if she knew Ferdy Mayne, and would an introduction be at all possible. Marion laughed and laughed, saying to me, “My dear boy, Ferdy will be over the moon to meet someone like you that knows his films and has such respect. You must know, of course, that he feels exactly the same about that film, so you two have to meet—that is all there is to it.”

Within 24 hours my phone rang and when I picked up the receiver I heard this unmistakable voice on the other end say, “Mr. Del Valle? This is Ferdinand Mayne. I believe you wanted to speak with me.” Did I ever! And with that we arranged a time and of course the place was mine. I invited him for cocktails at 7 pm. He then asked if I would mind if he brought someone. I told him that as far as I was concerned he could bring as many peoples as he liked. He laughed that deep wonderful laugh I would come to know so well and replied, “Oh, one will do. I would like to bring my lady if that is alright,” and so we were on for drinks at seven at my place.

Ferdinand Philip Mayer-Horckel arrived at my front door on time and with a striking blond about half his age named Jan. She was, he told me, a make-up artist and they were a couple. Ferdy wore a tailored, dark blue jacket with a hand-made yellow silk shirt, and a red ascot finished the picture. Ferdy wore a monocle around his neck and knew just when to put it in his eye for the right effect. He was everything I knew he would be: a class act and a gentleman of the old school as well.

I had iced some Champagne to mark the occasion and his lady had rolled some joints for us to smoke and before she could say a word, Ferdy looked over in my direction and said, “Sometimes I will have a puff or two for color.” Oh my God, I was not only meeting my idol for the first time but I was about to get high with him as well—this never happened with Christopher Lee!

I had also invited my best friend Peter from my days in Sacramento, who also loved the film and Ferdy just as much as I did. In fact, he managed to get a 16mm print of FEARLESS in scope six months after it played in theaters. We knew that film backwards and forwards, so much so that after a few glasses of bubbly we stood in front of him and did his dialogue from the film verbatim. Ferdy was genuinely moved, so much so that he asked us to do it once more. As Ferdy would say later, “It was like hearing poetry, and what an honor to be so remembered.” In other words, it was love at first sight.

At that time Ferdy was going back and forth from the flat in London that had been his for decades, off the old Brompton Road, and a series of houses and apartments in and around Beverly Hills. Ferdy lived off Mulholland Drive in a leased flat belonging to his long time friend, director Gabrielle Beaumont, whom he always referred to as “Gay Beaumont.” This was a very comfortable place except for the parking, which was wicked. One late afternoon he went for a stroll down the lane where he ran into a neighbor who, without knowing who he was, told him that way back in 1969 the killers of Sharon Tate washed the blood off their hands in this pond over by the fence. This of course just creeped him out as Ferdy had been in living Europe when the Manson killings took place, so to discover that he was now living so close to it all was nightmarish to say the least. Ferdy never liked to discuss his relationship with Sharon as he had grown quite fond of her, as had most of the cast and crew during the filming of VAMPIRES. “Sharon was a very kind and sweet person in life and of course Roman adored her and that was obvious from the first day of filming.”

Ferdy had made another vampire film not too long after the Polanski film for cameraman-turned-director Freddie Francis. It was shot in Germany under the title THE VAMPIRE HAPPENING. This film tried to capture the same spark that made Polanski’s film a classic and just missed the mark entirely.

THE VAMPIRE HAPPENING had no humor or charm and very little sex, so there would have been no reason to bother seeing it except for Ferdy’s star turn, this time as Count Dracula himself (or rather a parody of the master vampire). His part was played for broad laughs including the unlikely sight of seeing Dracula with his pants down after a night of bawdy bloodsucking. He tells a young girl “something has come up” as he peels a banana. I mean, really… He does get to fly away in a helicopter made especially for Dracula, so if you must, “for color” as Ferdy might say, just watch the last half and catch Ferdy’s remark about Christopher Lee. No one will stop you.

The leading lady in the film, Pia Degermark, had been quite the star and jet-setter before and after filming as she had once played the title role in the classic ELVIRA MADIGAN and then married a millionaire playboy only to lose everything in the end to drugs and drink. Pia actually wound up going to prison for a while, but as of today she is clean and sober, a sadder but wiser girl no doubt. Ferdy would always wonder what it was about his vampire films that seem to curse the leading ladies.

I had been following his career ever since the Polanski film and now we had become friends. At the time we met I was doing a column for John Russell Taylor’s FILMS AND FILMING magazine out of the UK, so I was able to be in London at least twice a year. I got to know not only Ferdy but his two beautiful daughters: Belinda, who was following her dad’s lead into acting while his other daughter, Fernanda, chose to raise a family instead. Good choice as it would turn out since she seems from all accounts to be happy and content with her life today.

There are not many actors that one could forge such a friendship with, and Ferdy certainly did not suffer fools gladly, so I counted myself blessed to have him in my corner. I was still trying to act as an actor’s agent when I first met him and had only recently lost my own agency in a year-long commercial strike, so Ferdy being Ferdy was always arranging meetings with other agents and businessmen in hopes of helping me get back in the game. However, I was writing more and more and in time I decided to work as a journalist and leave artist representation to Sue Mengers and her kind.

Ferdy loved shirts and collected them as kind of a hobby. He had dozens and dozens of beautiful handmade ones and now just needed enough hours in the day to wear them all. After awhile he moved out of Gay Beaumont’s flat and bought a condo right around the corner from the place where I lived for 25 years, at the corner of Oakhurst and Beverly. Ferdy bought this condo, which was about eight floors up in a high-rise building on Doheny Drive. At this time in his life he was working more than ever in both television and movies. I am so pleased to have known him during this stage of his life as he loved what he was doing so much. Belinda was also working at this time and getting bigger and bigger parts in films like KRULL and LASSITER, with Tom Selleck. Ferdy took out wonderful full-page ads when he was in such demand. One that I still have, from THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER, has two handsome portraits of him, one as himself and the other full-flood as Ben Ishak from Coppola’s RETURN OF THE BLACK STALLION. This film was special for Ferdy as he went on location for it and sent me postcards describing himself as “feeling ten feet tall walking around this ancient city as the star of a Coppola production.”

Ferdy had such elegance in his appearance in private life. I can still see him, always natty in bright colors wearing his beloved monocle around his neck, enjoying the attention he seemed to create where ever he went. Ferdy loved women and was always in pursuit when opportunity presented itself.

He was gone quite a bit during the eighties, doing the Dan Curtis mini-series WINDS OF WAR playing Herr Rosenthal, a part my friend Barbara Steele suggested him for after meeting Ferdy during a casting call. Ferdy always referred to Barbara as “Miss Cheekbones,” always grateful to be employed and especially in such a project as this one with almost every working actor in Britain playing in one part or another.

I have one very special memory with Ferdy and that was our time together on the film THE HORROR STAR, also known as FRIGHTMARE. Now this could have been a little classic sleeper of a horror film if the script had paid more attention to details and actually tried to be a black comedy about the picture business and especially the horror film picture business as it was being done in Hollywood at the very moment we were shooting our epic of terror. The director, Norman Thaddeus Vane, was a real piece of work in his own right as he had worked in England for years trying to get projects off and running, and sometimes he actually did succeed. Norman wrote the occult Indian thriller with Jan Micheal Vincent and Chief Dan George called SHADOW OF THE HAWK. THE HORROR STAR seemed to be written for Ferdy; at least he was a veteran of the genre, having even done a Hammer film (THE VAMPIRE LOVERS) so he had the right persona to play Conrad Ratzoff, horror star. Norman could never raise the bar beyond luring a bunch of teenagers into a haunted house and then killing them off one by one, which is a formula we just don’t need to see anymore, and this was 1985 already.