7/8/22
Newsletter35
The Ass Crack of Dawn
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It’s 5:26 AM and beginning to get light.
Degrees of separation. Thirty-odd years ago I became friends with Ed Neumier, who co-wrote the terrific script for the first “Robocop.” Ed’s good buddy was the late Miguel Ferrer, who co-starred in “Robocop.” Ed, Miguel and I shot pool a few times. Miguel’s father was the great, Oscar-winning actor, Jose Ferrer. Jose was married to Rosemary Clooney. Rosemary Clooney was the aunt of George Clooney.
In the late 1970s my buddy, Sheldon, wrote a play that was being put on in downtown L.A. by the Inner City Theater Group. After the show we all went to a bar. I hung out with one of set crew – a possibly 21-year-old Lawrence Fishburne. Larry had already co-starred in “Apocalypse Now,” but the movie got lost in post-production and hadn’t come out yet. Larry had no idea if the film would be any good, if he really wanted to be an actor, and did he want to stay in L.A. I’m happy to report it all worked out for him.
When I moved to Hollywood in 1976, traces of the old Hollywood were still all over the place. Across the street from both Paramount Pictures and my apartment was an old grocery store with a cool old storefront. The location was used in Billy Wilder’s classic, 1944 film, “Double Indemnity.” I came in the store one day, turned the corner of the aisle and came face to face with Mr. Whipple. They were shooting a Charmin commercial. I stayed and watched until he said, “Please, don’t squeeze the Charmin.” I actually watched as a crane removed the big neon sign of Leo the Lion from the roof of MGM studio, which became Lorimar Telepictures. It’s now Sony Pictures.
When all else failed in Hollywood, I occasionally took work as an extra. I appear 18 times in the first season of “Beverly Hills, 90210.” This was 1990 so I was already 32 years old, and too old be used as a student extra. So I’m everything else: a teacher extra, a local news crew cameraman, a patron in the Peach Pit where Jason Priestley’s character worked, a parent at a parent-teacher meeting. Somewhere in a giant mass of cops is me wearing the top-half of a police uniform in the first “Die Hard” movie. I’m an extra in my buddy, Sam’s movie, “Darkman.” I’m in a scene at a fair with Liam Neeson. He’s at a carnival booth and I cross behind him a half dozen times. I did a thing we in our Detroit group called, “The Double-Shemp.” At both ends of my path behind Liam I had various bits of costumes. I crossed behind him, quickly put on a hat, crossed behind him again, removed the hat, put on sunglasses and crossed again, etc. I’m an extra in “Evil Dead,” “Evil Dead 2,” and “Army of Darkness,” in which I played a skeleton. I am also an extra in John Cassavete’s “Opening Night.” I was in scenes with: Gena Rowlands, John Cassavettes, Ben Gazzara, Joan Blondell, and Paul Stewart, who played the butler in “Citizen Kane,” and has the final speech about how maybe rosebud is the sled.
Well, it’s daytime now.