12/2/22
Newletter176
The Crack of Dawn
After my first assault on Hollywood when I was 17-18 years old, culminating in me hitchhiking to Alaska – which, if you the slightest bit interested, is fully documented in my book, Going Hollywood – I moved back to Detroit. Although I had already farted around making Super-8 movies with my buddies, Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell, all of which were amateurish, I now decided it was time to really get down to business and make some good movies, even if they were Super-8. I had an 18-page script called The Final Round (1978), that was a boxing comedy. I called Sam, who was attending Michigan State University at the time, and asked him if he wanted to help me make the movie and star in the film. Sam declined the lead role, took a smaller role, and said, “You should call Bruce Campbell. He’ll help you.”
I hadn’t seen Bruce since 1976, when he was a senior in high school (I would have been too, but I took the GED after 10th grade and started college). I was attending the local community college, and for no particular reason – maybe to show off – I stopped by Groves High School. I found Bruce and John Cameron (who would later produce many of the Coen Bros. movies) painting scenery for the school play. As I recall, we hung out for quite some time, maybe an hour and a half, and being a hot-shit college man, I smoked a couple of cigarettes in the school – I mean, what could they do to me? During this little fete, I made a bold statement that Cameron found so absurd that he shoved it back in my face a dozen times over the next decade. I said, “Live theater is dead.” We still have live theater, although we no longer have the Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller, William Inge playwrights to go with it, so I guess I was both right and wrong.
Bruce and I met at the nearby Howard Johnson’s. I got there first, clutching my 18-page script. Bruce arrived and as he walked in, he was a different person than I had previously known. Up to that moment, if you said “Bruce Campbell” I would envision a thin, tall, lanky, bespectacled geek wearing a baggy suit with suspenders, whose locker was right near mine for three years in junior high. We were in a few classes together and rarely spoke. Bruce really was the class clown – he was like a 14-year-old Jim Carrey. We both took an afterschool drama class one year, and he was outrageous. All the rest of us tried to learn our lines and not look like complete idiots. Bruce was bouncing off the walls he had so much energy and ability.
Bruce came walking up in the Howard Johnson’s, and between 1976 when I declared the death of live theater, and then, Bruce had put on 50-pounds of manliness. That lanky, bespectacled screwball with suspenders had become Gregory Peck. I was taken aback. But Bruce was still Bruce, except that now he had a serious side, and he wanted to do exactly what I wanted to do: make movies. We chit-chatted for a bit, then he said, “You’ve got a script?” It was on the table, and I slid it over. I said, “It’s a boxing comedy.” Bruce nodded, then proceeded to read the entire script with me sitting there. I thought he was going to take it home. Appearing dead serious, he read the script, really taking it in and spending maybe a minute a page, then slowly turning the page, nodding occasionally, but never smiling. He turned the last page, looked up and said, “Let’s make it.” I said, “It’s a comedy and you didn’t laugh once. You didn’t even smile.” Now Bruce smiled, “It’ll be funny when we shoot it.” It was fun to shoot, and Bruce’s and my production worked exceptionally well, but it never got funny. If Sam had starred in it instead of me, it would’ve certainly been funnier. Sam plays the former heavyweight boxing champion, with brain damage, and that’s the funniest bit in the movie. Still, it’s a pretty good-looking movie for what it is. However, I was so horrified by my own performance that I’ve avoided acting for the rest of my life.
These are the shortest days of the year. It’s pitch black out. But in three weeks the days will begin to grow longer. When I began this newsletter, approximately 176 days ago, it actually was the crack of dawn when I wrote it, and thus its title. I look forward to the two events synchronizing back out.
The forecast here is sunny and cold, and that’s OK with me. Too bad it’s not Sonny & Cher.