The Crack of Dawn

Volume #96

9/13/22

Newsletter96

The Crack of Dawn

As a young man one of my dad’s best friends was Ed Aznavorian.  When my dad quit being a menswear salesman the year I was born, 1958, he went into real estate and house building.  His company built Ed Aznavorian’s house, then through Ed, my dad connected into the Armenian community and built a number of houses for them.  One of them was Ed’s good buddy, Joe Peligian.  At the age of seven I became friends with Craig Peligian.  Craig is very handsome and became a model here in Detroit, then took a shot at Hollywood.  Since I was already there, he contacted me and we renewed our friendship.  Craig is an extremely nice guy who would often says shit like, “Well, I’m not that smart.”  I don’t think it’s true, but maybe it helped him become one of the biggest TV producers in Hollywood.  Craig got into reality shows as a producer at the very, very beginning, like 1988-89.  He came up with an hour-long reality show about people getting injured in one way or another, then ending up in the hospital, which he pitched to a studio.  He heard nothing back for a few months, then they called in a panic and said they needed six hour-long episodes in two weeks.  There wasn’t enough time to pull this off in any normal way, so Craig figured out that the only way he could do it was with two crews: an interior crew at the hospital, and exterior crew for the injuries.  Craig might say he wasn’t smart, but this was possibly the smartest thing I’ve ever heard of a producer doing.  For every part he hired a twin, which you could only do in Hollywood.  This allowed him to shoot the interiors and the exteriors at the same time.

Craig moved on to produce Real Stories of the Highway Patrol, and he hired me as the reenactment director.  In the nicest possible way, I saw Craig get everything he wanted either free or ridiculously cheap.  He was also able to get these actual cops to do anything he wanted them to.  So he and I were staying in a hotel in Sacramento where we were shooting with the California Highway Patrol.  Craig doesn’t smoke pot, but I kind of bullied him into taking a few hits.  Man, did he get high.  Then he went into a diatribe about how stupid his dad was, and all the rest of his family, too.  Later, I spoke with my mom on the phone and told her what Craig had just said.  My mother, who was not prejudiced against anyone, but was acquainted with many Armenians, said, “All Armenians are stupid,” which was a surprising statement from my mother.  The next evening when Craig and I were back at the hotel, and I bullied him into taking a few more hits of weed, he again began dissing his dumb family.  Without thinking, I said, “My mother says that all Armenians are stupid.”  Craig stopped, thought about it, then said, “She’s right.  All Armenians are stupid.”  I called my mom back, told her about this recent conversation and she was horrified, “You told Craig I said that?”  I said I couldn’t help it, and besides, he agreed.

Yeah, well, Craig was so stupid that he became the biggest producer of reality shows in the world.  He co-produced “Survivor,” then by the late-1990s he had a reality show on every channel, many beginning with “American,” like American Chopper.  He then became very possibly the largest producer of MMA fight shows on TV.  No matter what Craig thinks – and he never stopped with that, “I’m not very smart” routine – he’s one of the smartest producers I’ve ever met.

And since I’m telling the Craig Peligian story, he’s married to Lucinda Dickey, and as far as I know they’ve been married for about 35 years.  Lucinda, being a very attractive actor/dancer, starred in the hit films, Breakin’ (1984) and Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo (1984).

In defense of Armenians, one of my favorite composers is Aram Katchaturian, Cher’s real name is Cherilyn Sarkisian, and Kirk Kerkorian owned many of the biggest hotels in Las Vegas and bought the movie studio, MGM.

But what brought this all to mind was my ridiculous meeting with Howard Kazanjian.  Howard went to USC with George Lucas, and ended up producing The Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi, and Raiders of the Lost Ark.  Decent credits. Kazanjian was an originating member of Lucasfilm, Ltd., serving as its vice president for approximately eight years (1977 to 1984).  I have no idea how Howard fucked up that relationship, but after Return of the Jedi his career went into the shit-hole.  When I met with him in the late-1990s he was scrambling for anything – hell, he was meeting with me – and he wanted to make eight features at $1 million each with “big stars and a lot of effects.”  I said, “Howard, that’s impossible.”  I was going to pitch him my WWI battle script, Devil Dogs, but didn’t even bother.  If you think you’re going to make movies in Hollywood for $1 million with big stars and a lot of effects, you really must be stupid.  Although I certainly wish Howard only the best.

I don’t know about you, but I’m going to have a great day.  Today I’m getting new windows in my whole house.