TORNADOS AND FLOODS
25th May 2011
I am back in the US again. Goodness when America has disasters, they are always huge.
I am just watching the devastation caused by the tornado that tore through Joplin, Missouri. It is unbelievable and tragic, the wind even tore the bark off the trees. I do feel sorry for the poor residents. And now the volcano in Iceland is erupting again! Wonder if flights will be disrupted and so it goes on. The weather here in Idaho is nice with rain from time to time, my chum in the UK tells me that the lack of rain there, is getting serious.
My family is lovely, my daughter in law is burgeoning with their third child and my son is flying the new airplane purchased by his employer back from N.Carolina to Idaho as we speak. My five year old grandson is not normally overtly demonstrative, but really seemed pleased to see me this time. We had a chat about Easter and its meaning, he tells me that they stuck Jesus to the Cross, so he wouldn't fall off. Interesting take, but accurate I would say!
Day 2
This blog is taking longer than usual, with all that's going on. With my Producer hat on I have been working to get Darren Burrows (NORTHERN EXPOSURE) on board as the lead in our film of THE TELL TALE HEART. He will be perfect and I am really happy we have him. It's interesting - he's represented by a lady who was at the William Morris Agency, when I was with them (I think) and one of my friends, who was here in the WM, is now in the UK and headed up the WM agency. Now he represents some of our top actors in his own business the agency Steve Kenis & Co. It's a small world and many of us go back a long way and a long time. It's good that we have all stayed close.
This is all going back to the days of David Hemmings etc, what fun, David in his white Rolls Royce, which he drove in BLOW UP and couldn't bear to be parted from at the end of the shooting day. How many companies would allow their stars to drive around in the props at the finish of the shooting day nowadays?
Many of the major actors were really quite wild then and I dont mean strung out on drugs and all that nonsense. They wouldn't think much of that. I heard a story that when Peter O'Toole heard he had landed the part of Lawrence of Arabia, he went to his first meeting with the Producer Sam Spiegel on his knees. Peter is 6'3" and Lawrence was about 5'6'.
I believe Spiegel told him to get up and get serious. Dont think he understood Peter's humour. It seems to me that the actors nowadays take their business very seriously or they start to believe their own publicity (big mistake) and start doing all the self destructive things. Of course it is a very serious industry now with all the money at stake and you have to be very professional and dedicated. But it does tend to take the fun out of it. The film industry is about number four or five of the top industries in the world and that is serious. In the UK we could take our time in television and be quite creative, but now time is so much money and much of it really is done by numbers and I think it shows in the work.
I had to come back to the US sooner than expected and sadly will miss my screening of
"1984" at the BFI. Hopefully I will see it at a later date. That was a disturbing television play. Winston the lead character is terrified of rats and that is how he is tortured at the end, to bring him into line with the dominance of the Big Brother society. I hate rats and they really scared me in the film. And we had a few real ones on the set. Ugh! Read the book, it's a classic and a great story.
Au revoir till the next time!
See you later friends
|