ATLiH: DINNER WITH A DIRECTOR

ALL THE LOSERS IN HOLLYWOOD...

One night, sitting in Residuals Bar in Studio City (where the DRAGONHEART script was conceived) and drinking a Guiness, I was telling one of the stories that usually end up on this blog - a story about some poor misguided person in the film biz, and one of my friends said: “Where do you find these people?” I replied, “I bet I know all the losers in Hollywood”.... and they said that should be the title of my autobiography (or this blog). But instead, this blog ened up being called SEX IN A SUBMARINE due to a crazy script note I got from HBO on CRASH DIVE, and ALL THE LOSERS IN HOLLYWOOD was a title without a story... until now.

When looking for regular features for the blog, I thought it would be fun to tell a bunch of those stories of the oddballs I’ve met in the almost 30 years I’ve been in this business. I’m changing all of the names to protect the very very guilty (and avoid meeting lawyers) but the stories you are about to read are true... well, mostly true.

DINNER WITH A DIRECTOR

There are a bunch of people in the business that I have dinner with once or twice a year. A business dinner, but also a “What have you been up to?” dinner. In every single business they say “This is a business of relationships” and in screenwriting that means maintaining relationships with people you don’t really know, but have dinner or lunch or maybe drinks with once or twice a year. Instead of dressing in your screenwriter uniform of black dress shirt and jeans, you put on slacks and whatever else the restaurant’s dress code requires and get a free meal. What you are hoping for is: they say they are looking for a screenplay about dancing donkeys... and you have just finished a screenplay about dancing donkeys. Score!

But that never happens, and instead you have dinner with someone you hardly know and are afraid to ask about their spouse or their kid for fear they’re in the middle of a painful divorce or their kid is in rehab or jail. One good thing if you are a screenwriter, due to some weird pecking order thing that puts screenwriters below the people who bring the donuts to set, usually they pick up the check. Be warned: if you order big, they will want to split the tab; if you order small, they will pick up the check. It’s the same rule as if you go to a movie premiere where they will have food and drinks afterwards. If you don’t eat first, there will be one plate of hors d’oeuvres for 300 people, if you *do* eat first, there will be a five course meal.

So when this director (who I’ll call Robert, even though his real name is...) set up our semi annual dinner - which he always pays for - I went to meet him. This director has a colorful backstory - right out of film school he accidentally got hired to direct a commercial. He was last choice and they called him instead of the other guys by mistake - the list was upside down. That lead to other commercials, and then the stuff between the commercials - TV shows. He directed a bunch of kids shows with kid actors that you may have heard of but probably didn’t watch. After that, Robert did some hour long syndicated work - but never more than one episode on any show. I have no idea why they never brought him back. But he learned how to shoot fast - some hour long syndicated shows do an hour in a week, and that means you can shoot a feature film in two weeks... and that means you get hired to make low budget films. So even though he moved up from syndicated shows to network shows (again only doing one episode on a show before moving on) he eventually ran out of shows to direct and did some low budget movies. Two week wonders.

After making several movies for other producers, Robert began producing his own films. He made deals with distributors and they would fund his two week wonder genre flicks, mostly horror, but he made some action flicks and erotic thrillers and a monster movie or two.

Over the years, even though he had dinner with me a couple of times a year, he never once bought a script from me or hired me to write something for him. He seemed to favor first time screenwriters, and at first I thought it was because he could pay them less than he would have to pay me... but later I began to believe it was a control issue. I talked to one of the writers after a concrete carpet premiere and Robert could have afforded me for what he paid the new writer. His budgets were high enough to afford mid range stars and a full union shoot for two weeks. He didn’t need to hire first time screenwriters.

Oh, and these new writer’s scripts weren’t very good. Not just my opinion, the reviews for the films tended to mention the poor screenplays - filled with awful dialogue and contrived stories and sometimes laugh outloud horror scenes. One film had a woman Epilady herself to death and another character tear their foot open and bleed to death using one of those foot callous sanders. If there was a late night infomercial about it, it was used as a murder weapon in one of his films! As the bad reviews kept coming in, I kept wondering why he paid for my dinner a couple of times a year but never asked me to write a screenplay.

So, here we are having dinner in one of those trendy restaurants that I’m too cheap to eat in unless someone else is paying, and it’s been a while between gigs for me and I wish he would hire me for the next two week wonder - my script would be much better than his first time writers screenplays - so I’m casually mentioning a couple of horror scripts I have sitting around, and...

A TV Star came up to the table. This guy was one of the stand outs in a hit ensemble show that ran for six or seven years, on the cover of TV Guide and a household name... and then just sort of vanished. He had done a bunch of pilots (as the star) and none of them got picked up and then people just stopped calling him, I guess. But this guy was a star, you would know his name. “Excuse me for interrupting, Robert, my wife and I were having dinner (he gestures to the other side of the restaurant) and I saw you over here and I thought I would stop by and say hello.”

Robert didn’t introduce me, I’m a writer - you don’t earn any points for having dinner with a writer. So I just watched the conversation unfold while using the time to eat instead of talk (the worst part about these business dinner things is that you don’t want to accidentally spit food at someone or talk with food between your teeth... so you tend not to eat very much. I have had business lunches where I went to get lunch afterwards). After the pleasantries, the TV Star gave one of his million dollar smiles and told Robert that everybody loved his latest pilot but he had a couple of months before it would go to series if the network picked it up and he was looking for something to kill time, like one of Robert’s movies.

Robert matched the TV Star’s smile, “Amazing! Another pilot? I guess I missed reading about it in the trades. What network?”

“One of the new cable channels. Hasn’t launched, yet. But I have a couple of months, and I loved working with you when you directed that episode of our show...”

“Are you starring in this show, or is it an ensemble?”

“The thing is, I only have these two months that are free. Every time my wife and I go into Blockbuster, there’s another one of your movies on the shelves...”

“What are you doing in Blockbuster? You don't have an assistant? An intern to do that stuff for you?” Robert was just needling him, and the TV Star was beginning to squirm.

“If you are making another one of your films in the next couple of months...”

“As a matter of fact, we’re about to go into pre-production on the next one. A werewolf movie set in an abandoned desert gas station. I found the gas station while driving around with the wife and kids and a werewolf just fit the location. Found this new kid to write the script, and it’s amazing. The kid had only written one script before - he came here to be an actor - and I found him in an acting workshop I was guest lecturing at. But this kid, second script and he just knocked it out of the park. There’s a scene where they spray the werewolf with that Nair depilatory stuff that is out of this world. Never seen anything like that in a werewolf movie before! Sure, it was my idea. I mean, the kid's green, couldn't come up with an idea like that if he tried. I'm guiding him on this. But this kid is an amazing writer. ”

“I have never played a werewolf before, that sounds interesting.”

“We’ve already cast the lead, Sorry.”

“Well, are there any interesting supporting roles? I could do a cameo, be one of the names on the box, helps the film’s sales...”

“You’d take a minor role like that? With this big pilot that may go to series?”

“Well, I need something in the next two months. If the role is something interesting...”

“Sounds like it has to be in these two months between pilot and series. And we are shooting in three months. So I don’t think it’s going to work out with your schedule.”

“Well, the pilot may not get picked up...”

“Like all of the others? It sounds like you really need a gig?”

“Well....”

“You aren’t here with your wife having dinner. I’ve been watching you go from table to table for the past half hour. What happens in two months? You lose your medical insurance? You miss a mortgage payment? The orthodontist repossess your kid’s braces? ”

The TV Star took a deep breath to calm himself, “I need the job, Robert. I still have some marque value. My show is playing in syndication all over the country. A hundred percent of the major markets. This can help both of us. Just give me four days. Enough to keep my SAG health & welfare benefits. I need the job.”

“Sorry, got nothing for you. But amazing to see you again.” Robert focused on his food as if the TV Star was no longer standing at the table.

The TV Star gave me that million dollar smile and said, “Sorry for interrupting your meal,” before walking away... he had exhausted every connection he had in Mantilini’s, Robert was his last chance. I felt terrible for him. I was between gigs and one of the reasons I was here was to maybe sell Robert a script for his next crappy horror film. And of course he was picking up the tab for the meal that I had actually gotten a chance to eat this time. This is a brutal business and you never know where your next job is coming from, and there are times when you think there may not be a next job. That it was all some sort of fluke and Hollywood (collectively) has realize that your career was a mistake and now it is over. I wasn’t even near that point, I had a film made the year before and did a couple of assignments that will probable never get made, but I had gotten paid. But this TV Star seemed on the edge of panic that his career was over and the next time we would see him he would be our waiter at Mantilini’s. You may think that sounds crazy, but one of the entertainment magazines used to have a blind item section filled with stars from previous decades who had been spotted waiting tables and working in upscale retail stores on Rodeo Drive because their careers abruptly ended. That sort of thing was a career ender for a star.

Robert looked up from his meal to watch him leave the restaurant, and smiled, “What a loser. You can smell it on him. Loser. Puts on his best clothes and comes here begging for work. Table to table and no one will hire him. No one. Why? Do you know how many pilots he did? All of them crap.”

“He’s still well known and a good actor, why not give him a role in the werewolf film?”

“Why would I want that guy in my movie? He’s a loser. In that downward spiral of all losers. You could smell it, right?”

“Only his cologne.”

“How much was he wearing? Amazing! If I gave him a role, even a small role, in one of my films he would bring down the rest of the cast. His negative energy would spread. That’s what happens, you put one loser in your film and everyone becomes losers. I can’t afford that to happen. That guy’s career is over, and he’s just starting to realize it. Before he was on that TV show, he was doing telemarketing... and that’s where he will be in two months. On the phone begging you to switch to this cable company instead of the one you have. That’s a commission job, so you have to beg if you want to pay the bills. I don’t need some beggar bringing down one of my films.”

“But four days? Why not give him some small role? Leave him off the video box if you think that’s a problem? You have to cast somebody, right?”

“Not a loser. Not a beggar. Not that guy.” Robert tossed his napkin onto his plate, which was at least half full of food. “You know who that guy reminds me of? Barbara Payton. You know that story?”

“She was in ‘Trapped’ with Lloyd Bridges and ‘Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye’ with Cagney.”

“One of those amazing great Hollywood stories. Fame and misfortune. You should write that story!”

“I leave the biopics to Karaszewski & Alexander. I just write genre stuff: action and thrillers and horror.”

“Payton was one of the hottest starlets in town. She was up for the Marilyn Monroe part in ‘Asphalt Jungle’. After ‘Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye’ Cagney got her signed at Warner Brothers for five thousand a week. A week. Amazing! Bam, she got the female lead opposite Gary Cooper in ‘Dallas’ and the female lead opposite Gregory Peck in ‘Only The Valiant’. This was all in the same year! 1950. Same year she got engaged to pretty boy movie star Franchot Tone, and began an affair with movie star Tom Neal. She was amazing. Everybody wanted her on screen and between the sheets. Tom Neal was a drinker and a bit of a hothead, and punched out Franchot, leaving the guy in a coma for a day. Really messing up the pretty boy. Neal and Payton both ended up with that loser smell and people stopped hiring both of them. Within a couple of years this beauty queen who was the hottest actress in Hollywood was a toothless hooker on Sunset Boulevard, being arrested again and again for prostitution. She had movies still playing in theaters while she was on her knees blowing guys!”

“And she was dead before she hit forty. Now, mostly forgotten... except as a cautionary example.”

Robert gave me his most serious look. “You see that guy as a TV Star who needs a break, and want to help him. I see that guy as a loser who is on his way down and may drag my werewolf movie with him. I can’t afford that. Screw him. Screw him.”

“He’s just trying to keep it going, like all of us.”

“People like him will drag you down. My advice, Bill, avoid the losers. This town is full of them. Full of them.”

We finished our dinner and walked out to the valet stand, waiting for our cars, and shook hands and... I decided never to have dinner with Robert again. I made that decision before I read that story about what happened to the TV Star in the papers a couple of weeks later. It was a big story, and kind of shocking. I always wonder what Robert thought when he read it. If he had any regrets about the way he had treated the TV Star that night in the restaurant.

Turns out I didn’t need to sell a script for Robert to make into a terrible horror film like that werewolf movie he made. I sold a script soon after that night and it actually got made. Not well made, but it was shot on 35mm film and had a couple of names in the cast bigger than the names in Robert’s werewolf at a gas station movie. But the TV Star, you ask, what happened to him? Did he end up blowing guys on Sunset Boulevard? No. Something even more shocking. You probably know what happened. It was in the trades.

That pilot that the TV Star was the lead in didn’t make it at the new cable network, in fact, the new cable network didn’t make it, either. But the pilot got shopped around and ended up getting picked up by a big broadcast network. Between that show and the one that followed, that TV Star has been the star of a hit TV show for the past dozen years. Just got signed to a production deal at NBC/Universal where he gets to make his own shows. And Robert? Still making crappy little horror movies with ever shrinking budgets and probably complaining about the smell of losers all around him...

And in Hollywood, no one can hear you scream.

Guess who the loser was in this story?

- Bill