Richard joins NewsTalk 1010’s guest host David Cooper on the coast-to-coast-to-coast late night “Showgram” to play the game “Did Richard Crouse like these movies?” This week we talk about “F9” (theatres and drive-ins), the celebrity chef documentary “Wolfgang” (Disney+) and “The Ice Road,” the the latest from the Neesonator.
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
Richard and CTV NewsChannel morning show host Marcia MacMillan chat up the weekend’s big releases including “F9” (theatres and drive-ins), the celebrity chef documentary “Wolfgang” (Disney+) and “The Ice Road,” the the latest from the Neesonator.
Watch the whole thing HERE!
Richard sits in on the CFRA Ottawa morning show with guest host Stefan Keyes to talk the new movies coming to theatres, VOD and streaming services including the loud-and-proud “F9” (theatres and drive-ins), the celebrity chef documentary “Wolfgang” (Disney+) and “The Ice Road,” the the latest from the Neesonator.
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
Spago chef Wolfgang Puck says he doesn’t like thinking about his past because it takes time away from focusing on the future. It’s a nice sentiment, but it may be why “Wolfgang,” a new documentary about his life, now streaming on Disney+, is short on contemplation.
The light and breezy 78-minute doc begins with the usual kind of praise that gets lobbed at luminaries like Puck. He revolutionized the way Americans eat. He was the first celebrity chef. Etc. Etc. All mostly true, (Jeremiah Tower or Alice Waters may have some thoughts on both these points) but all ground covered later on in some depth.
Beyond the platitudes though, is a compelling portrait of a man driven by the trauma of childhood with an abusive step-father. Born into poverty in Austria, Puck was drawn to the kitchen, and loved spending time with his mother as she prepared modest Sunday dinners. “As a kid, the kitchen was the only place I felt safe,” he says.
A mashed potato incident at his first hotel kitchen job got him fired, but he showed up the next day anyway, asked for his job back and was on his way to cooking serious food, studying in France and shutting out his family for the next year-and-a-half.
It’s in these details, and not the flashily edited montages of a young Punk on “Good Morning America” or footage of him waving to the famous clientele from the open kitchen of his legendary Hollywood restaurant Spago, that we begin to understand what makes Wolfgang run.
His professional rise through the ranks, from France to Hollywood’s Ma Maison restaurant and beyond, is certainly worth essaying but it feels like much of the important stuff is swept along in a flurry of friendly talking heads and the glow of rave reviews. Better is the awkward look on Puck’s face as his sister scolds him for not being ion touch when their grandmother passed away. Those moments feel authentic, providing some soul in a documentary that more often than not relies on anecdotes about Joan Collins and Puck’s famous smoked salmon and goat cheese pizza (“You don’t want to make Joan Collins mad!”) or well-worn adages.
“Wolfgang” is a slickly made documentary but plays a like a greatest hits version of Puck’s life. When it peels back the layers of the onion to reveal how the chef’s need for his stepfather’s approval propelled his career, it resonates. When it goes for inspiration over introspection, however, it feels less flavorful.
Why is it that strange things happen to me every time I get off a plane at LAX? It’s almost like I start to hallucinate. I begin to see odd things, and the going gets weird. Perhaps I go crazy from the heat, but I don’t think so. I’m reminded of a quote from Mark Twain wherein he says, “It’s no wonder that truth is stranger than fiction; fiction has to make sense.” I was in LA to see the movie Secondhand Lions and interview its stars, Robert Duvall, Michael Caine and Haley Joel Osment. Sounds simple enough, but it took a turn for the weird on Saturday.
I arrived on Friday after a long day. We had a connecting flight in Dallas which added a few hours onto the usual flying time. Dallas airport is no place to get stranded. The food court doesn’t exactly look hygienic, and the young woman working at the Seattle’s Best looked at me like I was a dog with two heads when I asked what kind of teas they had. In the departure lounge I sit next to a guy with a long braided beard, cowboy hat and “straight from the hills accent” who is talking on his cell phone to his “Mama.” I now have a deeper understanding of the movie Deliverance.
The weather in LA is beautiful. It’s not my favourite city, but I do have to admit that just stepping off the plane into the sunshine put me in a pretty good mood. Ditto the hotel. We’re staying at the Four Seasons in Beverly Hills, and I defy anyone to be in a bad mood while staying there. The food and service are great, and the lobby smells like orchids. I have a lovely room looking south towards the Hollywood sign and a television in the bathroom. I can shower and watch VH1 all at the same time. It’s good here.
I head down to the bar for some food and spot Robert Duvall having tea with a friend. After a quick bite (three mini burgers: one portabella, one sirloin and one turkey, $17) we head over to the Beverly Hills AMC to see the movie. The movie open until late September, so you’ll have to wait until then for a review, but I can tell you it is a family movie about an introverted boy (Osment) left on the doorstep of a pair of eccentric great-uncles (Caine and Duvall), whose murky backgrounds and exotic remembrances stir the boy’s interest and re-ignite the men’s lives.
After the movie we headed back to the hotel. On the outside patio I hear a woman tell her friend, “He’s going to have to come to grips with his childhood trauma sometime. I’ve told him what he should do is write a screenplay about it. It would be so therapeutic, and it would be totally castable.”
We also spot Tori Spelling and Tara Reid, who seem to be having the kind of fun that only young, rich girls are able to enjoy. Because I am not a young, rich girl I go to bed early and read my press notes. It’s been a long day.
SATURDAY AUGUST 9, 2003
I have a 10 am start time for my interviews. After some breakfast (fruit, scrambled eggs and a bagel) I am called away to speak to Haley Joel Osment. It’s 10:01 – things are running efficiently. As I am walking down to the room I see Osment and Michael Caine ahead. When they meet they embrace warmly, genuinely happy to see one another. I guess the chemistry I saw in the movie last night between them was real.
Once in the room with Haley Joel, I am impressed at how composed he is. He’s like a 50 year old man trapped in a 15 year old’s body. His answers are thoughtful and lucid, and he’s very articulate. He keeps a busy schedule and I asked him if he ever takes time out from being a movie star to be a kid. He told me he goes to a regular high school, has a good group of friends that don’t treat him like a Hollywood star and that he is learning to drive. I thought it was funny that after all this boy has achieved in his life that he is just learning to drive now. He seems so much older than his 15 years.
Next was Michael Caine. I interviewed him at last year’s Toronto International Film Festival, and found him very easy to talk to. Before the cameras start to roll I ask him if I should call him Sir Michael (he was knighted in November 2000) or Mr. Caine. He says, “Please call me Michael.” I have a hard time with that for some reason, and end up referring to him as Mr. Michael Caine instead of one or the other. I tell him that I asked Richard Attenborough the same question a number of years ago to which he replied, “Call me Dickie!” Caine added to my story, “I’m sure he called you Darling, because he can’t remember anyone’s name.”
I asked him about the Academy Awards show of a couple of years ago when he singled out Haley Joel Osment for praise in his acceptance speech. He told me that he got two jobs out of that Oscar night. When Secondhand Lions director Tim McCanlies saw Osment and him together on the red carpet before the ceremony it gave him the idea to cast them as nephew and uncle in the film. Director Phillip Noyce was also watching that night and was inspired to cast Caine as Thomas Fowler in The Quiet American. He’s a pleasure to speak to, and you can see the whole interview on Reel to Real when it airs in late September.
Sometimes I am shocked by the level of professionalism of some of the other “reporters” on these junkets. In the hall outside of Mr. Caine’s room I spoke with a television interviewer from Miami who was going in after me. As she was opening the door she looked at me and asked, “Michael Caine, he’s British isn’t he?” “Only the one of the great British film actors,” I wanted to say, “a man who was recently voted fifth all-time greatest British actor of all time.” Instead I looked down at her and replied, “Yes, I think so…”
The last interview of the day is Robert Duvall. This would be the third time I’ve interviewed him this year, and I was determined to finally ask him about one of my favourite films of all time – Apocalypse Now. He remembers me from the last couple of interviews, but can’t remember where I am from. I tell him Toronto, and that I met him at the festival last year. He went on to praise the festival and specifically Piers Handling, the director of TIFF. We discuss Secondhand Lions and working with Caine and Osment. With just a couple of minutes left in the interview I ask him about Lt. Col. Kilgore and the famous scene on the beach where explosions are bursting all around him, yet he seems like he’s unaffected by it all, and doesn’t even blink. We’ll air his answer next season on Reel to Real in a new segment we’re planning on great movie moments.
That’s it, less than an hour after sitting with Haley Joel; I’m done for the day. I go back to my room, change and head out for a walk. Nobody walks in LA except tourists and the homeless, but it was a beautiful day and I thought I’d take in some of the sights. Left the Four Seasons at 11:45 am and walked for the next six hours. The last stop was Hollywood Boulevard and Cahuenga, a name I can’t figure out how to pronounce, but I imagine it sounds like someone sneezing. The conversation back at the hotel would go something like this:
“Where did you walk to?”
“Cahuenga…”
“Bless you…”
The walk started with a celebrity sighting just a couple of minutes from the hotel. Steve Martin was sitting in the patio of a restaurant called Barefoot on Third Street. Dressed in a t-shirt and shorts, he was sitting by himself making notes in a large bound book. Instead of raving at Mr. Martin about how much I liked his last book and that The Jerk is one of my favourite movies, I leave him in peace and continue walking.
From there I criss-crossed the city, meandering down from Doheny Drive in Beverly Hills to Melrose Avenue, across the little side streets lined with pink stucco houses over to Sunset Boulevard and down to the Sunset Strip. Along the way I stop to have a look at a 1920’s vintage Spanish style house on North Crescent Heights Boulevard. It is a classic small LA house, the kind of place you could imagine Raymond Chandler calling home. I looked through its 2461 square feet, three bedrooms and 2 ½ baths. Took in the Italian tile in the hallway and imagined giving dinner parties in the octagonal dining room. The sales agent, a nice fellow named Mike told me the place was on sale for one week only, reduced in price to a mere $899,500. My pipe dream of living in my own little Spanish casa near the Beverly Center evaporated as the words were coming out of his mouth. I thanked him for his kind offer and moved on.
On the Sunset Strip I take a walk to the Chateau Marmont (8221 Sunset Boulevard). It’s known as the most discreet hotel in LA – you can pull off the Sunset Strip into the hotel’s garage in a split second, and be lifted straight from the garage to your room via private elevators. Everyone in Hollywood has stayed here at some point or another. Greta Garbo lived there in the 1930s; Led Zeppelin rode motorcycles through the halls in 1968; recently Colin Farrell was seen in a heavy make-out session with Britney Spears on his penthouse balcony and before he was famous Warren Beatty was tossed out for not paying his bill. One person who never had the chance to get kicked out of the hotel for misbehaving was John Belushi, who died in one of the hotel’s bungalows. Because of the discreet nature of the place many stars have used it as a place to hide out or behave badly. Harry Cohn, founder of Columbia Pictures said, “If you must get into trouble, do it at the Chateau Marmont.”
I’m not looking for trouble, so leave the hotel and stop by Mel’s Drive In (8585 Sunset Strip) for a bite. It is a family-run chain of restaurants based in San Francisco, famous because the original Mel’s was used as the diner where the kids hang out in American Graffiti. The original is long gone, demolished shortly after the filming of the movie, but in the late nineties Mel’s son took over the business, building new restaurants all over California.
The one on the Strip is in the location of the famous Ben Frank’s Coffee Shop. Ben Frank’s was a Sunset Strip institution, becoming legendary as a hip after hours hangout in the 1960s and 1970s. The Rolling Stones and Andy Warhol used to frequent the place and apparently Louis L’Amour liked to make notes for his cowboy novels at the counter at Ben’s. Mel’s is a pale imitation of Ben’s, but the 50’s style architecture appealed to me, as did the chance to sit in air conditioning while I ate.
After a quick Cobb Salad ($8.95) and loads of iced tea I headed for Tower Records (8801 Sunset Boulevard). Axl Rose used to work here in the early days of Guns and Roses, and it has the reputation of being then best music store in town. I prefer the Virgin Megastore (8000 Sunset) for its selection and helpful staff, but the Towers does have a certain kind of dirty charm. The rocker dudes that work behind the counter aren’t particularly helpful, but they sure do look cool.
The lengthy walk continued down Sunset and over to Hollywood Boulevard. I follow the long line of Walk of Fame stars on the sidewalk to the heart of touristville. (Here’s some trivia for you: The 3000 memorialized celebrity names take up almost 5 acres of sidewalk space.) I’m fine with cheesy tourist attractions, and even stop at a store to have my photo taken in front of a pseudo Hollywood sign while posing with a cardboard cut out of John Wayne. The girls next in line after me don’t know who John Wayne is, and ask if they could have their photos taken with cut outs of the Olsen Twins. Later I see a life-size representation of John Wayne made of dryer lint at the Ripley’s Odditorium. What befits a legend most…
I’m kind of riveted by this fabulously sleazy part of LA. It’s busy, with thousands of tourists stopping to have their photo taken at the site of their favourite actor’s star, but it is also kind of bizarre down here. I see an off duty Charlie Chaplin impersonator, in full make-up, but wearing jeans and a t-shirt, yelling at a younger boy. “You have got to be careful young man,” he said, looking the spitting image of the gentle tramp character, “or your life is going to swirl down the toilet bowl.” It’s a surreal moment in Hollyweird.
Just a few feet away someone dressed as Crocodile Dundee gives me a coupon for discounted cheesecake at a nearby restaurant. His friend, a man in a Jedi robe, assures me that the cheesecake is “the best in the galaxy.” I wonder if these guys, who I assume are out of work actors, ever imagined when they moved to LA that they would become cheesecake shills instead of movie stars.
I duck into the Frederick’s of Hollywood. The famous purple and pink lingerie store has been a fixture on the Boulevard since 1947 when its owner Frederick Mellinger became an overnight star and earned the gratitude of millions by inventing the push-up bra (originally known as the “Rising Star”). Such is Frederick’s contribution to Hollywood that November 8, 1989 was declared Frederick’s of Hollywood Day by Mayor Tom Bradley. To mark the occasion Frederick said, with tongue in cheek, “Frederick’s has always been a strong supporter of the community.” Over the decades Fredericks has kept abreast of the latest trends, and continues to dress major stars so that they may look good when they undress.
I’m here to have a look at the fabled Lingerie Museum located at the back of the store. Many exhibits were lost in the 1992 LA riots when looters ransacked the place, but there is still lots to see. It is a crash course in the history of underwear, beginning with a Missiles and Snowcones display, featuring 1951’s Pointette, described as “stitched four section cups designed for projection and separation.” Think Madonna in her pointy bra phase.
There are amusing slogans, like “Flats fixed here,” and “Beauty and the Bust,” from Frederick’s famous lingerie catalogue sprinkled throughout the displays, which feature bras with names like the Daring Deceiver (“Utilizes all possible cleavage!”) and Double Exposure.
Of course this is Hollywood, so no display would be complete with out a selection of celebrity undergarments. In the Lingerie Hall of Fame one can marvel at Milton Berle’s padded bra and sequined gown from his television show; an unusual bra used by Phyllis Diller that resembles nothing more than a strip of material marked with the instructions “This side up;” and a selection of undergarments worn by the likes of Judy Garland, Cher, Mamie Van Doren and Zsa Zsa Gabor. I left the store with a new appreciation of nipple pads and falsies.
I try and imagine 50 years ago when this was a glamorous part of town, when the showbiz elite would pop down to The Musso & Frank Grill (6667 Hollywood Boulevard) for shrimp cocktails and champagne. The Musso & Frank Grill is still here, but the only stars you’ll see are embedded in the sidewalk.
I see Bennett Cerf’s star in front of a store that sells Eminem bobble head dolls. I wonder if in 30 years the name Eminem will be as forgotten as Cerf’s. (FYI: Bennett Cerf was a humorist who was one of the founding editors of Random House.) I see the star for Zasu Pitts, the silent screen actress and inspiration for the animated character of Olive Oyl in the Popeye series, in front of a store that sells ridiculously high platform shoes with clear plastic heels. I go in and ask the girl working the counter if she knows who Zasu Pitts is. She ignores me and I leave. At least one older star hasn’t been forgotten. Elvis Presley’s star had fresh cut flowers on it.
Robert Vaughn’s star is located at the choice corner of Cherokee and Hollywood Boulevard. Just a few yards away, Charlie Chaplin’s star is covered with construction hoarding and I thought this was a might unfair. In the last decade Vaughn’s major contribution to the world of cinema has been a supporting role in Pootie Tang and those dreadful “Have you been injured in an accident,” commercials for Mark E. Salemone, and yet his star is much more accessible than Chaplin’s, the first great genius of the cinema. It doesn’t seem right, but then on the other hand, both Chaplin and Zasu Pitts have been immortalized on stamps, and I don’t think Robert Vaughn will ever be so honoured.
In fact, images of Chaplin are everywhere, second only to murals and images of Marilyn Monroe. Want a Marilyn keychain? No problem. How about a bottle of Norma Jean Merlot for fourteen dollars? If you’re a big spender you can pick up the name brand wine, the Marilyn Merlot for thirty bucks. How about a Marilyn license plate? Only $15. You can buy all that stuff that seems like a good idea at the time, but then ends up in the back of your closet after the vacation is over.
It’s getting late in the day, and I have just one more stop on my quick LA day trip – Grauman’s Chinese Theatre (6925 Hollywood Boulevard). Filled with exotic art from China and covered with a 90 foot high jade-green bronze roof, it is probably the most famous movie theatre in the world. In front of the theatre is the famous “Forecourt of the Stars.” The official story about this Hollywood landmark is that silent screen actress Norma Talmadge slipped into some wet cement in front of the newly built movie palace in 1927. Owner Sid Grauman recognized a good bit of publicity when he saw it, and left the footprint enshrined in cement, beginning a Hollywood tradition that over the next few decades saw over 200 stars leaving their imprints in front of the theatre.
The actual origins of the famous forecourt are a little less glamorous. Jean W. Klossner is the man who built Grauman’s. According to him nobody “slipped” or “fell” into wet cement there was no wet cement to fall into. It was all a carefully planned out publicity stunt.
The footprint and hand print idea came from Mr. Klossner’s family in the early 1800’s. As three generations of Klossners completed work on the Notre Dame Cathedral, they signed their work by pressing their hands in the fresh cement. Jean Klossner brought this idea over with him from Europe and used it on all the buildings he completed with the Meyer-Holler Construction Co. in Los Angeles. When it was time to finish Grauman’s, Mr. Klossner pressed his hand in the fresh cement out front of the theater’s right-hand poster frame, where it remains today, almost 80 years later. When Sid Grauman saw him do this, the two developed the idea to embellish the otherwise plain forecourt.
It’s packed at the Forecourt, but I still manage to wedge myself in and stand in Jack Nicholson’s footprints. I’m guessing he wears a size 10 as his feet were much smaller than mine. I hang around and watch the other tourists for a while, before grabbing a cab and heading back to the Four Seasons.
We have reservations for 8 o’clock on the patio of the Four Seasons, and after my six hour walk I need to chill for a few minutes.
At dinner I discover that the rest of the Canadians spent the day hanging around the pool. When I hear that Rosanna Arquette was also at the pool I regret not popping by to say hello. It’s nice up there, the waiters bring frozen grapes and fruit smoothies to keep you cool, and there is generally some pretty good star gazing.
It’s a beautiful Southern California night, and we have a choice table for people watching. We see an older man dressed like Elvis pull up in a $500,000 car, many Rolls Royces and Gary Busey. Remember earlier when I said that strange things always happen to me when I come to LA? Well, tonight would be no exception, and it would be my second strange encounter with Mr. Busey. (Caution! Dropping names ahead.)
On a hot June evening in 1992 I had dinner at a Wolfgang Puck restaurant in Malibu called Granita. We scored a great table on the patio, and were seated between Johnny Carson, who had just retired, and Gary Busey, who was celebrating his birthday. The meal was relatively peaceful until Busey started opening his gifts. He insisted on showing us each of his presents, which was fine, but he had a lot of presents, and we were trying to eat. Eventually we stopped commenting on the gifts and tried to enjoy our meal. It was then that I felt a bread roll hit me in the back of the head.
“Hey! Tell Wolfgang we’re having a food fight,” Busey hollered as he winged another roll in my direction.
I didn’t know what to do, and didn’t really want to get involved, but the rolls kept coming, so eventually I threw one back at him, hitting him in the chest. I’m sure Mr. Carson was impressed with my aim. Thankfully someone at the table (I think it was his mother) got him to stop, and we never progressed past the rolls into throwing hot entrees at one another.
I didn’t see Busey for another eleven years, and much has happened in the intervening years. He has worked steadily, mostly in straight to video movies that earn a “Terrible,” or “Appalling” user rating on IMBD; he had a plum sized tumour removed from his sinus cavity, has been arrested and become a born-again Christian. Most recently he has been starring in I’m With Busey, a reality show a la The Osbournes. I think the show’s tagline says it all: “Somewhere, between reality and insanity, Is Busey.”
He is sitting inside with a group of people, including a friend of mine from Toronto. At one point Busey decides that he wants to smoke one of his large Cuban cigars, and comes outside to our table. Actually he looms over the table, sitting on a ledge above us, with his feet resting on one of the chairs. Introductions are made. I tell him I am from Toronto.
“I have made ten movies in Toronto. Ten in Vancouver and three in Montreal,” he says loudly.
“I must have missed those,” I’m thinking, but say nothing.
When I don’t take the bait he starts spouting Buseyisms, which are basically acronyms of his invention which contain his philosophy on life.
“Do you know what FEAR stands for?” he asks me.
Not sure where this conversation is going, I say no.
“FEAR… False Evidence Appearing Real,” he says. “F-E-A-R.”
Wow.
“Do you know what LIGHT stands for?” he hollers.
Before I have a chance to answer, he says, “LIGHT! Living In God’s Heavenly Thoughts… L-I-G-H-T.”
I have a feeling this is going to go on for a while, so I order another drink.
They came in quick succession… GOAT! Get Over Adulterous Tendencies! BIBLE! Beautiful Instructions Before Leaving Earth!
Then, to make a peculiar scene even more bizarre we were joined by one of Busey’s friends, Sal Pacino. No, that’s not a typo, I said Sal Pacino, father of Al. Sal is in his eighties, but has a strong resemblance to his famous son. He was wearing a very cool belt with the letter “S” on the buckle, and didn’t say much. He didn’t have much of a chance to, as Busey holding court, sucking up all the air on the patio.
I wondered if it was just me who didn’t really know what Busey was on about, but later read a quote from his son Jake, who said, “He’s always telling stories about monkeys and toads and rockets… I can never understand what he’s talking about.” Good, even his blood relatives can’t comprehend him. I think if I could identify with what he was saying then I would have something to worry about.
Anyway, as quickly as he joined us, he was gone, leaving nothing but perplexed looks and a cloud of cigar smoke. It was definitely the oddest celebrity encounter I have ever had.
Strange as he was, Busey was entertaining, and after he left the party seemed a little less interesting. With my head full of Buseyisms I went to bed, no wiser, but a little more amused than when I woke up today.
SUNDAY AUGUST 10, 2003
Up early to head to LAX. I hate to leave, and as I walk past the patio I half expect to see Busey still there, preaching to a new group of people.
I arrive two hours before my flight only to find huge line-ups. The line to check in started outside and wormed its way through the terminal. Forty-five minutes later I get my boarding pass, only to have to go outside again and get in another line to have my bags X-Rayed and go through security. Time is ticking, and I want to get on this flight because it is the only direct flight to Toronto today. If I miss this one, I’ll have to fly through Chicago and won’t get home until almost midnight.
With just a couple of minutes to spare I sprint through security, grab a bagel at Starbucks and make it on the plane. Four-and-a-half uneventful hours later I am in a Toronto cab on the way to my house. It’s good to be home. The little pink bungalow on North Crescent Heights Boulevard will just have to wait…
I have an early afternoon flight to Los Angeles and two good reasons to go there. Firstly, last weekend in Toronto it snowed. Wet, heavy, unpleasant snow. The weather in LA will be in the low 20s and as long as it doesn’t snow or hail I’ll be fine. Secondly—but of no less import—I’ll be interviewing Jane Fonda. That’s right… Barbarella. Catherine ‘Cat’ Ballou. Bree Daniel. Jane Harper. Do I need to mention the work-out videos? She is appearing in her first movie since Mikel Milken pled guilty to securities fraud, Bruce Willis still had hair and George Bush Senior was president.
Her last movie was 1990’s Stanley and Iris, the Martin Ritt film about an illiterate cook (Robert De Niro) at a company cafeteria tries for the attention of a newly widowed woman (Fonda). Soon after that movie tanked at the box office she announced that she was retiring from the screen and settling down with husband Ted Turner.
She told IMDB that she came out of retirement because she’s attracted by the idea of making a few more films to fund her charitable enterprise, the Georgia Campaign on Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention. She says, “I could use more money, I have to be honest. I’m 67, who knows what’s going to happen. I really believe in the work that I’m doing in Georgia with young girls and boys and you teach what you need to learn. I’m trying to help girls own their bodies, honour their bodies, respect themselves and help boys not be afraid of claiming their hearts… I want to be sure it keeps going after I go.”
I have just cracked her book, the newly minted autobiography My Life So Far and hope to glean as much info about her as I can on the five-and-a-half-hour flight. Of course, I know her movies, and how her mother’s suicide was kept from her—she found out about it when she read about it in a movie magazine—and that she suffered from bulimia from age 13 to age 37 but I’m hoping to get a little more insight for my interview on Saturday. I won’t have much time with her, but I like to feel prepared.
The book is much different than most celebrity biographies. She divides her life into three acts—writing about her childhood, first films, and marriage to French director Roger Vadim in act one; act two covers the emergence of her activism, the disastrous “Hanoi Jane” trip to North Vietnam, her career peaks and marriages to Tom Hayden and Ted Turner; in her third act, we learn of her philanthropic work and her plans for the future.
“I hope that other women might see something of their own experiences in what I have to say about how a girl can lose touch with herself, her body and have to struggle—hard—to get herself, her voice, back,” she writes in the book.
It’s an interesting book written by someone who has obviously spent some time coming to grips with the vagaries of her life. She writes movingly about her troubled relationship with her movie star father Henry, and is more emotionally open and honest than I expected from a book written by a movie star. There are some salacious details—her relationship with Vadim pushed her sexual boundaries—but his isn’t simply a tell-all book. It’s a conversationally written account of her life that doesn’t gloss over the bad or embarrassing stuff, and digs deep to help the reader understand what makes her tick.
I plough through ¾ of the book’s 584 pages of the book as we touch down at LAX. From there we make our way through the LA rush hour traffic—when is it not rush hour in this town—to the Four Seasons. I have just enough time to check-in and hang my clothes in the closet when it is time to board the bus that will take us to the screening of Monster-in-Law. The bus can’t leave until all the reporters are aboard—about twenty in all—and we get held up for half an hour by one genius who decides to dawdle.
The movie is at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre—an unusual version of a classical Chinese temple, complete with quasi-Chinese motifs and inverted dragon tails— on Hollywood Boulevard. We’re going to one of the smaller theatres next to the Kodac Theatre—where they hold the Academy Awards—but out in front we see a long line-up for the main theatre. There are over a hundred people and apparently they are waiting for the May 19th debut of Star Wars: Episode III— Revenge of the Sith. Most of the other Star Wars films have debuted there at the legendary theatre but this time 20th Century Fox has decided to open the film at the ArcLight, several blocks away. According to IMDB the fans who are braving the elements to be the first to see the film don’t believe the hype and are refusing to move. “This is Mecca for fans,” one said. “It’s been a tradition for decades.”
I have a line-waiting limit of five minutes, so I admire these stubborn—if maybe a little naïve—fans, but I also think they should move out of their parent’s basements, get jobs and stop dressing like Wookies.
Once inside we’re seated in the VIP balcony section. It’s nice, but I’ve been sitting in an airport lounge, a plane, then a cab and a bus for almost ten hours. I’m tired, and the chairs are almost too comfortable. My goal is too stay awake during the movie and not get seduced by the comfy chair that seems to be tenderly whispering in my ear, “Sleep… sleep in my peaceful arms, rest your head against my soft leather and you’ll feel better after the movie.” In my sleepy hallucination the chair’s voice sounds like Scarlett Johansson. I can feel my lids getting heavy but somehow I stay awake.
Monster-in-Law is pretty simple stuff. J-Lo—whoops, she doesn’t want to be called that anymore—plays Charlotte Honeywell, a free spirited young woman who meets the perfect man, a good looking doctor named Kevin (Alias’ Michael Vartan). After a whirlwind romance they decide to marry. His mother, Jane Fonda in an over-the-top comedic performance, however, has different ideas. For the next hour-and-a-half psychological warfare ensues, hair is pulled, faces slapped and crimes against fashion are committed. For a full review, tune into Reel to Real in May.
After the screening it’s back to the hotel for a Monster-in-Law themed poolside party. There is a giant wedding cake, appetisers and plenty of freeloading journalists soaking up as much free beer, wine and spirits as humanly possible.
I hear loads of gossip at the party. Typically the movie’s biggest star gets the biggest room on these junkets, but in this case you have a recent star verses a Hollywood legend. Who will get the larger suite? Apparently Jenny from the Block demanded and got the larger hotel room for her interviews. I guess Fonda didn’t need the extra room for her two Oscars, six Golden Globes, her Emmys, People’s Choice Awards or New York Film Critics Circle Awards. Perhaps the younger actress needed the extra space for her ego. Who knows?
I stay at the party until I can’t stand being around the juiced-up journalists anymore. It’s been a long day and I still have a hundred or so pages of the Fonda book to read.
SATURDAY, APRIL 9, 2005
As usual because of the time change I’m up pretty early. It doesn’t seem to matter what time I go to bed on the first night here, I’m always up with the sun in the morning. I have my usual Four Seasons breakfast—Heuvos Rancheros, a Jet Lag smoothie and a huge urn of tea.
I have a 3:15 flight this afternoon, so I should leave for the airport around 1:00. I’m scheduled to start at 9:30 so I should have lots of time. After breakfast I head upstairs to the hospitality suite to read over my notes and have more tea before I start. I only take two steps off the elevator before I am stopped by a security guard. He asks my name, and cross checks it with a list he has on a big official looking clipboard. He asks me spell, then re-spell my name, I point it out for him on the list and he nods. Apparently I will be allowed access to the fourteenth floor today. He hands me a glittery, bright pink wrist band which I’m told to wear at all times. It is my ID pass. I’m told that the security is there at the request of Ms. Lopez, who isn’t even scheduled to arrive until after I have left the building. As I walk away I hear others being given the bracelet to wear. “I can’t wear this,” I hear one complain, “I’m on camera!”
In the hospitality suite we’re watching a large flat screen television with clips from the film. I look closely to see if any of J-Lo’s co-stars in the movie were required to wear the pink security bracelets on set. I make a joke about Jane Fonda being required to wear the pink wristlet. The publicists do not smile. I have more tea and read the press notes.
There usually isn’t a whole lot of interest in press notes, just a bunch of generic, ‘Oh we loved working on this project…” quotes and some specs on the film. The Monster-in-Law notes are rather standard, but there are some unintentionally funny lines in there. Fonda thinks Lopez is “deeply talented,” while Lopez says Fonda is “the real thing.” So far nothing unusual. Press notes are usually filled with this kind of claptrap, but there is one line that made me laugh out loud.
The director’s notes are often the most fawning, but I never read anything like this before. Since their first meeting director Robert Luketic, apparently still can’t stop talking about J-Lo’s beauty and the way she smelled. The way she smelled. Not her great talent. Not her ability to light up a screen, but the way she smelled. It’s a shame he couldn’t have made the movie in Smell-O-Vision.
The interviews actually start on time. When I go down the hall to Jane Fonda’s room at 9:30 she’s already there, in make-up and ready to go. I’m her first interview of the day. I was told yesterday at the party that she was very easy to work with, and when she asked how many interviews she’d be doing today she was shocked to discover that she’d have to talk to 50 or more people. In her day, she said, they would only do ten or fifteen interviews a day.
She looks fabulous for 68. She looks fabulous for 58 or 48. Time has been kind to her. We sit and make small talk as they adjust the cameras. I tell her that I have read her book, and she wants to know what I thought about it. I give her a brief review (see above) and she seems to be very interested in how people are reacting to her work.
Once the cameras start to roll we turn the conversation to Monster-in-Law. Here’s a transcript of that conversation:
RICHARD: Congratulations on Monster in Law. In your book, you talk about being blinded by insecurities before stepping on set, and I’m thinking particularly of when you were making Klute and you actually even tried to convince Alan Pakula to fire you, or to replace you in the film because you just weren’t sure you could pull it off, and of course, history has shown us that you could. It’s been 15 years since you’ve made a movie, are there any of those feelings that bubbled up again before you walked on set for Monster in Law?
JANE FONDA: No, and I had a feeling that there wouldn’t be because I’m just so different than I was 15 years ago. When I decided to quit the business 15 years ago I was…It was agony for me. I felt very un-creative, very un-talented, I just didn’t want to be scared anymore, so…Now I thought, last year “You know, I’m so different. Let me see if I can have joy again in the process of making a movie,” and I did.
RICHARD: I wonder were you thinking—when you were on set and working on Monster in Law—were you thinking of some of the advice that maybe Katharine Hepburn had given you, because in your book you talk about her a great deal, and you talk about the difference between a movie legend and a movie star and how as a movie star, you felt that it was okay to have other jobs, whereas she just could not completely understand that.
JANE FONDA: Yeah, movie making has always been just a part of my life whereas for her, it was her whole life, and maybe that’s why she was a legend and I’m just a movie star—was a movie star. But are you asking that in reference to the character?
RICHARD: Yes…
JANE FONDA: Because the character that I play—I would be the monster… definitely somebody who like Katharine Hepburn, very self-conscious, very conscious of her image. I didn’t think so much about all that when I was trying to figure out how to play Viola you know, to tell you the truth, one of the things that helped me play Viola was my 10 years with Ted Turner, because he is also outrageous, over-the-top and at the same time lovable, and what makes someone like Ted lovable in spite of the outrageousness is that you sense underneath the pain that never entirely goes away, and the insecurity, and I think that that’s—I think that’s what I brought to Viola. She could have really been a monster, and certainly a lot of her behavior is despicable, but you always know of the pain of the pain underneath.
RICHARD: Well, I think once you recognize the core of humanity in a character, it doesn’t matter what they do, the audience will buy them if they can sense some insecurity, or if they can sense something that they can automatically relate to as a human trait.
JANE FONDA: Spoken like a true Canadian.
RICHARD: Exactly [laughter]. I met Ted Turner once, and I found that he filled the room and that was the thing that…It’s interesting that you said because Viola’s very much a room-filler. She’s a very big, very large commanding personality.
JANE FONDA: Yes and I think I might have been more scared to play her if I hadn’t gotten to know someone who filled the room as well as I got to know Ted.
RICHARD: Yes. Now, you talk in the film about how—in the book, rather—about how different emotions are sort of like muscle. I know how to flex the scared muscle; I know how to do this. You’re flexing the comedy muscle for the first time in a very long time. I mean it’s been a long since you’ve appeared in a film. It’s been since you’ve made a comedy. Tell me about that, because comedy’s tough…or can be, I think.
JANE FONDA: If I had to do this 15 years ago, it would have been really hard for me. Laughter comes much more easily to me now, so it was…I have a natural fondness for and proclivity to physical comedy, so I don’t know, it came real easy, it was a whole lot of fun. I love working with Wanda Sykes in particular. We had a lot of stuff together, and Jennifer is very good at physical stuff, she’s a dancer, she knows how to control herself, so it was very easy doing the physical stuff wither her.
RICHARD: Thank you so much. It’s been a pleasure to meet you.
I’m pleased with the interview. She actually seems like she thinks about each question and gives nice, well thought out answers. Later I’m talk to another reporter who says his interview didn’t go as well as mine. Apparently when he sat down across from her she was taking a sip of water. As he extended his hand to shake hers she spilled her water down her front and in her lap. It wasn’t his fault, and she wasn’t terribly troubled by it, but he felt the rhythm of the interview had been thrown off.
Next up for me is Michael Vartan. He’s been in a bunch of movies, but is best known as the co-star on Alias opposite Jennifer Gardner. He looks tired, and tells me that he was up until 4 am shooting the season finale of the action series. He is the male lead in the film, although he is quite comfortable admitting that it isn’t his movie. He is there to support the two female leads and look good while doing it. In that he succeeds.
From there I speak to Wanda Sykes, who plays Jane Fonda’s deadpan assistant in the film. She’s a stand-up comedian, who has appeared in everything form Crank Yankers to Curb Your Enthusiasm and her own short lived series called Wanda Does It. We talk about how her part seems so natural, like it was improvised. I ask her about performing comedy opposite Fonda, who earlier told me that doing comedy is “like riding a bicycle or having sex” you never forget how to do it. Wanda joked that if you read Fonda’s book you know how good she is at having sex, so she must be a pretty good comedian as well.
Last was director Robert Luketic. He is best known for directing light frothy comedies like Legally Blonde and Win a Date with Tad Hamilton. I refrain from asking him how J-Lo smells. Instead we talk about the challenge of directing a movie that blends so many different comedic styles—slapstick, deadpan, screwball and situational. For more on all these interviews, tune into Reel to Real in May.
That’s it. The interviews are done and it is only 10:30. I have a couple of hours to kill before I have to leave for the airport so I take a quick walk down to the Beverly Center, but some magazines for the flight home and generally soak up the sun. The flight home is uneventful. I run into Treed Murray and Foolproof director William Phillips who is travelling with his family. He offers me twenty bucks to sit with his three small children on the plane. I politely decline, even though they seem like lovely kids.
I arrive home late and check the newspapers that had piled up while I was gone. I see that it was almost as warm and sunny in Toronto as it had been in LA over the weekend. I guess for the next few months I won’t have to spend my weekends on the road to catch a few rays.
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