Random Reminiscing: Looking Back at my Many Random Roles Interviews (Part 7 of Quite a Few)
With the 10th anniversary of my career as a freelance pop culture journalist coming up on April 1st, I’m feeling a tad nostalgic, so I decided that I wanted to start looking back at the portion of my freelance career of which I’m most proud: my Random Roles interviews for the A.V. Club.
If you accidentally missed the previous part of this reminiscing, you can check it out by clicking right here…and if you missed the part before that, well, each installment has a link to the previous installment in the intro, so just keep on clicking back until you’ve read ‘em all!
If you’re all up to date, though, then for heaven’s sake, why are you wasting time with this intro? Just dive right in!
Philip Baker Hall:
The Last Survivors (1975)—“Attorney”
Good Times (1976)—“Motel Owner”
You’ve appeared in numerous different TV series over the years, but the oldest series credit attributed to you is that of a motel owner on an episode of Good Times.
Philip Baker Hall: That is true. I think that may have been my first role when I came out here from New York. It was a two-parter. That was a Norman Lear show.
How did it feel to transition from doing all of that theater work and at least a few films into doing a sitcom?
Well, it was really disorienting. I came out from New York in… I think it was the ’74-’75 TV season. And I didn’t really have anything going out here. A friend of mine came out here and was doing well, and he called me and said, “You’ve got to come out here! They love New York actors out here! You’ve got to get out here fast!” I don’t know why I left New York. Looking back, I almost wish I hadn’t left New York. Anyway, I did come out and stayed with him for a few weeks, and then I began to learn some of the truths about how much they loved New York actors who came out with no agent and no prospects and almost no film in his bag. They didn’t. Not very much, they didn’t. I remember going around and trying to make contacts.
One of the first things I learned out here in Los Angeles—and it may be true in New York now, too, but I don’t have the contact with New York that I used to, but—in New York, you could move around a little bit inside the industry as a beginning without an agent. It was possible. It was better to have an agent who liked you and got you out there, but even if not, it was still a situation in New York in the ’60s and ’70s where you could go to a theater where a hit show was playing, address yourself to the stage manager. I found at the time I first went to New York, in the early ’60s, that most stage managers were very helpful to young actors. You’d inquire if there was any role in the currently running show that you might be suitable for if that actor happened to leave to go make a movie or leave for another play or whatever. And at the time the stage manager of the hit shows both off and on Broadway were kind of receptive to young actors who had no agent and no real New York credits. But this is not quite true in L.A. Unless you look like Tom Cruise did at 23 or something. If you’re just coming out there, and you’re not in your early 20s and look like a Greek god, and you’re out there without some representation or at least some central film in your bag, I would have to say that you almost don’t have a chance. Or at least when I came out in the ’70s you didn’t.
But people were at least respectful in my case, because I did have a sizable New York résumé, and I must say that most of the agents I saw were not dismissive. All of the agents, including all the big ones, William Morris and a lot of major agencies that I visited or upon whose doors I pounded, I found them very courteous. They would study the résumé, and they would agree that it was a real résumé; it was significant, I’d actually done things in New York for real and played important parts. But movies are a different world, and they were all quick to tell me that until I had film, I was kind of a non-person in Los Angeles and in Hollywood. They would all say things like, “Well, if you get a good job in a movie or if you get some good film, be sure to call me first, because I think you might have a future out here, but I just can’t in good conscience submit you for anything, especially at your age.”
I was about 40 years old then. There’s a bottom line of money and career, and looking at me, they had to make decisions, and a lot of them said, “Judging by this résumé, you’re probably a skilled actor, I have no doubt, but there are a lot of people in line ahead of you.” I remember a couple of agents actually used that phrase: “There’s a lot of people your age in front of you who’ve been out here for 20 years, who actually know how this game is played, and who are very skilled in front of a camera.” And I must admit, I was not confident or skilled in front of a camera. I absolutely was not.
When I got that first job… I believe Good Times was the first. It could’ve been the second job. I’m not sure, because I did a movie of the week for CBS with Martin Sheen in which I played his attorney. I can’t remember the name of it. But that may have been before Good Times. But in any case, in those first jobs, I was lacking in confidence, and I did feel, “There are things to be learned here, and I haven’t learned them.” And I wasn’t even sure how to learn them. It was the kind of things that, especially at my age, after so many years of working in the theater, you can’t study in the book or memorize or even ask somebody, “How do you appear relaxed and casual and yet get the job done in front of the camera with a hundred crew people looking on?” Not to mention the other actors, many of whom when I first started were probably prominent or even stars. You’ve got to deliver the goods, but you’re scared to death. Which I certainly was, at least in the beginning.
I do remember that experience on Good Times, though. As I say, I remember it was a two-parter. And Jimmie “J.J.” Walker, he was a huge star at the time. I mean, if you remember that show, it was a popular show, and he was the star of a top-10 show. And he was… confident, to say the least. [Laughs.] I had to do scenes with him. It was difficult. He was impatient. He was doing his job, he was anxious to get on with it, and in his world, I was really a beginner. Anyway, that’s just a little bit of history on that.
By the way, I believe that movie you were referring to was called The Last Survivors.
That was it!
You were right: It aired in ’75, and the episode of Good Times was on in ’76.
Okay, so that movie was the first thing I did out here, actually. But that was a movie, and that’s different from live TV, also. Good Times was with a live audience, three camera, and that was really intimidating. Because there were people on both sides, moving from set to set, and it was pretty scary. As I say, I didn’t have a foundation in Hollywood. I hardly knew anybody. Just at the social level. I felt pretty isolated here, I really did.
I remember Jane Murray. She was the casting director for all of the Norman Lear projects. She was a legend in her time. An older lady, probably in her late 50s or early 60s, and she was imperious and powerful. At that time, when I came out in ’74 or ’75 from New York, the casting director as a functioning element of the Hollywood scene had not fully ascended yet. At that time, in the mid-’70s, the director and the producer still had the power. And they still do, especially the producer, but the casting director had not yet become the extremely powerful force that they were to become later. I would say that she was the first casting director out here to become a force, partly because she was controlling so many shows. At one point, I think Norman Lear had five shows on the air at one time, and she was the one if you wanted to be on a Norman Lear show. You had to go through Jane, and Jane was known for being capricious in her likes and her dislikes and why she liked somebody and why she didn’t. Let’s put it this way: She was a powerful force, and she knew it. [Laughs.]
But let me tell you the reason I got cast. I don’t remember how I actually got up for the audition in the first place; I didn’t have an agent. I was just kind of drifting around the Hollywood jungle on my own. But somehow she heard about me. I was in a play when I first came out here, and that got me some notoriety. It was a play at the Los Angeles Actors Theater called Museum, and Ralph Waite—from The Waltons, which was still a huge top-10 show—was the star. He went off to make Roots for several weeks, and I replaced him as the lead in the play. And even though I didn’t have an agent, that exposure got me a lot of attention and a lot of inquiries and led ultimately to a lot of good things. Many good things. But as I said, I didn’t have an agent, so if you were wondering how I managed to do anything, part of it had to do with that play; because it was a great part, I got a lot of favorable response to it in the industry. I remember Dan Sullivan, who at the time was the main L.A. Times drama critic, coming back to re-review the play and giving me a favorable review. That kind of got things going.
Anyway, when I went to Jane, I thought I had a good reading, but I was also well-prepped by other actors, who were, like, “Well, it doesn’t matter how well you read for Jane. If she likes you, you’ll probably get the part. If she doesn’t, you probably won’t. It doesn’t have a lot to do with how well you audition.” So I went, and I thought it went pretty well. I was nervous, I remember that, but I thought I read well. Knowing, however, what I knew, that her casting technique was kind of just based on maybe what side of the bed she got up on. [Laughs.] Maybe that’s true of all casting directors, I don’t know. But it’s a job I wouldn’t want. That would be a scary job. Too much power.
But I had a friend who had a show years earlier who had used her as his casting director back before she became a legend, and he was still prominent as a producer, so I called him on the phone and said, “I had a reading for Jane today for Good Times, and I think it went well. I don’t know how it went in relation to the other actors who read, but I think I read well enough that, everything else being equal, I could be cast in this part. But I understand that Jane is capricious, and you have no idea which way she’s going to go.” He had given her one of her first jobs years earlier, so he had a connection of having helped mentor her when she was younger. So he gave her a call, and I remember he called me back and said, “You’ve got the part.” [Laughs.]
I don’t know how he bent her arm or whether she was going to cast me anyway, but I did talk to her about that later. She mentioned it. She said, “Oh, I talked to your good friend Andy a couple of days ago,” and I said, “Yeah, did he tell you to cast me or else?” She said, “Oh, no, no, I was going to cast you anyway.” Well, I don’t know about that. I think that my friend Andy probably had 90 percent to do with it. Or if she was on the fence, he pushed her the right way, basically saying, “This is my old friend who I went to college with, he’s a good actor, and he’s trying to get going out here, so why don’t you give him this part, Jane?” That’s what I think happened, anyway.
By the way, just one addendum to that is that I got that part, and the next morning a number of agents called to say, “Are you represented?” I didn’t go with any of the agents who called, but there were a number of sort of third-tier agents who were calling because I’d appeared the night before in a top-10 show in a prominent role. So right away the phones started to ring, and a little momentum began to gather in my Hollywood career.
Mary Woronov:
Rock ’N’ Roll High School (1979)—“Evelyn Hogar”
Rock ’N’ Roll High School Forever (1991)—“Doctor Vadar”
Shake, Rattle And Rock!( 1994)—“E. Joyce Togar”
Mary Woronov: They just let me go. [Laughs.] Totally unstructured. I told Allan [Arkush], “Thank you for this role, because what I need is just a nice TV series, and I’m gonna do it like I’m Eve Arden.” And he said, “That’s fine, Mary.” And then they dressed me up and they gave me makeup, I showed up on set with all these punk-rockers, and… I just turned into Miss Togar. I didn’t even think about it. That was it. She was a scream for me.
You said you’d been into punk at the time. Were you already familiar with the Ramones, then?
I knew about them. But they were in New York, and the whole punk scene in New York was violently different from the punk scene in Los Angeles. The bands in Los Angeles were incredible, and I liked them, but they never got anywhere. Even the big band. Exene [Cervenka’s] band, X. I thought they were so L.A. I thought they were brilliant, I really did. I mean, not as eclectic as the Mau Maus or Fear or something like that, but why didn’t they go somewhere?
Well, they had a certain degree of success in the ’80s. But they’d really toned down their sound by then.
Yeah. When they were raw, they were good.
Do you have a particular favorite Miss Hogar line?
No, but everybody else does. There’s the “little worm” thing. [“Lick my boot, you little worm!”] I like her because, one, she’s about power. She’s really a portrait of a tyrant. She’s crazy about power, she’s absolutely sexually deranged. [Laughs.] Really, she’s quite nuts. And I think it was a good portrait of some kind of tyrant like that.
Now, as far as the sequel…
Oh, the sequel was so incredible. Suddenly I had the entire Hollywood block behind me. I mean, I could snap my fingers and flames would come out of my hands. I would fall down and they would come up and say, “Now, Mary, you’re just gonna do this,” so I’d trip or something, but you look at it and it looks like I’ve had an absolutely bone-breaking fall. I mean, when Hollywood is behind you, it’s really great. They can do anything. The problem was that they didn’t have a script. And they also didn’t have the Ramones. And they overdid me! I mean, why did I look like Darth Vader?
For the same reason your character was an amputee with three prosthetic hands, presumably.
[Laughs.] Hollywood: Sometimes they’re so good, and sometimes they make the crassest mistakes.
Well, at least you got to kind of got to spiritually reprise the role of Miss Togar in Allan Arkush’s Shake, Rattle And Rock!
Oh, yeah. But that was short. And that wasn’t really Miss Togar. Miss Togar was brilliant.
Frances Fisher:
Patty Hearst (1988)—“Yolanda”
Frances Fisher: That was quite the experience. I remember going in to audition for Paul Schrader, and we were waiting for Bill Forsythe to show up… and he never did! So I sat there in character for an hour. Just sitting there staring, because I figured I wouldn’t be a chatty person. Yolanda was a very serious, radical person, so I just sat there for an hour with Paul in the room. And Paul sat there, too. And we just sat there and stared. [Laughs.] And it was before cell phones, so there was no texting going on. I just sat there and waited. I think I got the job just based on sitting there and staying in character and not trying to get the job.
The experience of making the film was amazing as well. They took all of us up to San Francisco for two weeks and put us into an apartment—like a safe house, with all the windows blocked out—and we all lived together. We slept on sleeping bags, we joked around, we put Natasha [Richardson] in the closet for a couple of hours. We all bonded. We became the SLA. We got to know each other as people and all that, and I think that really helped with the energy on set and the performances.
Zeljko Ivanek:
Hannibal (2001)—“Dr. Cordell Doemling”
Zeljko Ivanek: Pushing Gary Oldman into the pigs is about as good as it gets. [Laughs.] And actually, what was really cool was just the downtime with Anthony Hopkins. I got him talking about his early days in the theater at the Old Vic with Laurence Olivier. Hearing him tell stories about that was really cool. But—oh, God, I shouldn’t even tell this story, but—I was going to do two days on Hannibal, and the first day, we were going to be shooting down in Richmond for this one scene, and I didn’t even know who I was working with. I’d only just flown in the night before. But I get the call and find out it’s Ray Liotta. I think, “Oh, that’s so cool! I really like Ray Liotta. It’ll be nice to finally get a chance to work with him.”
So I go into the makeup trailer the next morning, they’re working on him, I didn’t want to interrupt, so I sit down in the next chair, and they start working on me. And at one point, he notices me and I think, “Okay, this’ll be a good moment to introduce myself,” so I say, “Hi, I’m Zeljko Ivanek!” And he said, “Yeah,” and then he goes, “Rat Pack…? ” [Suddenly looks horrified.] It’s not like we were just in the same movie: I actually worked with him for days! I mean, yeah, okay, it was several years before, but even so… I was just mortified.
John Rhys-Davies:
Grizzly II: The Concert a.k.a. Grizzly II: Revenge (1987)—“Bouchard”
John Rhys-Davies: Was it called Grizzly II? I thought it was a rather good performance that I gave. Unfortunately, it was a bit grisly in the sense that the special effects were disastrous. And since the whole thing was based on a “devil bear” that was supposed to be 12 to 14 feet high, everything falls down from there. What other memories do I have? Oh, I have some classic memories of it, but I don’t think I can actually repeat them without being sued for something or other.
Laura Dern was similarly evasive. The best we could get out of her was, “I’m 16 years old, it’s six weeks in Budapest, Hungary, at the exact second Communism is ending, and it’s me, George Clooney, and Charlie Sheen. I’m not gonna say another damned thing.”
[Momentary silence.] You know, I think we’re talking about a different film. Because I don’t think ours was ever actually released.
It wasn’t. But there are clips on YouTube nonetheless.
Oh, really? Well, if it’s the same film… Can you remember Staying Alive?
I can.
Do you remember [who plays] the choreographer in that?
That would be Steve Inwood. And, yes, his very next film credit after Staying Alive was, in fact, Grizzly II: The Concert.
I want to know what happened to the first Grizzly. [Laughs.] Now, as far as Steve… well, to begin with, is he still alive?
He appears to be.
Oh, all right, very good. Has he done anything since?
Very little. A pair of small films and a few TV episodes, but his most recent credit is from 1997.
Poor fellow. He was very handsome, very strong, but he had one or two problems, and I guess coming off the near-superstardom of Staying Alive, it made him… perhaps overvalue his contribution a little bit. And the whole thing was a real eye-opener. Sometimes you learn more from films that aren’t terribly successful and, indeed, sometimes you learn more from real disasters than you do from the ones that succeed. But it was a howlingly funny production.
Personally, I remember standing on a hill for 45 minutes in the cold, waiting to turn up the hill and run. And, of course, like an idiot, I did stand on my mark for 45 minutes and, when camera was called, I did turn and run up the hill, which when you’re standing facing downhill, your Achilles tendon is in its shortest position, and when you start to run up the hill, it is fully extended. And I heard both of mine go [makes a twanging sound]. Oh, I was in agony. But that was my fault. In those days, I thought I was unburstable and immortal, anyway. But now here we are, many wounds later…
So, yeah, it was a shame, that film. It could’ve been quite a good little movie. I think it’s probably still on Arnie Kopelson’s shelf somewhere, but I guess its time came and went. Surely the music from the concert’s out of date by now. [Laughs.]
[As you may have deduced by the embedded trailer, the film did finally see a home video release. Whether it actually should have or not, that’s another story.]
Edward Herrmann:
Eleanor And Franklin (1976) / Eleanor And Franklin: The White House Years (1977) / Annie (1982)—“Franklin Delano Roosevelt”
Edward Herrmann: It was a gift. You never get a script that good. Or a cast that good, or a director that good, or a designer that good, or a sponsor that good. And all on the same project? It was just blessed. I had finished Day Of The Dolphin, and Mike Nichols told me about this possible show about Roosevelt and said, “You should go.” So I went to David Susskind’s office and we talked, and then I met with Joe Lash, who had the imprimatur for the family, and he approved. And then I talked to some ABC guys. I didn’t realize how dangerous and special all this was. I was a rookie with the whole television thing. And then the script had to be written, and [James] Costigan was a real difficult guy to pin down and get things done. And it took a year. In the meantime, I was frantic. I didn’t want to do any more commercials, because I didn’t want to spoil my presence before the project. [Laughs.] And I was driving my agents nuts. “No! No word!” Because Jane Alexander had been set [to play Eleanor Roosevelt], she was further along. She’d done The Great White Hope. And I’d worked with her, actually, on stage, but I hadn’t done any film. And they hadn’t set the director [Petrie], and so on and so on.
The long and the short of it was that he had seen The Paper Chase the day before he was presented with the information that “the network wants this guy Ed Herrmann,” so he said, “Oh, I just saw him. He’s a good actor. That’s fine.” Boom. [Laughs.] But that was, like, a month before we started shooting. I had done some reading before, but I didn’t want to immerse myself if I wasn’t going to do it. And then I just took a room across from his house in Hyde Park, and I went every day to the archives there at the Roosevelt Library, and I saw every foot of newsreel. They had 16mm dupes of everything in the archives right there. And I talked and I looked and I studied, and I had tapes that I’d go to sleep with. I mean, it was heaven to be able to immerse yourself in a character, with the time to do that. And the result is that it was a crackerjack show. Everything worked.
We had two different Louis Howes. Eddie Flanders did the first one, and Walter McGinn did the second one. See, the first film was over two nights, and it took him up to his election as governor, and then the second one was about the White House years. And it was sponsored by IBM all the way. On the second one, there was a gap that was sort of a jump, and we needed a scene, a piece. And Costigan was resistant, and, of course, the powers that be were resistant, because this would mean another day’s shooting. And in those days, that was $180,000 or $190,000. It’d be more today, but that was still no small chunk of change. But finally Jane got behind it as well, and then Dan got behind it, and Harry Sherman, our producer, got behind it, and they went to IBM, and they said, “Yep, okay.” And they coughed up the money, and we did the scene. And it’s a wonderful scene. It’s in the bedroom, and it’s kind of tough between Anna [Blair Brown] and Eleanor and Franklin, but it was necessary to kind of rough up their relationship. But, yeah, it’s something I look on as a gift, and people still talk about it.
You also played FDR a third time, in John Huston’s film version of Annie.
I sure did. Boy, you really know your stuff. [Laughs.]
You said that people thought of you as the bee’s knees for your performance in the TV movies. Do you know definitely that that’s why John Huston asked for you?
Oh, yeah. John was old school, as you know, and he didn’t direct the actors. He just hired the right people and then he let them alone. And he said… [Does a John Huston impression.] “I want that kid who played Roosevelt. I want him!” And he was wonderful. You better know your lines, because he does one take, and if he likes it, that’s it. And the scene where Daddy Warbucks brings Annie to the White House, it’s a complicated shot. He brings her in, and there’s Lois de Banzie and me, she’s standing, I’m sitting, and then we sort of circle around, and we end up under the portrait of George Washington, and then we sing the song.
Well, it was one shot ’til we got to the portrait, and then they cut and we did the song. And John had discovered the TV monitor—it had just been invented—and he stopped looking at the actors and he started putting a blanket around himself and looking at the monitor. And he looked at it and said, “Fine, let’s cut, print, let’s go.” And the DP—he’d replaced one DP, so this is the second guy—he said, “John, can I have a second?” “What? What is it?” “I wonder if we could have another one.” “What? What the hell for?” In that droll delivery of his. “Well, it’s a complicated shot, John, and we’ve only done it once. I think we can do it better.” “Did you get everything? “Well, yeah, but…” “Okay, but, goddammit, I don’t want to waste my time with this. Just shoot it again.” So we did it again, and he snapped, “Cut, print, we’re moving.” [Laughs.]
But what’s irreplaceable for me… when she comes in on the elephant on roller skates, the big party at the end, it’s all night long, and we’re in New Jersey at this big mansion. I’m sitting next to John Huston, and the elephant came on, they’re rehearsing, and John says, “Oh, isn’t that a fine elephant? Isn’t that a good elephant? Look at that.” And I said, “Yeah, it’s a sweetie.” And he says, “I was in India, hunting tigers with the maharaja of Jaipur, and I was in one of those little huts…” I said, “A kumbha.” “A kumbha! That’s right. That’s exactly what it is! Have you been to India?” I said, “Yeah.” “Really!” And all he wanted to do was talk about it. He wanted tales. All of a sudden, not only did I play Roosevelt, but I knew about India! [Laughs.]
God, just to be around him was wonderful. Of course, I didn’t want to go do Roosevelt again at the time, but when John Huston asks, you do it standing on your head without any clothes on just to work with him. [Laughs.] But, yeah, I saw how his idea was to cast it correctly and let ’em go. You don’t tell Bogart what to do. You don’t tell Spencer Tracy what to do. You just cast it right. I don’t know how much direction he gave Bogart, but I keep watching The Maltese Falcon, and it’s just absolute perfection. There are a couple of odd shots. Always in a John Huston film there are a couple of shots that were put in afterwards, and they don’t look right, but, God, it’s just magic. It’s just wonderful.