Acting is all about honesty. If you can fake
that, you've got it made.
- George Burns (January 20, 1896 - March 9,
1996)
* *
*
|
Marilyn Monroe |
We were
cruising along Hollywood Boulevard, squinting through the smog at the passing
buildings, when Chris said, "Isn't this the second damned time we've gone
by Grauman's?"
He was
speaking of the famed Grauman's Chinese Theater, where stars have left
footprints and palm prints in wet cement for lo these many. I rolled down the
window to get a closer look, waving at the smog as if shooing away smoke. Sure
enough, the familiar facade of the Grande Dame of movie houses made itself
known.
"This
is totally screwed," I said, shutting out the polluted air and breathing
in the fresh BMW air conditioner breeze. "Somebody ripped off the corner
of Hollywood and La Brea."
"Okay,
okay," Chris said. "Let's slow way the fuck down and look."
And so we
slowed way the fuck down, ignoring the complaining horns behind us. I was under
the apparently false impression that I knew the area well. I used to walk this
way after school to an afternoon cleaning gig at my Aunt Rita's place, a
popular night spot - Sancho Panza's - near the corner of Hollywood and La
Brea.(I attended Hollywood High the last semester of my junior year.) And after
Sancho's, there was a gas station, whose owner also ran a Homes Of The Stars
bus tour, along with a newsstand that sold maps of same.
I knew
Sancho Panza's was long gone, replaced by a succession of nail parlors, beauty
salons and antique clothing stores. But the odd little one-and-a-half story
building that had housed it was absent. As was the gas station/star tour
business. And across La Brea - where a rather palatial Christian Science
Reading Room had once stood - was a gray, multi-storied parking lot.
"I
don't get it," I said. "Everything's different."
"Holy
shit!" Chris said, as he reached the end of the block, then squealed
around the corner. "Looks like Stevie Poo has gone and done it."
|
Stephen J. Cannell |
The
"Stevie Poo" in question was none other than the late, great
Stephen J. Cannell, creator and co-creator of such
classics as The Rockford Files, Great American Hero, The A-Team and so on.
Our
mission that day was to meet with Steve and his partner, Frank Lupo, our old producer
buddy from Galactica 1980. The objective: a gig writing an episode of their new
show, Hunter, featuring former NFL star
Fred Dyer. Lupo had called a few days before,
said come on in, boys, the water's fine, then followed up with a messengered
draft of the pilot.
"What's
Steve gone and done?" I asked, trying to see what the hell he was talking
about.
"He's
built himself a fucking building," Chris said, pulling up to a red curb.
He pointed upward. "Look!"
I looked.
And finally saw. Where the source of my teenage income had once stood, was a
tall, tastefully gray building. It towered over the whole corner, which is why
we hadn't seen it. We were looking down, not up. And, oh, I did mention the
eye-smarting smog didn't I?
"He's
even got a big-damned sign with his name on it," Chris said.
I craned
my head back and sure enough, there was a huge sign fixed to the top of the
building: Cannell Studios.
"Take
that, Fucking Universal," Chris said. (MCA/Universal had forever become
Fucking Universal to Chris during our brief days of slavery there.)
It was
said that Cannell had been ill-treated by the Black Tower - and who in
"The Biz" hasn't? - and struck off on his own taking an amazing string
of successes with him. "Sort of a Glen Larson with God Damned class,"
is how Chris put it.
After
discovering the building, it now became clear that the matching parking
structure across La Brea went with it. Chris whipped over the wheel of his BMW
and aimed for the entrance.
"You
know, about half the people in town got their break at Fucking Universal,"
Chris said as he smoothed over the speed bump guarding the entry.
"Including
us," I pointed out.
"Including
us," he agreed as he began his search for a nice safe spot to put his nice
new car. "And yet, everybody hates the damned place. Instead of warm and
cuddly teddy bear feelings, we all give the Black Tower the finger when we pass
on by."
He found a
spot where the car was least likely to get its sides or fenders scraped and
pulled in. "They piss all over you and screw you for every dime they can,
so in the end - when you've made a rep for yourself - you take your best stuff
elsewhere."
"Yeah,
yeah, I know," I said. "There oughtta be a law."
"There
is one," Chris said as we shut the doors and locked the car. "And a
pretty fucking important one, at that."
"Like
what?"
Chris
stopped and fixed me with his Great Wiseman look. "It just so happens,
Cole, that in Hollywood it is totally illegal to drive a flock of more than two
hundred sheep down the boulevard."
"No
shit?" I said.
"I
shit thee not," Chris said. "Look it up. It's on the books."
With that
factoid to chew on, I followed Chris across the street and into the new Cannell
Channel Building.
We met
Steve in his spacious penthouse office, whose floor-to-ceiling windows rivaled
any of those occupied by the Guys With The Big Telephones over at Universal.
Lupo was with him, perched on an identical long-legged director's chair.
They were
a study in contrasts. Steve had dark blonde hair, a short beard - almost a
goatee - and a leading man's profile. Frank was dark Italian, with a heavyset,
muscular build. Frank always had the look of a guy with a deep secret, and an
amusing one at that. He wore his usual sardonic grin and his eyes were bright
with intelligence. Chris and I liked him a lot.
"Hey,
guys, how ya doin'?" Frank said. "Done with the book yet?"
He was
referring to our Vietnam novel,
A Reckoning For Kings. And he knew very well it
was done and that we were on to our next book -
Sten #4: Fleet Of The Damned, I
think. (See "promised, promised" scripts in Towtruck Boogie & The
EatAnter ) His comment was meant for Steve, to goose his partner's interest in
one of Lupo's favorite writing teams. Namely, Bunch & Cole.
It worked,
because Steve's interest was immediately piqued. From merely polite, he went
to: "That's right. Frank mentioned you boys were Real Writers." (His
emphasis - and, yeah, mine as well.)
He came
off his chair and started showing us his little office treasures. Mementos from
shows he'd worked on, like Colombo and The Rockford Files. (which he also
co-created) Various impressive awards. His battered typewriter, which he said
he'd had for two small forevers. He also confessed that he was dyslexic and
that his longtime assistant was "the only one in the world" who could
translate the seeming nonsense words that he poured out into actual English.
His prize
office toy was a new brass telescope mounted on a tripod. It was pointed at the
rooftop garden on the building opposite. "The secretaries over
there," he said, "are incredible. They take sun-tanning lunch breaks
almost every day." He shook his head. "I didn't know bikinis could
get that small." He waved an inviting hand. "Go ahead, take a
look."
Chris
stepped up and peered through the telescope. Suddenly, his face lit up.
"Holy, shit," he said. "She's taking her top off!"
"Let
me see, let me see," Cannell said, elbowing in to look.
Frank
chuckled - he knew Chris' evil ways. Then shook his head in amusement when he
saw the look on Cannell's face when he realized he'd been had. Nary a chick in
sight, much less a topless one.
"Better
have some great fucking stories, guys," Frank advised, then led us back to
the directors' chairs.
But
Cannell wasn't ready to get down to business. Instead he pressed us on novel
writing. What was our schedule like? How did we juggle books with our Hollywood
chores? And how did two guys go about writing a book?
"With
scripts," Chris said, "one guy sits at the typewriter and types,
while the other paces, and we pitch stuff back and forth. All the dialogue is
spoken aloud, so we know an actor can deliver the lines."
"They
write great dialogue," Frank testified. "I used to hear them go at it
when my office was down the hall from theirs."
"With
books," I put in, "we make a really thorough outline. Then split up
the chapters. We don't go - here, you take chapter one, two, three, and I'll
take four, five and six. We split things by subject and story lines. Things we
like best, or know best."
"If
there's a preacher in the story," Chris said, "I stick Cole with the
sermons. He gives great fucking sermon."
"I
hate sermons," I said. "But I do them anyway. Then Chris feels guilty
and I can toss him scut work scenes."
Chris said,
"When we're done with our sections, we swap them. Then rewrite the other
guy. And blend in the writing styles so the whole thing is seamless. That way,
when we're done with our first draft, it's more like a second draft. And a
polished second draft at that."
"It's
a lot more satisfying writing books than scripts," I said. "For
better or worse, a book is all yours. But soon as you hand in a script, it no
longer belongs to you."
Cannell
appeared a little wistful. I saw him glance over at a picture on his desk - it
was of him and his family standing in front of a large yacht. Handsome family.
Expensive-looking yacht.
He sighed.
"I really envy you guys," he said. "Maybe someday..."
|
Fred Dryer |
Then it
was to work and we started pitching Hunter stories. As mentioned before, the
series starred former NFL star Fred Dyer as Sgt. Rick Hunter. The story they
finally chose was one we called The Legacy.
The basic
idea was that the son of a mob boss, who is also an old friend of Hunter 's, is
killed in what appears to be a burglary. But Hunter (who has a suspicious past)
is unconvinced. Despite pressure from above he goes after the real killer,
preventing an all out mob war in the process. Not particularly original, but
with tons of action, lots of fun and a plethora of plot twists. (Basic writer's rule: if you want a lot of twists, keep the plot simple or the audience will get lost.)
Cannell
and Lupo said go thou and write. And so we did - after retrieving Chris' BMW
from the lot and picking up a bottle of scotch to wash out the taste of smog.
As we were
driving home, Chris said, "Poor son of a bitch."
"Who's
a poor son of a bitch?" I asked.
"Steve
Cannell, is who," he replied. "Did you see the look on his face when
he asked about writing books? He was practically weepy. He'd really, really
rather write books than be a big time producer."
"Yeah,
I saw," I said. "But he's stuck. Probably has two or more houses -
expensive houses, at that. And you saw the yacht. Then there's the family.
Plus, he's got a whole string of shows on the air. People relying on him. All
those payrolls to make."
Chris
sighed. "Money has got to be the ultimate Jones," he said. He stared
at the traffic a moment, then added, "Wonder if he'll ever be able kick
the habit?"
I
shrugged. "Probably not."
As it
happens, we were flat out wrong. Years later, Cannell shook the Jones, broke
out of Hollywood and became the best-selling author of the always intriguing
Shane Scully Series. Good on you, Steve. (Sadly, he died recently and is missed
by all.)
We got to
work on the script. It came pretty easily, although it was a good thing we were
no longer wet behind the ears. This was the kind of a job that took a couple of
guys with experience.
Fred Dyer
was a six-foot-six former defensive end who was not only a Super Bowl champion,
but was also the only guy who had ever made two safeties in a single NFL game.
But the jury was still out on whether he could actually act. Hell - could he
even memorize his lines?
|
Stephanie Kramer |
Frank had
warned us to keep it stupid, simple, until he and Steve sussed out their new
star. To that end we tossed the main lines - and acting chores - to his two
co-stars:
Stephanie Kramer as Lt. Dee Dee McCall and Charles Hallahan as Capt. Charles Devane. If you
check their creds, you'll see that they were already experienced hoofers when
they were picked for Hunter.
That's the
trick smart producers like Frank and Steve used when dealing with amateur
stars. Surround them with pros. Tell your writers to give the pros the main
lines, the heavy lines. Then give the star the Button, or last line. And the
pros will react in ways that will make the audience think the amateur is a
bloody genius. (We used that trick later on shows like Walker, Texas Ranger,
starring Chuck Norris, which Lupo also produced.)
Within a
couple of weeks we wrote Fade Out, punted the script forward and got back to
writing
Sten #4 - Fleet Of The Damned. A few days later we got the call to come on in for our second draft notes.
I don't
remember who we met with - by now Frank and Steve had a full crew on board and
were busy with their Executive Producer chores. Maybe it Jo Swerling Jr... I'm
not sure. I do know that ours was the first episode they bought after the pilot
and it ended up running the fifth week of the first season. The point being -
these were early days. Everybody was feeling their way into the show, which ran
for seven very successful seasons.
Swerling
(or whomever) said, "Good first draft, boys. Got a few things we have to
change because the situation has changed. And a few suggestions for this and
that."
Chris and
I nodded. Pens poised over notepads.
"Shoot,"
I said - rather unfortunately, as it turned out.
"The
first thing," Swerling (or whomever) said, "is a cover note." He
tapped the face of the script for emphasis. "A really important cover
note."
We said go
ahead.
"Now,
this is going to sound really stupid," Swerling (or whomever) went on.
"But we want you to go through all of Fred's lines - all his dialogue -
and change any word that begins with the letter 'S'."
We both
reacted. "What the fucking fuck?" Chris said for both of us.
"Sorry
about that, guys," Swerling (or whomever) said. He leaned forward and
lowered his voice. "You know that Fred was a football star, right?"
We said,
yeah, we did.
"Well,
in one of his last games he got his two front teeth kicked out," Swerling
(or whomever) said. "He got some new ones. But it turns out they don't fit
real well.
"And
whenever he says a word that starts with the letter 'S' he spits his fucking
teeth into the camera."
As you can
imagine, we were nearly knocked out of our seats. Swerling (or whomever) asked,
"That going to be a problem boys?"
|
Get Your 'S' Outta Here! |
Chris
said, "Other than the fact that our bad guy is named Sam, and the Vic has
a boat named, Silverado, and a dog named, Sunshine, plus a fucking sister,
named Sue - no... we've got no goddamned problem at all."
Swerling
(or whomever) sighed. "Yeah, I saw that. Guess you're going to have the
retype every page of the entire script from the Fade In to the Fade Out."
(This was in the pre-Search & Replace days)
"Aw,
shit," I said.
Swerling
(or whomever) raised a warning finger. "You mean, Aw, Thit, right?"
We both
nodded. "Riiight."
NEXT: HOW
WE STOPPED WORRYING,
AND LEARNED TO LOVE THE MOB
*****
THE COMPLETE MISADVENTURES:
IT'S A BOOK!
THE VITAL LINKS:
The MisAdventures began humbly enough - with about 2,000 readers. When it rose to over 50,000 (we're now knocking at the door of 115,000) I started listening to those of you who urged me to collect the stories into a book. Starting at the beginning, I went back and rewrote the essays, adding new detail and events as they came to mind. This book is the result of that effort. However, I'm mindful of the fact, Gentle Reader, that you also enjoy having these little offerings posted every Friday to put a smile on your face for the weekend. So I'll continue running them until it reaches the final Fade Out. Meanwhile, it would please the heart of this ink-stained wretch - as well as tickle whatever that hard black thing is in my banker's chest - if you bought the book. It will make a great gift, don't you think? And if you'd like a personally autographed copy you can get it directly through my (ahem) Merchant's Link at Amazon.com. Click here. Buy the book and I will sign it and ship it to you. Break a leg!
*****
STEN #1 DEBUTS IN SPANISH!
Told in four parts, Episode One now appearing in Diaspar Magazine, the best SF&F magazine in South America! And it's free! Here's the link.
*****
Sten debuta # 1 en español! Narrada en cuatro partes, Episode One ahora aparece en la revista Diaspar, la mejor revista de SF & F en América del Sur!
*****
THE STEN COOKBOOK & KILGOUR JOKEBOOK
Two new companion editions to the international best-selling Sten series. In the first, learn the Emperor's most closely held cooking secrets. In the other, Sten unleashes his shaggy-dog joke cracking sidekick, Alex Kilgour. Both available as trade paperbacks or in all major e-book flavors. Click here to tickle your funny bone or sizzle your palate.
Hello Allan! My first visit, will visit you again. Seriously, I thoroughly enjoyed your posts( really interesting blog). Would be great if you could visit also mine...Thanks for sharing! Keep up the fantastic work!
ReplyDeleteThanks for your kind words, Nelson. Visited your site and I urge everyone reading this to do the same. Great stuff there!!!
DeleteJust got to the end of this series, after multiple enjoyable days reading it to procrastinate from my pay-the-rent editing job. Now I suppose I only get more by the week?
ReplyDeleteBut holy crap. (This is more a comment on the series in general, than this particular posting.) I'm an aspiring novelist (maybe not so aspiring - first should come out later May if cover/typography happen as planned), been playing with film.
DAMN, dude, have you convinced me. The downs as well as the ups; had you not mentioned the crap... aside from their comedic value, I wouldn't have believed you. The ups, aside from some of the $ you've offhandedly mentioned...
Just one question, Mr. Cole: It's been 25 years since these stories. Is the scene still like that?
It's exactly like that, Leo, except it seems more complicated because there are so many more outlets. Basically, it's like being nibbled to death by ducks. I'm in a situation now that will make a great addition to the series when the time comes. Meanwhile, if you want to read all the MisAdventures you can get the book at: http://tinyurl.com/6uoyu8v Or, you can just hang on and wait for the publication of each episode every Friday. Either way, I'm glad to have your eyeballs (as they say in the Biz.
Delete