The Boys : A Memoir of Hollywood and Family(100)

Francis and Geno flanked an imposing mahogany desk. Behind it was a big leather swivel chair, its back to me, obscuring its occupant. Abruptly, the chair swung around and there was George. He took a beat to give me the once-over. Then he said with a flourish, “Commander Balok! ‘The Corbomite Maneuver!’”

It totally threw me. Here I was, a young actor trying to get an adult part, and there he was, making a reference to something I did as a seven-year-old! America was only in the earliest days of the Star Trek revival, when reruns of the show were not yet widely in syndication and Trekkies were only beginning to be a thing. So I should have been flattered that George was familiar with what was then just another job on my résumé. But because I was in a slump and entering my Angry Young Man phase, what I thought in my head was, Get a fucking life, George.

I stumbled through the audition. I knew in the moment I didn’t stand a chance, reading the way I read and looking the way I did. I did not receive a callback.

Still, I learned something. George’s friendly overture represented the beginning of a phenomenon that follows me to this day: being admired for work I did as a kid. But I just wasn’t ready at sixteen to appreciate that. It seemed less like recognition and more like belittlement. It had the same ring as “Hey, where’s your bear?” I guess I had some growing up to do.





RON


I wasn’t exactly landing choice movie roles, either. One day during the third season of Happy Days, I was sitting in the Paramount commissary, reading a script over lunch. My agent had sent it to me. I thought it was terrible: a broad, zany car-chase comedy with weak jokes and cardboard characters. Its title, which will tell you everything about my reflexive revulsion, was Eat My Dust! It was depressing: this was the level of the film projects that were coming my way.

But Eat My Dust! had one thing to recommend it: it was a Roger Corman production. Corman was known as the King of the Bs, a prolific director and producer of cheaply made movies that went straight to drive-ins and regional theaters via his distribution company, New World Pictures. He had famously shot the original, 1960 version of The Little Shop of Horrors in only two days, helping to launch the career of one of its stars, Jack Nicholson. He had adapted several of Edgar Allan Poe’s stories into campy horror films, one of which, The Pit and the Pendulum, was a childhood obsession of mine thanks to its repeated airings on Million Dollar Movie.

Roger had a reputation in Hollywood. Well, several reputations. He was a shrewd, fiercely intelligent businessman who had come up with an efficient, assembly-line approach to production that turned a tidy profit. He was also an emotionally mercurial man who was charming when in a good mood and best avoided when grumpy. And he was notorious for his wildly eclectic taste, pumping out exploitation flicks but also serving as the U.S. distributor for such European arthouse directors as Federico Fellini, Ingmar Bergman, and Fran?ois Truffaut.

Most pertinent to my interests, Roger had an awesome track record for nurturing young filmmakers. Among those who had served apprenticeships under him were Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, Peter Bogdanovich, and Jonathan Demme. I yearned for a shot to join their ranks. Plus, Roger’s distribution company could potentially secure my agreement with Reg Grundy for ’Tis the Season, which was contingent on my lining up a distributor in the States.

So, rather than toss the script for Eat My Dust! in the garbage, I called my agent, Bill Schuller, and told him that I wanted to meet with Mr. Corman. This pleased Bill, because the offer was a firm one, for good money: $75,000 for a four-week shoot, Corman’s top rate. He generally used no-name actors, so, by his standards, I was a good get.

On the day of the appointment, as I stood outside the building on the Sunset Strip where Corman kept his office, I was surprised to see Bill show up. He had been my agent since my childhood, a dashing man with a pencil mustache who now appeared small and diminished. “I’m coming in with you,” he said.

“No, Bill—I really want to do this alone,” I said. His face fell. I can’t blame him. Imagine having some twenty-one-year-old client basically tell you on the sidewalk, “Get the hell out of here, go home!” I knew the play I was going to make, and I feared that Bill would have been freaked out by my plans to go off-script and negotiate with Corman. Had he been present, he might have interrupted me and undercut my strategy.

Roger was a tall man of surprisingly patrician bearing. We shook hands and I very quickly got down to business. “I’m well aware of what you’ve done for young filmmakers and also of the films you have made. I loved The Pit and the Pendulum,” I said, going on to heap praise on more of his movies: Boxcar Bertha with Scorsese, Targets with Bogdanovich, Dementia 13 with Coppola.

Then, in the most grown-up voice I could muster, I said, “As for Eat My Dust!, I didn’t care for it very much. It’s not the kind of work that I’m looking to do as an actor. But I have a script. It’s called ’Tis the Season, and I believe I have half the money for it out of Australia. If you’ll read my script, put up the other half, and distribute my film, I’ll do Eat My Dust!”

Roger arched his eyebrows. “You’re a filmmaker?” he said.

“Uh, I’ve just made some short films and I used to go to film school at USC,” I said. “But I’m also on Happy Days, and—”

He cut me off. “I’ll read the script,” he said. “And send over any film work of your own that you can show me.”