“Maybe. But I’ve got to warn you. There is a certain DNA consideration at work here.”
“What do you mean?”
“You can sing in tune or you can’t. You can keep a beat or you can’t. There are some things you cannot learn.”
David found two actors, Jack Huston and John Magaro, who could sing, and we started giving them lessons right away. Pat DiNizio from the Smithereens came in to teach Jack guitar, and Andy White taught John drums. I needed an older drum teacher because I wanted Magaro to learn the old-school Jazz way of playing with his wrist up.
If Andy’s name sounds familiar, it’s because he had been hired by George Martin to play on the first Beatles’ single “Love Me Do.” It was a common practice then, since most band member drummers weren’t consistent enough and there was a very limited amount of time to get it right.
Max Weinberg had found Andy working in a North Jersey music store some years earlier. Lord knows how he recognized him, but Max works in mysterious ways. We found and hired Andy.
He was in his early eighties at the time and took the bus in every day from Caldwell, New Jersey. Sweet, sweet guy.
Max, Garry Tallent, Bobby Bandiera, and I recorded the music for the soundtrack, and I sang guide vocals for the actors.
By the time we shot the movie, the Twylight Zones had become a real band. I had fantasies of them playing film festivals after movie screenings.
The festivals that never happened.
Lilyhammer was the most popular show in Norwegian history, drawing one million viewers out of a national population of five million. It was the prime minister’s favorite show. He would tweet to be left alone for an hour because “I am watching Lilyhammer !”
The tightrope act had worked. We had satisfied the NRK audience that wanted comedy and the Netflix audience that wanted more. We had made Norwegian viewers feel like the show was theirs while drumming up international appetite for Norwegian content for the first time.
In the wake of that success, I had to call Harvey Weinstein.
Miramax had gotten worldwide distribution, outside the United States, for Not Fade Away.
I had suggested to David that he release the movie in Europe first. It was more a European art-house film than a blockbuster, more 400 Blows than Transformers 5. Rock and Roll still had some cultural capital in Europe. And though The Sopranos was big everywhere, as an auteur David was more appreciated over there. No Jerry Lewis jokes, please; I agree with the French!
Break Not Fade Away in Europe, I figured, and maybe, just maybe, we’d have a shot at home.
So while David was discussing the domestic release with Paramount, I called Harvey. “Listen,” I said, “I’ve got a really big show on in Norway right now. Let’s do David’s premiere there. Red carpet and the whole schmear! The entire cast of my show will come, we’ll fly over a few Sopranos for fun, plus the prime minister is a fan. I know half his cabinet. I bet they’ll all come too.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Harvey said. “Good idea. Let’s make it happen.”
It never happened.
The movie went straight to eight-track in the States. Another beautiful piece of work blowing in the wind. This time it wasn’t mine, but I felt very bad for David. He and the film deserved better.
Nobody saw it.
The entire three seasons and four years I was in Norway, I loved everything about the country, the people, and the mystery of both. I wanted to leave something meaningful behind. I felt there was enormous untapped potential, and my natural instinct as a Producer was to realize the potential of everyone and everything I saw.
Norway is a very complicated place, and many of the complexities are buried deep.
You could vacation there for the rest of your life and never catch a hint of what is actually going on in the hearts and minds of Norwegians. The longer you are there, the less you know.
The complexity starts with wealth and how it’s used.
Norway is one of the richest countries in the world, a well-kept secret. Up until 1972 or so, it was a nation of simple, mostly happy farmers. Well, happy might be a stretch. Content maybe. There’s a reason Ibsen’s plays aren’t a laugh a minute.
Then one day, up from the ground came a-bubblin’ crude. Oil, that is. From the sea, actually, but then you can’t do the Beverly Hillbillies theme sing-along. And if Flatt and Scruggs ain’t the ultimate name for a Bluegrass duo, I don’t know what is!
So somebody struck oil, and what did they do? They tried to give it to Sweden, of course. Who promptly turned it down. Probably a relative of the schmuck who decided not to quarantine.
So, against their better nature, Norway became crazy rich.
I’m only half kidding about their nature. Norwegians are not all that comfortable being rich. Hard as it may be for Americans to understand, it is simply not a materialist society. No flashy cars, no designer clothes. Even at the homes of the richest Norwegians, no expensive paintings, no Louis XIV chairs, no kooky $50,000 lamps.
As rich as they are—and it’s Saudi rich, I shit you not—they don’t spend it. On anything. Individually or as a country.
There are potholes in the streets. The trains break down every month or two. Costs are high, taxes are high. With trillions in the bank. Or whatever the next thing after trillions is.
On the other hand, they guarantee free health care and education, from womb to tomb. No homelessness. No poverty. No crime (until Frankie Tagliano showed up!). Really scary socialism!
And don’t fall for the we’re-just-dumb-farmers routine, like I did. They’re in the European Union, but they’re not. They use it for trade, but they keep their own currency, which helped them avoid all the recession problems everybody else had a few years back.
Endlessly fascinating place. I miss it. If we could restart Lilyhammer, I’d go back in a minute.
One of the secret keys to the deeply mysterious Norwegian sensibility is a philosophy called Janteloven.
I won’t do a whole big discussion about it—that’s why God created Google—but among other things, it suggests that a society is healthiest when everyone is equal.
Radical! I know.
Extremist Janteloven acolytes look down on any Norwegians who think or act as if they are superior to anyone else.
Ambition ain’t cool.
They make a huge exception, however, for sports stars. As long as they win, they can enjoy as much celebrity as they want.
And foreigners get a pass, luckily. So everybody loved me! And I loved them right back. Not in spite of, but because of all their eccentricities. Many of which we put in the show.
I got friendly with the cultural minister at the time, Trond Giske—and still am—introduced by either Stine Cocktail Slipper or Cecilie Launderette, both members of Wicked Cool bands.
Giske wanted to encourage the Arts and interaction with the rest of the world. I would make speeches occasionally, with his support, trying to explain the difference between equality and equal opportunity, which is one of our proudest American ideals we’ve never lived up to.
I always spent part of my speeches trying to encourage investment in a new industry—namely, entertainment. The existing industries—fishing, shipping, oil—all centered on the coastline. The interior didn’t have a whole lot going on. Wood, maybe. Lots of trees.
When that industry wanes, what can be done? Art can be done. Culture can be done. A town like Notodden in Telemark is a good example. When its industry dried up, it started a Blues festival that has since become legendary in the Blues world.
The same could happen with TV and film. There’s room for half a dozen production companies spread out in the countryside.
It only takes one hit show, or one group of talented craftspeople, to make a production company a success.
I had a joke in my speeches: “You’d better hurry and get something going before you run out of oil.” Later I changed it to “You’d better start a new industry before oil is banned worldwide, which is in
sight. Me and Greta Thunberg hope.”
The message wasn’t received in a simple way. Norway isn’t simple. There were people who thought more or less the way I did and wanted to encourage everybody to realize their potential.
But most Norwegians were just fine being isolated. They had no interest in interacting with the rest of the world. They don’t like tourists. They don’t need TV. Just give them a cabin in the woods and snow to ski on.
I managed one victory in my battle to promote the film and TV industries.
I became friendly with Jo Nesbo, an amazing author of Norwegian noir / crime fiction. To understand how popular Jo is, you’d have to visit the Oslo Airport, where his books take up the space of an average New Jersey suburban house.
As I was trying, mostly in vain, to bring the TV and film industry to Norway, Jo decided to sell the movie rights to his latest book after years of resisting.
I seized the moment and met with both the prime minister and then cultural minister (by then, the one after Trond). “Jo Nesbo has just agreed to a film deal,” I said.
“We heard.” They were being polite.
“Every scene of his book takes place in Norway. But if you don’t create a film incentive right now, the film will be made in the Czech Republic, or even worse, Iceland!” I continued in my best Cagney. “I sure wouldn’t be in your shoes on Election Day if that happens,” I said, half joking. Not.
There are complex film incentives having to do with tax breaks, but there’s a simple version too. Say a movie company comes to town and spends money. They can rent equipment and production facilities if they’re available, but there are expenses even without that: hotels, restaurants, electricians and carpenters, location scouts, extras, etc. The company keeps receipts, and the town gives back part of the expenses, maybe 20 percent, maybe 25. The town cannot lose, because without the movie the money would not have been spent at all.
In this case, Norway was the town. And they did implement the incentive for Nesbo, though I don’t know if they kept it. A fleeting triumph.
I started doing master classes for the university in Oslo and the film school in Lillehammer, specializing in subjects that were rapidly becoming irrelevant, crafts like songwriting, arranging, producing. If I do it again, I’ll add blacksmithing, Viking navigation, and the care and feeding of dragons.
I tried to organize the first international TV festival, not just a marketplace and showcase but workshops and, overall, a more produced and entertaining convention than what I witnessed at MIPCOM in Cannes, where me and Kiefer Sutherland were the only actors.
But it was hard to get investors interested. I’ve never been good with them. I explain what I’m doing and answer questions, and then it’s up to them. But many investors want to be chased. They want their asses kissed. I guess you’re supposed to call back and ask, That discussion we had the other day, any thoughts? Or some schmoozy bullshit like that. I just can’t do it.
I also encouraged adding a TV class at the film school in Lillehammer. I explained again that except for a few dozen Oscar contenders and documentaries, the film world would soon be all comic books and video games.
They looked at me like I was nuts.
One of the things I’d been working on during my trips back to New York was reuniting the Rascals in a meaningful way.
Barbara Carr and Dave Marsh held a yearly fundraiser for the Kristen Ann Carr Fund to support sarcoma research. It was named for their daughter, who had died in 1993. The event is a massive meet and greet at the Tribeca Grill, and it usually consisted of just a dinner and a few speeches.
But Kristen Ann had been a real firecracker, full of energy, and the year the fundraiser honored me and Maureen, we thought the night should reflect her energy somehow.
Way back in 1980, Gary Bonds’s Manager John Apostol had brought me in to try and get the Rascals back together. It was basically impossible; but I gave it a try every five years or so. The Kristen Ann Carr fundraiser was another try.
“What the hell?” Maureen said. “They won’t reunite for their own good; maybe they’ll reunite for someone else’s good.”
And sure enough, that’s what happened. That night was the first time they’d done a full set in thirty years, having barely survived the three songs at the Hall of Fame.
For years, every Promoter had told me that the Rascals were the Holy Grail of reunions! Now that I’d done it, no one was interested. It was too late, they all said. The group had been away too long.
There was one place where it wasn’t too late. Jersey Boys was a big hit on Broadway, and the Four Seasons were a generation before the Rascals.
I came up with an idea that I would end up calling The Rascals: Once upon a Dream.
I would film the band members telling their stories.
Meanwhile, I would produce the band’s live show like no one had ever heard them.
Then they would play in a theater, and between songs the stage would go dark and their interviews would appear on a massive screen behind them. We would film some staged segments as well.
It would be a hybrid, but it could work.
I called Marc Brickman, who had been Bruce’s first light man back in the day and had gone on to do lighting for everyone from Pink Floyd to Paul McCartney and even to light the Empire State Building.
Marc had just done the interior light design for the Capitol Theatre in Port Chester, New York. Peter Shapiro, who had refurbished the place after having great success with Brooklyn Bowl, turned out to be one of the world’s truly classic characters. Like from another dimension. When we described our project, he took maybe five seconds to think and said, “Debut it here.”
With a venue secured, I started writing the show. I needed to sequence the songs to tell a story, to rotate through different perspectives, to build and release tension.
We taped the band for the interview sections, and Marc designed visuals to transport the audience back to the ’60s during the songs.
I wanted to start with a film clip of a little girl. I had a helluva time casting her until one day, at the office, I glanced down in the elevator and saw the cutest thing I’d ever seen on her way to ballet class. She turned out to be the daughter of Graydon Carter and Anna Scott, and they graciously allowed her to be cast.
The show would be my masterpiece. It gave the audience a much more satisfying evening than just guys standing there playing their hits. Marc and I started thinking of all the groups we could do next.
The opening night at Peter’s theater will always be one of the most thrilling moments of my life.
Because Brickman’s technology took up the entire back row, the soundboard was in the middle of the audience.
The lights went down.
I snuck down the aisle and took my place.
I gave the sound man a smile of confidence I didn’t feel and tried to remember how to breathe.
There was an intro to my script narrated by Vinny Pastore, then music, then more narration, then Graydon’s daughter, and then it happened…
The entire audience laughed. At something I wrote!
An electric current shot from my fingertips to my balls to my toes and back.
Marc ran down the aisle in a crouch with an ecstatic look I’ve never seen on anybody’s face before or since.
“This is gonna work!” he whispered loudly.
He was right. The interviews were amazing in large format, more intimate than onstage banter could possibly be. The songs sounded better than ever. I suddenly understood the whole theater thing. The Writer thing. The Producer thing. The Director thing. All at once. It was my Diaghilev moment.
It took me a few songs to stop crying.
This was what I’m on this planet to do.
I’d finally found it.
thirty
The Golden Nymphs
(2014–2015)
Awop bop aloobop awop bam boom!
—LITTLE RICHARD
SC. 1-01 INT. FLAMINGO BAR,
> FRANK’S OFFICE—DAY
ON BLACK.
SNOW REMOVAL GUY (O.S.)
I believe in Norway. I’ve always said it’s the best country in the world…
(A man in his fifties, THE SNOW REMOVAL GUY, appears. We open with a close-up of his face, then slowly zoom out.)
SNOW REMOVAL GUY (CONT’D)
… But with all the idiots we let in, I’m not so sure anymore. Those damn politicians opened a refugee camp next to my house. That was two months ago and I haven’t slept since.
(We pull back and see that the Snow Removal Guy’s wearing overalls. Next to him sits a German shepherd. The dog has a funnel on its head. We begin to glimpse the silhouette of FRANK TAGLIANO.)
SNOW REMOVAL GUY (CONT’D)
The other afternoon, I went to tell them a thing or two. I brought the dog—I was polite and all, but they refused to turn down the music. Carita’s sensitive, so she started barking. That’s when one of them smacked her with a belt.
(He fights back his tears.)
SNOW REMOVAL GUY (CONT’D)
Broke her jaw. Carita has always loved bones, but now she can’t eat anything but soup. I told the police, but they do nothing.
(He starts to cry. From behind we see Frank signal with his hand for someone to give the man a Kleenex. He blows his nose and regains control.)
SNOW REMOVAL GUY (CONT’D)
People tell me there is only one person who can help in situations like these: Johnny Henriksen.
FRANK
Why did you go to the police? Why didn’t you come to me first?
SNOW REMOVAL GUY
I didn’t want to get in trouble…
FRANK
I understand. You grew up in the old Norway. Paradise. Everybody made a good living. Everybody was taken care of. Well, that’s gone. It’s a new world, my friend.
SNOW REMOVAL GUY
I know, but all this happened before… before…
Unrequited Infatuations Page 34