Shirley, I Jest!: A Storied Life

by Cindy Williams

  George asked for a meeting with Ron and me. He wanted to talk over our story line and explain his vision for the movie. Sitting across from him in his office at Universal, I remember thinking, he’s young and old all at the same time. He explained that they didn’t have a budget for makeup, hair, or dressing rooms. This didn’t seem to concern Ron or George. I, on the other hand, was slightly worried about the six-year age difference between Ron and me. I might need just a little help to look seventeen! (I was twenty-four at the time and Ron just turned eighteen.) George had our 8×10’s on his desk, side by side. I kept glancing at them, trying to see if we looked real as a teen couple. Right before we got up to leave, George made a point of telling us that he saw this movie as a “musical” because the songs would not stop except for a couple of dramatic points. Once, when the car is stolen and the source of the music is the car radio, which is gone; and the second time at the end when the race abruptly ends because the ’55 Chevy flips over.

  As Ron and I left and walked down the hall at Universal we looked at each other and almost in sync said, “A musical? That’s genius!”

  In June 1972 I found myself driving my orange Karmann Ghia into San Francisco, a city I knew from my days as a hippie. The sky was foggy and I loved it. I headed across the Golden Gate Bridge into Marin County toward the San Rafael Holiday Inn where the cast would be staying. The Marin County Courthouse was on my right. (At that very courthouse Angela Davis was now on trial for aggravated kidnapping and first-degree murder. She was later acquitted.)

  We hit the ground running. We shot the opening scene of the film at Mel’s Drive-In, on Lombard Street in San Francisco (unfortunately the diner has since been torn down). The very first shot was of Charlie Martin Smith driving on his Vespa. Charlie played Toad, everybody’s affable friend, who was in for a long night with the fast girl, “Debbie,” played by Candy Clark. George wanted to get this shot as the sun went down. Charlie didn’t know how to drive the Vespa, and had to be given one quick lesson by Harry Travers, the transportation manager. Then they had to roll. If you’ve ever seen the movie, you’ll see Charlie crashing the Vespa into the trash can in front of Mel’s Drive-In. George kept rolling. Charlie deftly reacts, leaves the Vespa, and without missing a beat, walks away. George had no time for a second take with the sun quickly setting. So of course, this take stayed in and opens the movie.

  The City of San Rafael hosted our next location. While the cameras rolled, classic cars circled the little town all night long. The constant revving of engines and peeling out of tires echoed for two nights straight while actors shouted their lines at each other through open car windows. Something about the commotion made the city leaders jumpy. After that second night, the film company was asked to leave. The production moved to Petaluma, a city that welcomed us with open arms and we arrived like a band of gypsies—Winnebago, station wagon, hot rods, and all!

  One week into filming we were shooting a scene in the ’58 Impala. Ron and I were being towed by the camera truck. When the scene ended we waited to hear George yell “Cut!” but nothing came. We waited a few seconds longer and then the camera operator shook George’s shoulder to wake him up. He was so tired from shooting all night and editing all day he had actually fallen asleep sitting on the tow car. Many times after George yelled “Cut,” Ron and I would ask, “How was it, George?”

  Without fail, George always gave the same one-word response. “Terrific!”

  The film had a soul of its own. All of these beautiful machines represented classic American craftsmanship that was bedazzling—the ’32 Deuce Coupe, the ’55 Chevy, an art form of motion. Sometimes before takes, Haskell Wexler, the great cinematographer and director (who was working as George’s visual consultant), would take a cloth and polish certain parts of the cars. I asked him one time why he did this? He told me this would bounce light off the cars during the shots and make them sparkle. And it did! It made them shimmer brilliantly. If you’ve seen the film, you know what I’m talking about. The look was American eye-candy.

  One night while we were waiting to shoot a scene, Ron and I sat in the ’58 Chevy Impala. Ron got out of the car and went to where the camera crew was setting up. I watched him speak intently with Haskell for a while. When he got back in the car I asked him what they were discussing. Ron told me he was asking Haskell about the setups and the shots because one day he wanted to direct!

  “Oh, great!” I said. But I was really thinking, “What’s he talking about, directing? He’s so young to be thinking about directing!” I am embarrassed to be sharing this thought since we all know he went on to accomplish great work behind the camera.

  On one particularly cold night while I was waiting to shoot a scene, a seat wasn’t to be found in the Winnebago. I noticed the station wagon parked nearby. I walked over and tried the handle. It was open. I didn’t want to get in trouble (because the kid was so strict about the use of that car), but the cold and dark overrode any trouble the kid might cause me. I just needed a place to sit. I scooted into the driver’s seat. I was enjoying the solitude when suddenly a figure popped up from the backseat. It scared me and I jumped! It was Harrison Ford! He’d been sleeping. We looked at each other and started laughing.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked.

  “Waiting to work,” I replied. “There was no room in the Winnebago.”

  “Yeah, I know,” he said. “I’m finished for the night, but the kid won’t give me a ride home, so I’m waiting in here.”

  Harrison laid back down and I waited in silence. The funny picture of how I met Harrison a year before popped into my head. A mutual friend had introduced us in a health food store in Hollywood. Harrison was barefoot and buying organic vegetables.

  A few nights later, Harrison and I had a little scene to shoot together where Laurie decides to get in the car with his character, Falfa, the bad boy who has come into town to challenge John Milner, played by Paul Le Mat. While we were sitting in the ’55 Chevy waiting to begin, Harrison started singing “Some Enchanted Evening” just like Rossano Brazzi. It made me laugh! I suggested he sing it to me at the end of the scene. He did and George liked it, and tried to use it in the movie. In fact, there was talk about changing the title of the movie to Some Enchanted Evening, but George was not granted the rights by the license holders. Ultimately, they did allow the song to be included and it was edited back into the film.

  One evening the kid picked me up to drive me to the set. He told me that we needed to make a detour first, to pick up one other person who was working that night. We headed to Sausalito and picked up a young woman named Suzanne Somers who was going to play the part of the blonde in the white T-Bird who says “I love you” to Curt (Richard Dreyfuss). When she climbed into the station wagon with us I was stunned. She was one of the prettiest people I’d ever seen! I could tell that the kid was smitten.

  As pretty as she was, she was just as nice. We introduced ourselves, and I asked her if she was an actress. I thought they’d hired a model to play the part. She answered, “Yes,” and many years later she told me she was taken aback by my question and had thought about it that whole night. Looking back on it now, without my having told her that I thought she was a model, I could see how it could have come off sounding insensitive. When we got to the set, I ushered her into my “dressing room” (the couch under the wardrobe rack) where we talked for a while.

  Years later she told me this little story about filming that night. She had gone over and over her one line, “I love you,” trying it many different ways in the mirror at home. When she was sitting in the T-Bird about to film, George came over to her and said, “I just want you to mouth the line.” After all that rehearsing, she wasn’t going to actually speak the line, not knowing then that it would become one of the most iconic moments in the film.

  Richard Dreyfuss played my brother, Curt. I met Richard when I was nineteen. He and my friend, Lynne Stewart, had gone from g
rade school through high school together, and they had been neighbors. Lynne introduced us one afternoon when we were at her parents’ house. Lynne called him Ricky and that’s how she introduced him to me. And to this day when I see him, I have to make an effort to refer to him as Richard. As fate would have it, Lynne was cast in American Graffiti as Bobbie Tucker and she and Richard have a wonderful scene together.

  I had a day off and was spending it in my hotel room going over my lines when someone knocked on my door. I opened it to find Richard standing there sporting a black eye!

  “Cindy, do you have any makeup?” he asked.

  “I have some concealer,” I said.

  “Can I use it? I’m shooting tonight and I need to cover this up.”

  I had him step in and I applied the cover-up. It worked pretty well. I asked him what happened. He explained it this way, “It involved some beer, rowdy behavior, and the shallow end of the hotel pool.”

  Halfway through production George assembled twenty minutes of the film, put to music, and invited the cast to see it. Up until this point everyone pretty much thought they were doing a low-budget car movie. But holy smokes, after seeing what George had put together with the score we were all rendered speechless. Except for someone who shouted out, “This is unbelievably great!” And it was! If anyone had expectations, this exceeded them. It was a thing of beauty.

  George was under tremendous pressure to finish the film. Ron, Paul Le Mat, Charlie Martin Smith, Harrison Ford, and I were on Paradise Road shooting the start of the drag race scene between Falfa and his black ’55 Chevy and Milner in his yellow Deuce Coupe. The script called for Laurie to ride along with Falfa, defying Milner’s protest. Toad starts the race with the signal of the flag. Onlookers watch as the cars fight each other with attitude and speed, barreling toward the finish line. Suddenly the ’55 loses control and careens off the shoulder of the road, rolling into a field and catching fire, Laurie and Falfa’s fate unknown. George shot the first part of the scene cutting just before the ’55 careens. Ron and I were dismissed and walked back to the Winnebago. We had no sooner started to change out of our costumes when the first assistant director came running up to the Winnebago door shouting for us to stop.

  “George wants to shoot the end of the scene right now! He has to get it before the sun gets too high.” We protested, arguing with him while we put our costumes back on. “You’ll have to talk to George about it, all I know is we need you to hurry!”

  Ron and I were in a panic. We’d been caught off-guard. This part of the scene was not scheduled to be shot today. We made a mad dash for the field where George was standing with Haskell and the crew. Harrison, Charlie, and Paul were gathered around. The sun was coming up!

  Ron and I spoke over each other at the same time, “George, we weren’t scheduled to shoot this scene today. We’re not ready, we haven’t rehearsed!”

  George said, “I have to shoot it now while I have the cars in position. If it doesn’t work, we’ll come back and re-shoot it.”

  At this point we all knew that was a fairy tale. There were simply no more sunrises available on the schedule to shoot the end of this complex scene. And then there was that guy sitting by the generator looking at his watch. George continued (and I paraphrase): Look, we have to make it work, because at the end of the credits there won’t be a line that reads: “This movie was shot in twenty-eight nights for no money under extremely difficult conditions.”

  In other words, we had no excuses. It was do-or-die. The sun was rising and we needed to improvise, and improvise well. They had the ’55 in place and flipped over with a crew member standing by ready to make it look like it was on fire. George explained the shot was basically going to be an all-in-one. I’d be up the hill with Harrison. Ron and Paul would run up the hill toward the car. Ron would get me and walk me down the hill to safety. Haskell would follow us with the steady-cam as we played our dialogue out.

  Harrison and I ran to our beginning marks; the car was already on fire.

  I said, “I’m going to take swings at you with my purse, is that okay, Harrison?”

  And just as Harrison says, “Sounds good!” we heard George yell, “Action!”

  I grabbed Harrison’s shirt and started striking at him with my purse. Harrison held me at arm’s length. Ron, Paul, and Charlie ran up and separated us. Ron grabbed me and we started down the hill as Haskell and the sound people followed us. It turned out to be one of my favorite scenes.

  After the movie wrapped, Francis Coppola and his wife, Ellie, invited the cast for an evening cruise on the San Francisco Bay. Everyone went, even George! It was a beautiful evening on the water. I believe there was a full moon. When we docked at the Embarcadero, George did not have the seventy-five cents to pay for the ferry ride back to Marin County. I loaned it to him. Well, we all know the upshot to this Cinderella story. Not too many years would pass before George would end up with enough money to buy the ferry boat and Marin County if he wanted to!

  When all was said and done, Universal held onto the film and did not give it a proper release until word of mouth by Universal employees who had seen a screening started to sing its praises. After the film’s eventual release it was an overnight hit with lines around the block and sold-out performances at movie theaters. It was dubbed the first “Summer Blockbuster.”

  I called Richard Dreyfuss who was on location in Canada shooting The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz. I told him about the phenomena going on. He didn’t believe me. I assured him it was true. He would understand soon enough because aside from its enormous critical acclaim and financial super success, the honors would include his own Golden Globe nomination for Best Motion Picture Actor—Musical/Comedy. George was nominated for Best Director—Motion Picture, Paul Le Mat won for Most Promising Newcomer—Male, and the film won Best Motion Picture—Musical/Comedy.

  Although nominated, American Graffiti did not win the Academy Award for Best Picture. However, there were several more nods. George along with Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz were nominated for Best Writing, Story and Screenplay, Candy Clark was nominated for Best Actress in a Supporting Role, and Verna Fields and Marcia Lucas were nominated for Best Film Editing.

  I had underestimated the power of the Laurie Henderson role because, lo and behold, I was nominated for Best Supporting Actress by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA), their sole nomination for the film. An honor I still can’t believe to this day!

  But of all the accolades this little low-budget film garnered, to me the most formidable and dazzling would be this:

  In 1995 American Graffiti was deemed culturally, historically, and aesthetically significant by The United States Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry.

  Ain’t that neat?

  From right to left: My mother, my father, Cousin Marian. I don’t know the other two, but aren’t my momma and daddy a handsome couple?

  My dad with me as a baby in California before my mother moved us to Texas.

  First grade school picture taken in the dress my grandmother made out of a chicken feed sack.

  My grandmother, me, my brother Jimmy and his wife Loretta, Mama, Carol, and Daddy.

  My sister, Carol, my mother, Francesca, and me in Texas.

  Me as Alfred E. Newman. I was 13 and while trying to cut my bangs, I sneezed.

  Our production of Anne Frank in high school.

  Me dressed in my trusty beige wrap around skirt and ill-fitting white blouse. I’m certain that I’m wearing those black patent leather pumps too.

  Lynne Stewart, Ed Begley, and me after riding the tram in Palm Springs.

  Ron and I standing outside of Dewey High School in American Graffiti. Courtesy of Universal Studios Licensing, LLC

  Me
(Laurie) and Ron (Steve) slow dancing at the sock hop in American Graffiti. Courtesy of Universal Studios Licensing, LLC

  The first season cast of Laverne & Shirley includes Carol Ita White, Phil Foster, Eddie Mecca, Betty Garrett, David Lander, Michael McKean, Penny, and me. Courtesy of CBS Television Studios

  We could make suggestions to the writers of things we’d like to do and they would try to work it into the show. Penny suggested we somehow get hung on hooks. This is a picture of us trying to get off said hooks. Courtesy of CBS Television Studios

  We bought into Lenny and Squiggy’s dead uncle Lazlo’s diner and now we’re trying to make a go of it. Courtesy of CBS Television Studios

  Laverne and Shirley go to a fat farm, get swaddled, and try to stand up by any means possible, ergo Penny pulling me up by the hair. Courtesy of CBS Television Studios

  This is me, Ron, Henry, and Penny from a crossover show, meaning they appeared on our show. It was called “Shotgun Wedding.” I like it because it’s the four of us. Courtesy of CBS Television Studios