A Third Face: My Tale of Writing, Fighting and Filmmaking

by Samuel Fuller;Christa Lang Fuller;Jerome Henry Rudes

  Now I had Herr Direktor's attention, so I went into my story of that March night in 1945 after the invasion of Bonn when I accidentally broke into Beethoven's home and slept there with another dogface. Before we knew it, a bottle of schnapps appeared, and we were knocking back shots with Herr Direktor as I rolled out one story after another about the Big Red One. I told him that when all hostilities were over, our outfit came back through Bonn for a twenty-four-hour rest period. Every dirty, tired doggie got a little soap and a change of clothes from a supply depot located on Beethovenstrasse. That street was heaven for us. Herr Direktor had tears in his eyes. Permission for us to shoot in Beethoven Museum was granted.

  When Dead Pigeon was broadcast on German television, audience ratings were high. They seemed to like my disregard for the typical style of Tatort productions. German TV magazines voted Christa the most popular actress of the year for her performance. The producers sold the movie all over the world, making a good return on their investment. The English were most receptive to the picture's wacky humor.

  "A box office bonanza with the impact of a sledgehammer," wrote Ken Welachin, of the National Film Theatre in London. "Dead Pigeon assaults today's diplomatic blackmail with sharp humor. Fuller has made the timeliest film of the year."

  "Long live Fuller's Dead Pigeon!" wrote Time Out-London. "Hammered out word for word on the screen, any distributor would have to be deaf, dumb and blind to pass it up-a juicy, spoofy, action-packed morsel."

  The French made me laugh. The Cannes Film Festival invited Dead Pigeon to screen in one of its several sections. An intellectual magazine awarded the movie its top critics prize. However, the rest of the French press dismissed it as "anarchistic." For Chrissakes, people have always been trying to pin political labels on me. First, I was supposedly a right-winger, then, a left-winger. Now I was off the radar screen. I hate all those labels and the lazy goddamned writers who try to stick them on you. Critics and commentators are constantly projecting their own fantasies on every artist who does something original. All artists are anarchists, okay? We want to shake up the audience, to question what's acceptable, to set off earthquakes in the brain. Otherwise, why not look for a secure, regular-paying job as a teller in a bank?

  Ownership of the American rights to Dead Pigeon turned out to be just about worthless to me. A distributor who'd made some dough on the cult movie Mondo Cane (1962) released my movie in theaters around the States with pretty good reviews. Box-office results were nil.

  My taste for making movies in Europe had been whetted. The studio system in Hollywood had shifted into a phase I no longer understood nor wanted to. Directors with a distinctive vision like me seemed less welcome than ever before. Hell, Dead Pigeon wasn't my most accomplished movie, but it was an accomplishment for me to have made it in Europe instead of in my own country. While we were still in Germany, a deal was struck to make another picture, this one in Spain, from a cherished script that I'd been polishing for years. I called it Riata.

  Turmoil

  and Waste

  46

  Riata is probably one of the best scripts I ever wrote.' It hit on all the themes I loved telling stories about. Father-son relationships. Outlaws and lawmen. Revenge and forgiveness. Fidelity and betrayal. Violence and peace. Love and rancor. Sacrifice and satisfaction.

  Riata is an implacable Texas lawman who is tracking a barbaric killer halfway across Mexico to avenge his son's death. He faces incredible hardships. Before he can catch Brubeck, the bastard who killed his beloved boy, Riata must confront Paco, a Mexican magistrate who's chasing the same killer, and Pompy, the smart French temptress who's Brubeck's lover.

  My opening was guaranteed to grab any audience by the balls. During a violent bank robbery in 1868, as Riata corners Brubeck in a schoolhouse, the outlaw kills a child and throws the body out the window. The little boy turns out to be Riata's son.

  I'd been working on the Riata script since the mid-sixties, when Christa first came to live with me in California. Maybe that's why I was so attached to the project. Sharing my life with this smart, beautiful gal made me bubble with ideas. She was someone I could tell my stories to and get some valuable feedback. She especially loved this yarn.

  Christa had immersed herself in French literature classes at UCLA. At dinner, our discussions were stimulating, though sometimes they'd heat up past the boiling point. We passionately disagreed on plenty of stuff. Hell, with the age difference and our Old World-New World cultural cleavage, it's a goddamned miracle we agreed on anything. Besides, being in the States was a cultural shock for Christa. It took time for her to get accustomed to the strange new reality of southern California. She made friends with my pals easily, then enlarged her circle, and was appreciated for her warmth and intelligence.

  Once, at a Beverly Hills reception, we ran into Jacques Demy and his wife, Agnes Varda, both talented directors from France. Agnes had begun as a still photographer, then started making movies about women, such as her well-regarded Cleo from 5 to 7 (1962). Demy, like me, came from a working-class background. French people loved his musicals Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964) and Young Girls of Rochefort (1967). Jacques and Agnes were sweet, unpretentious people. Christa got close to them and their tenyear-old daughter, Rosalie. One day while Christa was visiting Agnes and Jacques at their place, she met the rock star Jim Morrison. Morrison got all excited when he heard whom Christa was married to. He swore he was a fan of my movies and pleaded with her to introduce him to me. Christa didn't promise the kid anything. She was already functioning in the role that she would assume for the rest of our marriage, that of polite guardian against time-wasting admirers. I'd never even heard of this kid Morrison, or of his group, the Doors. I didn't give a damn about meeting a rock star, or anybody else for that matter, because I was so engrossed in writing Riata.

  Nevertheless, Christa persuaded me that this young man was a serious artist and that we should accept his invitation to have dinner at some Italian place on Sunset Boulevard. The evening was strange but memorable. Morrison, a charismatic kid, gabbed on and on about his desire to be a filmmaker. About twenty-three years old at the time, Jim was already a veteran in the music business. Drugs were obviously part of his daily existence. Morrison was so high that night, on God only knows what, that he tried to do a handstand in front of our table, right there in the middle of the crowded restaurant.

  I liked this crazy, gifted young man, and sensed that he was desperately looking for a father figure. I invited him up to the Shack. He came by often, and I put aside Riata to spend time with him. He was on his best behavior with me, telling me how he wanted to get out of the nutty world of music and into film. It was hard to believe that this kid's concerts were wild events, with Jim unzipping his fly, exposing himself, and taunting the audience with lines like "I want to kill your fathers and fuck your mothers!" Jim told me about growing up in the South, and about his disapproving father, a military man. I found it hard to believe I was a role model for him, but Morrison swore that I was. He'd made some experimental films and begged me to look at them. He set up a screening at UCLA, and I sat through them. They weren't much to see but showed promise, and I encouraged him to stick with it.

  Morrison's desire to reinvent himself was something I could empathize with. To keep working in the arts, you had to do it. He was learning, as I was, that notoriety was a double-edged sword. The more famous you became, the harder it was to stay fresh and creative. I was in my forties when fame caught up with me, mature enough to handle it. Still in his twenties, Jim was the object of enormous worldwide renown. Nobody that age can handle that much adulation. It made him a desperate human being, looking for an exit from the self-destructive castle of his own reputation.

  I felt powerless to be of much help except to listen to him when he dropped by to see me. Morrison was extremely lucid, with flashes of real brilliance, especially when we talked about films and poetry. Like every intensely creative person, he had a touch of madness. Drugs and drink wer
e leading Jim toward his own annihilation. Once Jim came up to the Shack with a book of his poems as a present for me. With great solemnity, he signed it, "To Samuel Fuller, Morrison." It was entitled The New Creatures. Another time he gave me the manuscript of a novel he called Look Where We Worship-more stormy, inspired writing.

  I let Jim read one of my drafts of Riata. Through mountain ranges and immense canyons, sandstorms and desert mirages, the outlaw Brubeck races down through Mexico, with Riata and Paco hot on his trail. Trained by Chiricahua Indians, Riata is as good as they get at following the tracks of a man on the run. Along the way, he battles bandidos, Indians, and the double-crossing Pompy. Paco gets shot. Before he dies, he makes Riata promise he'll bring Brubeck in alive. He does, winning hard-won revenge for his son and making peace with himself.

  Morrison loved my yarn. One day, he was over at the Shack and picked up a recent issue of Life magazine that was lying around, with Mick Jagger on the cover. I cracked a joke that Jagger looked just like my script's kid killer, Brubeck. Christa said I should approach Jagger about playing my heavy. Morrison grabbed that opportunity to ask me to cast him as the lead in the movie. I told him straightforwardly that he was too baby-faced for the part of Riata. He was crushed, not like an actor who doesn't get a role, but like a kid being reprimanded by his papa. Morrison felt that I'd rebuffed him. He walked out with his tail between his legs.

  Jim Morrison. How could I say or do anything that would affect the trajectory of this rocket of a man hell-bent on crashing?

  I never saw him again. I'd given him my word that when he wrote a screenplay for his first feature, I'd be there for him, giving him guidance with scenes and characters. But he never reappeared at the Shack. I felt terrible that I couldn't help this tormented young man who had just too many demons to exorcise. He ended up exiling himself to Paris, where he overdosed in his bathtub in July 1971. Christa ran into Morrison in La Coupole in Montparnasse that summer, just a few days before he died. She was with her sister, Renate. Both women were shocked to see that the once-handsome young rock star was now so fat and distorted, his skin pale and sickly. His self-abuse was an altogether awful sight and a painful tragedy.

  We were still in Germany finishing Dead Pigeon when my agent at the time, Mike Medavoy, called to say MGM wanted to do Riata. They put a producer in charge of the project whose first name was Barry and whose last name I've forgotten on purpose. He was another double-crossing wheeler-dealer. I blame myself for getting mixed up with this guy, because I'd been warned about him by Alex Jacobs, an old friend who'd written the script for John Boorman's Point Blank (1967). I was hungry to get Riata into production, so I looked the other way. When the deal at MGM fell through and Warner Brothers picked up the rights, this Barry character begged me to let him stay with the picture because he had a wife and two kids to support. I relented to his pleas, a misjudgment that would cost me dearly.

  Warner agreed to finance my film in Almeria, the barren southern region of Spain. A cast was put together rapidly, with Richard Harris starring as Riata and Alfonso Arau as Paco. Richard was a big draw after A Man Called Horse (1970). Alfonso was just starting out, long before he turned to directing, with his impressive Like Water for Chocolate (1992). The studio considered my suggestion of Mick Jagger as Brubeck, but instead went with the up-and-coming actor Bo Hopkins, who'd appeared in The Wild Bunch (1969). Bo wasn't the vicious, playful-looking clown I'd originally envisioned, but a more rugged killer with an infantile look, a la James Dean. I rewrote the part for him.

  Christa and I went directly to Spain from Germany to get the production under way. Meanwhile, Barry what's-his-name went to Paris to find a French actress to play Pompy. I told him I wanted someone to play against type, like Juliet Berto, the intelligent-looking young actress who'd been in Godard's La Chinoise (1967). The beautiful Berto was smart enough to become a director herself, with the formidable Neige (1981), a tale about cocaine addiction.

  We'd already begun shooting in Almeria when Barry showed up with some unknown French gal whose only qualifications as an actress were her oversized breasts and her willingness to sleep with whomever would help her "career." Thank God her name has also escaped me. We first met this lady in the hotel bar after a hard day's shoot. One look at the "actress" that Barry had brought us and I knew we were in trouble. We were sitting there with some of the sweaty, dusty crew having a cold beer. The French lady showed up wearing a fur coat in the middle of summer in southern Spain, no doubt imagining in the peanut she had for a brain that she looked like a vamp, instead of simply stupid. We asked her if she wanted a beer. No, she said, she only drank champagne. The mostly British crew could hardly contain their giggling at this ridiculous creature.

  I was between a rock and a hard place, having to integrate into my movie an actress who couldn't act. We shot a few scenes with her. It was horrible. She was painfully inappropriate. Richard Harris complained that she couldn't act her way out of a paper bag. Mike Medavoy called, and I told him about my predicament. He advised me to keep going and just get the picture finished. I figured I'd cut the French floozy's role down to a minimum in the editing room. Her involvement, however, triggered a violent reaction from studio executives back in Hollywood. After the boys at Warner Brothers saw some of the latest rushes, they decided to shut the movie down.

  I was devastated. I'd already shot some terrific stuff and thought the picture was going to be one of my best. Mike Medavoy explained to me that it was more complicated than just the disastrous French actress. The studio was seriously in the red. Other movies in production at that time were way over budget, most notably The Mackintosh Man (1973), by John Huston, starring Paul Newman and Dominique Sanda. It was a professional judgment, just cost-cutting, Medavoy said, and I shouldn't take it personally.

  I took it very personally. The collapse of Riata was a wound that would never completely heal. Richard Harris was sweet to try to find other financing, but to no avail. The upshot was that Warner Brothers sold all my footage to an Egyptian producer named Fouad Said. Said finished the movie in Mexico with another director, releasing it as The Deadly Trackers (1973). They completely lobotomized my story yet left my name on that piece of garbage as a cowriter. Christa and I packed up and came home by way of London.

  The collapse of Riata was like coitus interruptus. The studio put us up at the elegant Dorchester. Even though I was down in the dumps, we decided to dress up and celebrate the debacle by having a big dinner at one of London's best restaurants. The opulence couldn't make the pain go away. I tried to be stoic with Christa at dinner, but little by little, I got rotten drunk to forget my woes. My head actually fell on the table. Christa had to go through the pockets of my jacket to find the dough to pay the bill. Then she carried me out to a cab and back to the hotel. It was a horrible experience for her. I apologized the next day and promised it would never happen again.

  As soon as we got back to Hollywood, studio executives John Galley and Frank Welles invited me in for a meeting. They assured me again that the cancellation of Riata was an economic decision. Everyone knows, however, that nothing in show business is simply business. Overnight, it seemed, my career had hit rock bottom. It was terrible for Christa. She suffered bouts of anxiety, combined with vertigo and dizziness, a kind of nervous breakdown, worried about my future, our future.

  Then there was the onus of the Manson murders. Christa had known Roman Polanski in Paris. He'd arrived in Hollywood to do Rosemary's Baby in 1968. Roman and his wife, Sharon Tate, had come over to the Shack for drinks and meals a few times. We'd had a lot of laughs with them. I loved Roman's horror spoof, The Fearless Vampire Killers (1967), in which he'd cast Sharon as the female lead.' Sharon came from a family of military men. One of her favorite uncles, a Colonel Tate, had appeared in Merrill c Marauders while he was stationed in the Philippines. He always talked fondly of the experience, even though I'd made him limp throughout the movie. That uncle had kindled the movie bug in Sharon. Roman and Sharon had recently
moved into a new place up on Cielo Drive.

  One day in August 1969, Sharon dropped by the Shack in her red sports car. In the final month of her pregnancy with their first child, she was on her way to see a girlfriend who lived near us in Laurel Canyon. Sharon wanted us to come up to her place for a party the next evening. We didn't go. Christa had her parents in town. She took them to Disneyland that day. I was writing all day and much too tired to go out. Had we shown up, we would've been slaughtered like the others. The tragedy of Sharon's death, the devastation of Roman's family, and our near brush with murder weighed heavily on Christa for years.

  To make matters worse, Polly Platt and Peter Bogdanovich, two of our best friends, were divorcing just as Polly was pregnant with their second child. Christa felt somehow implicated in the failure of their marriage. See, when Peter was looking for an actress to play Jacy in The Last Picture Show (1971), he stumbled on Cybill Shepherd's photos in a fashion magazine and thought she looked interesting. Christa remembered that French director Roger Vadim had already done a screen test with Cybill, and she volunteered to get a copy of the test for Peter. She called Vadim and the reel arrived a week later, with scenes of Cybill cavorting at a beach. Christa and I went to the screening to watch Vadim's footage. The test looked like a seduction number by an old expert and made us all laugh. After all, Vadim had had an incredible string of gorgeous mates, like Brigitte Bardot, Catherine Deneuve, and Jane Fonda, to name a few. Bogdanovich loved the way Cybill moved in Vadim's little film and eventually cast her as his lead. Peter's romance with Shepherd grew from their working together. Christa really had nothing to do with it, but she was deeply hurt by Peter's split with her pal, Polly.