The Man In the Rubber Mask

by Robert Llewellyn

  The plane landed in Los Angeles two and a half hours before it had taken off in Melbourne. I started the journey at twelve-thirty in the afternoon in Melbourne, I arrived in Los Angeles at ten-thirty in the morning of the same day, but I’d been flying for eighteen hours. I stood in the immigration queue scratching my head, with that special expression which only happens to people when their internal body clock has completely blown a fuse. No amount of watch-gazing or mental mathematics can alleviate the hollow burned-out feeling you get after a long-haul flight. I love that feeling, it’s better than taking drugs. I was completely out of it as I handed the official my passport. He looked at my work permit, looked at me, looked at my work permit again, smiled slightly and said, ‘Welcome to the USA, sir.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I said.

  ‘You’re welcome,’ he said, and I knew I’d arrived. As I walked out into the main concourse there were three hundred limousine drivers standing behind the barrier, each of them with a card bearing someone’s name. I scanned the cards, none of which looked anything like Llewellyn. I was prepared for something akin to Llewellyn, like Lew Allyn, or Lew Ellen. My name has been spelt many different ways over the years, but there was nothing. A huge black policewoman with a massive gun was standing with them, she looked at me and registered my anxiety. She didn’t offer to help, just let her hand brush the butt of her gun as she adjusted the belt.

  I kept going past the throng of people waiting for passengers to emerge and sat on a seat in the waiting area. The shock of America is always pretty intense I find, it operates on a higher level than any other country I know. Anything can happen in America. You can make it. If it seems hopeless in Europe, or Africa, when you arrive in America you know immediately it is possible. That’s why so many people want to go there. They’ve heard this is what it’s like, and it’s true. People go to America and they do make it. They become wealthy beyond the dreams of kings. I’m sure if you did a statistical analysis you’d find out it was very few of them. Most people are poor as usual but the atmosphere is utterly infectious. Even the limousine drivers are happy to be working, happy to serve you and look like they’re about to make it big, somewhere.

  ‘Mr Llewellyn?’ asked a deep male voice.

  I looked up into the suntanned face with perfect teeth and a carved sculpture of super shiny hair on top.

  ‘Yes,’ I said.

  ‘Hi, I’m John, I’m your driver at this time. Would you like to follow me?’

  I stood up to discover although John had a wonderful deep smooth American voice, he was a little on the short side. Still, he wasn’t letting that hold him back.

  He picked up my bag and started making his way through the crowd. I was on my guard, I’ve been around, this looked like the oldest trick in the book: read the label on my luggage, ask me to follow him, then pull a gun on me in the car park, put me in the trunk of the limo, drive out to a desert ranch full of psychopathic killers, nail me to the floor and gang rape me to death over a period of three weeks.

  John walked to a huge, and I mean huge, joke of a car. It looked six cars long, an absurd long black thing with about fifteen windows down the side. It was the cliché, it was the stupid stretch limo which is so embarrassing now, so out-of-date. Let’s face it, a stretch limo is now, and always will be, a tosser’s car.

  John popped the trunk,30 put my bag in and opened the door for me. I was sleep-starved and feeling so weird that I couldn’t help giggling a bit. I almost expected to see Michael Douglas sitting in the back, having a blow job and buying Rio Tinto Zinc like it was going out of style. He’d be wearing a five-thousand-dollar suit, with his hair slicked back, he’d be Gordon Gekko.

  ‘Robert, I want you to find out everything you can about Universal Television while you’re there, I want to buy them out, I want to suck them dry, chew the fat out of the mother fuckers. I want to own their goddamn balls!’

  ‘Yes, Mr Gekko, sir.’

  The limo was empty, huge and lonely-looking.

  ‘Can I sit up in the front with you?’ I asked rather sheepishly.

  ‘Sure, Bob,’ said John. No English person could call you Bob that quickly. I slipped into the spacious front seat, John started the huge car up and we hissed along the concrete roads. John had lived in LA for twenty years, originally he was from somewhere like Wilmington, Alabama. He seemed to have done everything, worked everywhere and of course, driven everyone.

  ‘I had Ellen Barkin in here yesterday,’ he said as we pulled out of the airport onto a huge five-lane freeway. ‘She’s a very, very beautiful lady, and very charming.’

  ‘Is that right. Yeah, I’ve always had a soft spot for Ellen,’ I said, settling into the huge comfy seat and slipping on my dark glasses.

  ‘Of course, one of the perks of this job, Bob, is that I get to find out where everyone lives,’ he said. ‘I could take you to Ellen’s house, introduce you maybe.’

  ‘Oh yeah?’ I said, suddenly panicking again. He had to be a serial killer, he knew where the stars lived, he kept a little black notebook next to a knife with a jagged edge. I would be the only person who could save Ellen. I’d run to her house, a police helicopter shining a light on me from above. I’d fight John to the death. I’d be injured, she’d visit me in the hospital, the doctor would say I might pull through, Ellen would cry, we’d kiss. Aaaargh!

  Within minutes of being in Los Angeles I had slipped into movieland. Everywhere I looked seemed so familiar, and although I’d been there on two previous occasions, this familiarity wasn’t from past experience. It was from the movies, the thousands of films we’ve all seen, filmed on the streets of Los Angeles. Tall palm trees, wide roads, absurdly stretched limousines. Big pick-up trucks with massive tyres, convertible Rolls-Royces with the roof down, bust-up old Buick station wagons full of migrant workers wearing blue nylon peak caps.

  We drove over South Central LA at speed. It doesn’t look like much, row after row of red-roofed houses, the odd palm tree, and every few miles a massive building with no windows which is an air-conditioned shopping mall. In the far distance the gleaming, glittering towers of downtown LA.

  It is a frightening town, it is a depressing town, it is a town of the most cruel contrast between wealth and poverty, but it is exciting. However jaded and old-world and European I try to be, I can’t help my pulse rate increasing when I’m there. I felt so vibrant and alive, maybe it was due to the fact I’d been through a time warp, but I have very clear memories of the first few hours of each trip to LA.

  By now John had found out all about me.

  ‘So what’s this series you’re making?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s not a series, it’s only a pilot, it’s called Red Dwarf.’

  ‘Red Dwarf.’

  ‘Yes that’s right.’

  ‘Red Dwarf.’

  ‘Yes, it’s about a space ship.’

  ‘So it’s not about dwarves?’

  ‘No, it’s set on a space ship, three million-light years from earth, going the wrong way.’

  ‘Red Dwarf.’

  ‘Yeah, that’s right.’

  This was a very American phenomenon. There was something about the title that a lot of Americans couldn’t quite latch onto. They are terribly verbally righton there, and using a term like dwarf makes them flinch. It’s a bit like us using the term spazzo, or poof. It’s just not done. If an American actor said to you, ‘I appear in this show called Red Spazzo,’ you’d blanche a bit, wouldn’t you? I would.

  ‘Red Dwarf.’ John was still stuck on this.

  ‘That’s it,’ I said.

  ‘Actually, Bob, looking at you, you are perfect for a project I’m working on.’

  This was it, I thought, he was a psychopath, his project was my grizzly murder.

  ‘It’s a movie about a pool service operative. He goes to all the stars homes and cleans their pools, and he has sex with all these women. I thought about casting him as French, but I think English would be brilliant. The project is with Ted Rinvalklat
z, you know, who did Bunny Killers last year. May I send your agent a script?’

  ‘Sure,’ I said, I gave him my agent’s card. We drove through Hollywood, across the hills and into The Valley. This was the home of Universal Studios, where you can do the Universal studio tour and see Miami Vice shoot-outs and Jaws comes to try and eat you.

  We drove up a steep, tree-lined drive and pulled up in front of the Universal Sheraton hotel. Immediately there were smartly dressed men opening doors and trunks and palms as I carried my own, very small bag, into reception. I bid John farewell, he told me to expect his script at any time. I’m still waiting for it.

  I checked in and got in the lift with a huge man in a suit and a very small blonde woman. The woman was Dolly Parton, she smiled at me. I didn’t know what to do, I was tripping with exhaustion.

  ‘Oh, hi,’ I said. ‘It’s great to meet you.’ Dolly smiled again, the door opened on the twelfth floor and I fell out.

  My room overlooked a six-lane freeway and a swimming pool fringed with lanky palms. I sat down and calmed down. The January sun was hot through the window, I had to try and stay awake until night time or the jet lag would last weeks, and I was due to start work two days later.

  I picked up the phone and dialled a long number that Judy had faxed to me from Ethiopia.

  ‘Hello…’

  ‘Can I speak to Judy…’

  ‘Hello…’

  ‘Hi, can I speak to Judy Pas…’

  ‘Hello.’

  ‘Yes, can I…’

  ‘Hello…’

  This went on for about three or four minutes until I could hear the phone being thrown down, then I’d wait a bit longer and suddenly there was Judy on the line. She was in Africa, she was having the time of her life, she was okay.

  If by any chance you win the pools, or your premium bond comes up, and you get depressed because money doesn’t bring you happiness, and you want to get rid of your money - if you feel like that, here is a very good way of getting rid of quite stupendous amounts very quickly: fly to Los Angeles, first class, Qantas, via Melbourne, that’ll use up a fair bit I should think. Then check in to the Universal Sheraton hotel, call the Hotel Gohar, Gondar, Ethiopia and ask to speak to Len. There won’t be anybody there called Len, but they’ll go and have a look for you anyway. As they look, you will be paying top dollar to listen down a phone line to the sound of Africa. Judy was okay, I was relieved. I fell asleep for what felt like a week.

  The following day I met Andrea, she was with her boyfriend who was going around the world with her on a much-longed-for holiday. We met up in the lobby and drove into the valley to a special effects company who were making the new Kryten mask and costume.

  The company was situated in a large industrial complex, the sort of place Mel Gibson finds a heroin factory and shoots lots of stuntmen in.

  The special effects boys were great, so like their English cousins, enthusiastic and fast-talking, living in a world of in-jokes and technical explanation.

  ‘We are going to be doing everything in our power to make sure you are really, incredibly comfortable, Robert,’ said the man with the beard. ‘So first we need to do a full body cast.’

  In an effort to make me incredibly comfortable, I had to stand and be covered in plaster of Paris bandages again. The glamour of first-class travel and luxury hotel suits was suddenly knocked into focus. I was here to work, I was here to wear rubber, and there was no way of getting around that.

  As I stood still I started to take in the surroundings. This was the company who made Spock’s ears, phasers which could be set to stun, the little flip-top box that Captain Kirk asked Scotty to beam him up with. They made the weird wrap-around glasses for the black guy in the new Star Trek, which I hadn’t seen. They made guns and space ships and all manner of weird bits and pieces for dozens of movies.

  A man who looked like he was in Easy Rider entered the workshop, he was going to make my new mask. I got very involved in the discussions as to how it should work, how much of my face should be exposed and if I could keep my own nose.

  The battle of the mask was to continue for many days, but the man who made my mask, who I only met once, was a real genius, and a fast genius.

  When Andrea and I got back to the hotel that evening Rob and Doug had turned up delirious with jet lag. They had been working flat out on editing the British series so they were tired before they set out. They sat in the lobby of the hotel, drank large schooners of lager and grinned at everybody.

  ‘It’s amazing … I think,’ said Rob.

  ‘Yeah, no, yeah,’ said Doug.

  On Monday morning, the cast and crew of Red Dwarf gathered inside the vast studio of Stage 43, Universal City studios. The space was twice the size of Shepperton, which is big enough. The sight that made us gasp was the set, an exact replica of the British set, in every detail. The floor plan was the same, the fittings, everything, it was absolutely remarkable.

  A man of at least six foot eight walked up to me, he looked like an ex-basketball player. He was an ex-basketball player, and the stage manager. He shook my hand firmly and introduced himself as Elvin Ivory. I followed his huge long strides outside into the weak morning sun.

  ‘I’m going to show you your parking space, Robert,’ he said as if I was an unruly kid at kindergarten. We walked across a huge car park and he stood in an empty space in the middle.

  ‘This is your parking space. If anyone else parks here, you come and tell me, and I will personally kick their ass. And if you park any place else, I will kick your ass. You understand?’

  ‘Yeah, sure,’ I said trying to sound local and cool. ‘There’s only one problem.’

  ‘What’s that?’ snapped Elvin.

  ‘I don’t have a car.’

  Elvin was silent for a moment, the chewed his lips, then he said, ‘Robert, I don’t give a damn if you have a car or not, this is your space and if any other mother parks his car here, I want you to tell me. You understand?’

  ‘I understand, Elvin,’ I said.

  I followed Elvin back to the studio; as we walked down the canyon between the huge buildings he pointed to a smaller building, which looked like a block of flats. ‘That’s your dressing room over there. It’s got your name on the door, “Robert Llewellyn”.’ Elvin clearly didn’t leave anything to chance, he was to continue to remind me of my name at regular intervals.

  In the studio more and more people were gathering, men in suits mingled with scruffy-looking arty types, I was making myself a tea trying to work out who was who in the cast. At that point I had only met Hinton Battle, the actor who was to play the Cat. His similarities to Danny were amazing, he was an actor and dancer, he’d been in dozens of Broadway shows, he’d won awards, worked with Diana Ross, all that kind of thing.

  A thin man shook my hand, ‘Hi, Robert, I’m Chris Eigman.’ He had one of those sharp, funny, what I take to be New York intellectual accents. Chris, I discovered, is from Colorado, and he was playing Rimmer. I immediately warmed to him, he looked like an alternative Rimmer, good casting I thought to myself. I recognised him from a film called Metropolitan I’d seen a couple of years earlier, about posh kids in New York, in which he was very funny.

  ‘Hi, Robert, welcome to Hollywood, I’m Linwood,’ said Linwood Boomer. He wasn’t short, or fat, he didn’t wear glasses, he was a handsome, athletic-looking Californian. He shook my hand vigorously, I stared into his unusually bright blue eyes and wondered if his name really, really was Linwood Boomer. I always had a suspicion his name was Pete Jones or something, but a daft Hollywood agent had told him a name like Linwood would get him more gigs.

  Linwood used to be in an American series called Little House on the Prairie, where he played a blind boy. His eyes are so bright blue it was easy to see how he got the part, you can never quite believe he is looking at you.

  ‘Meet Craig Bierko, he’s playing Lister,’ said Linwood as he guided me towards a tall, handsome man who I’d taken to be the director or a
writer or someone like that. Certainly not Lister.

  ‘Hi, Bob,’ he said. ‘Great to work with you, I’ve watched all the Red Dwarf series, I think you do an incredible job.’

  So this was Lister, a tall, handsome, white man. When I had discussed this with Rob and Doug one evening in their office in Shepperton, they had been under the impression that Lister was going to be a short, tubby Hispanic actor. That seemed to fit the bill, but clearly the Americans had worried that portraying a Hispanic man as a dirty, lazy but very humane slob would create a negative reaction in the Hispanic community, or something. In some ways it’s the same Hollywood paranoia behind the fear that ‘middle America’ wouldn’t understand British humour, or a Liverpudlian accent. It’s rubbish; if you can understand someone from Mississippi, you can understand anything. The reason American television channels don’t show British comedy programmes is because they don’t want to. They make their own, and they make a fortune out of it. Why give money to anyone else? They’d be stupid to do otherwise, all that is clear is that it has nothing to do with accents.

  In the car park earlier, I had walked past a very glamorous woman with a lot of hair. Big hair as I discovered it was called. She smiled at me and I felt flattered that someone so good-looking would even notice me. Suddenly she was standing in front of me shaking my hand.

  ‘Hello, Robert, I’m Jane Leeves,’ she said in a husky English accent, ‘I’m Holly.’

  Jane had lived in Los Angeles for ten years, she was appearing as a regular character in Murphy Brown, a sitcom which gained international notoriety when the lead character, played by Candice Bergen, criticised the Vice President, Dan Quayle, during the run-up to the election.