“Wasn’t ‘Mash’ filmed around here?”
“Yes. The TV version was filmed about a half mile south, in that direction. The movie was filmed about a mile east of here. Is ‘Mash’ still in re-runs?”
“Oh ya! Probably will be forever. I think it was the best program ever on television.”
“Me too. In the old days all the movie companies had lots here. See that mountain across the lake? That’s the original Paramount mountain. They haven’t used that figure for years but you still see it in old films. Just beyond it is a western town that has been used for years. ‘Dr. Quinn’ was shot there. Hundreds of films, television shows and commercials have been made in the area, on Kanan Road, on Mulholland, at the lake. They’ve even used my house on occasion.”
“Do any film stars still live around here?”
“I’ve been away so long that I don’t know. Charlie Sheen used to live in that house on the other mountain top. Kelsey Grammer lived down the way on Cornell. Bob Foxworth lived on this side of the lake. My next door neighbor was Strother Martin. He was the Southern prison warden in “Cool Hand Luke” who said to Paul Newman ‘what we have he-ah is a fail-ya ta communicate.’ That is one of the most famous lines ever uttered in a film.
“The most famous actor I ever met was James Cagney. His daughter Casey lived just down the street. One Christmas afternoon I was napping in bed, resting from a long night of assembling toys, when I heard footsteps on my redwood deck. I looked out the bedroom window and there were James Cagney and Ralph Bellamy, with Casey’s husband Jack. I jumped into my sweats and met them at the kitchen door. Cagney gave me an autographed copy of his autobiography, that Jack had helped him write.”
“You must have hundreds of stories, having been born in LA and living here. But let’s get on with the interview. Let’s try to summarize your thinking from your twenty years in space.”
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“Certainly Chet, shoot a question or three!!”
ABOUT SPACE
"And Gulliver Returns" Book 1 Reversing Overpopulation--The Planet's Doomsday Threat Page 4