“And this was your way of dealing with it?”
He handed me my glass of Bosco and sat with his. “What do you mean?”
“If you place a camera between you and something horrifying, it makes it less horrifying. You’re an observer instead of a participant.”
He thought this over, ignoring the chocolate milk moustache on his upper lip. “Gee, Meat, I never made that connection before. So you think I took up making movies as a way of coping with my dad dying?”
“Possibly.”
“But we didn’t get along,” he reminded me.
“That doesn’t make the experience any easier. Sometimes it even makes it harder.”
He frowned. “Gee, that would mean …”
“That would mean what, Matthew?”
“Dad’s responsible for all of this,” he said, looking around at the sets, “in a weird sort of way …”
“Tell me about your first movie. What was it?”
“My own version of a fifties horror movie,” he recalled fondly. “I called it The Dog Who Ate Sepulveda. I used the neighbor’s labrador retriever, Casey, who was always in our yard. Made a bunch of miniature cities out of my old Erector Set and Lincoln Logs, hillsides out of papier-mâché. Then I let Casey loose to destroy them, just like Godzilla. The Shelleys helped me film it one Sunday afternoon. She shot some of it while he and I tried to zap Casey with ray guns. We had a lot of fun. I’d never had such fun.”
“Did the monster die at the end?”
“No, we tamed him. He let us pat him on the belly, and when we did the mutation process was magically reversed and he became dog-sized again.”
“The patented Matthew Wax happy ending.”
He grinned at me. “I got it developed at a camera store on Nordhoff, and bought a splicer and glue and put it together. It was eight minutes long. The Shelleys thought I ought to show it to my English class at Monroe or something. But I didn’t feel like it.”
“But it did get you into SC film school, right?”
He looked at me oddly. “I never went to SC film school.”
“I thought you did,” I said. “I thought you dropped out to work in TV.”
“A common misconception,” he acknowledged. “Repeated in article after article. People have always assumed that since I was a young filmmaker and I was going to SC that I was in their film school. But I never was. I never took one film class. I was a political science major.”
“You were politically inclined?”
“Not in the least. It never occurred to me that you went to school to learn about anything you were interested in. I hated school. But I had to go—to stay out of the Vietnam draft, and because Ma wanted me to. Her boss, Mr. Ferraro, advanced her the money for my tuition. I drove over the hill every morning to class in Ma’s old Falcon. Came straight home. I studied just enough to pass. Never went anywhere near the library. I’m not even sure I knew where it was on campus. I dropped out at the beginning of my sophomore year. By then the war was over.” His face darkened. “And my dad was dead.”
“What was the funeral like?”
“Small. Just the three of us and Shelley and a couple of Ma’s old cousins—the type who always show up at funerals. Mr. Ferraro came, which we thought was nice. No friends or business associates of dad’s. Not one.” He got up and hunted around in the cupboard and came away with a package of Oreos. He tore into it. “After my freshman year I went back to work at Panorama as a summer intern,” he said, chomping. “Ernst put in the word for me. I worked as a gofer on a bunch of different shows. In my spare time, I wrote Bugged. All twelve pages of it. It came to me in a nightmare, actually. The idea that you wake up one morning and something’s happened to you, and everyone knows it but you. What I did, I had this nerdy high school kid who wakes up looking normal to himself in the mirror. But to everyone else, he’s been transformed into this giant, ugly insect. He’s a real unpopular kid, the kind who’s always wanted the other kids to pay attention to him. Well, now they do … Everyone I talked to said I ought to make this one in sixteen-millimeter. The pros wouldn’t even bother to look at eight-millimeter. The quality was also much better with sixteen. Only, I needed about seven hundred dollars to rent the equipment and buy the stock. Shelley gave me the money out of his law school savings—no questions asked. That’s the kind of guy he is. Whatever else I needed, I begged or borrowed. It didn’t hurt that I had the run of the Panorama lot.”
“Who played the lead?”
“Another intern there. His mom was a costumer. Real nice kid named Steve. I had him narrate it, like the guy did in The Incredible Shrinking Man. His friends around the lot filled in the other parts. We filmed it on a bunch of different standing sets during lunch breaks. His house was the house from The Brady Bunch. The street he lived on was left over from an old Rock Hudson-Doris Day movie. The bug costume, which I got from Steve’s mom, had been used in Land of The Giants. It took us about a week to shoot it, and a couple more weeks for me to put it all together. Ernst was nice enough to look at it when I was done.”
“I take it he was impressed.”
“He thought it was crude but clever. What impressed him was that I knew how to tell a story, a proper story with a beginning, middle and end. Most young directors don’t.”
“Many directors don’t, period. How come you did?”
“I can’t answer that, Meat. It was instinctive. Maybe it came from watching so many hours of TV when I was a kid.”
“And maybe,” I suggested “you were just extraordinarily gifted.”
He ducked his head bashfully. “I was doing what came naturally, that’s all. Ernst made an appointment for me to see this guy who was second in command of Panorama’s TV production, Norbert Schlom. I was surprised that anyone that important would want to see me—I mean, I was nineteen. But Ernst said the studios were totally desperate for young talent that could bridge the generation gap. The man wanted to talk to me. So I went to the Tower. That’s what they called the old executive office building. It was only eight stories high, but there was nothing else that tall out there in those days. When I got to the office his door was closed and his secretary was nowhere to be seen. I waited around for fifteen minutes, and then I finally tapped on his door. I heard this groaning and gasping in there. After a minute the door opened and this blonde with giant boobies comes out all flushed, straightens her dress, and sits down at the secretary’s desk. I think the two of them were having … I mean, I think they were …”
“Fucking?”
“Norbert sat there behind his big desk looking like a Detroit gangster. Had on this really loud plaid sport jacket, and a red shirt, and a white tie. He told me to sit down. He called me ‘Kid.’ He always called me that. He just sat there looking me over for a while, cracking his knuckles, not saying a word. Then he got up and came around the desk. He was wearing a white belt and white shoes. And his fly was open. The tail of his shirt was sticking way out of it. He came over close to me, real close, and started sniffing at me.”
“Sniffing at you?”
“Like a dog would—no offense, Lulu. His nose maybe an inch from my armpit. I said to him, ‘Is something wrong, Mr. Schlom?’ I’m thinking maybe I forgot to put on my Right Guard that morning. And you know what he said to me?”
“I honestly can’t imagine.”
“He said, and I’ll never forget this as long as I live, he said, ‘Kid, I know shit from scripts. I know shit from dailies. I know shit from rough cuts. I only know one thing—money. And I smell money on you. I’m putting you to work.’ And that’s how I became a director.”
“Kind of a stirring moment.”
“Hey, it happened,” Matthew insisted.
“Hey, I believe you.”
“What he had in mind for me was this new Saturday morning serial they were doing for CBS based on the Rick Brant books of the forties and fifties. All about the adventures of this teenaged inventor named Rick and his pal, Scotty. A fellow named John Blaine wrot
e them. Schlom wanted me to break The Rocket’s Shadow into twelve episodes, with a cliff-hanger every week, and then direct them. For which he offered me a contract paying me five hundred dollars a week. I brought the contract to Shelley. He showed it to one of his law professors, who said it was fair except for this one clause that bound me exclusively to the studio for seven years, at their option. He said we should try to get it reduced to one year, otherwise I’d be signing my life away. The Panorama people said okay. That turned out to be really important later on.”
“I’m surprised they let you reduce it.”
“It was a mistake, actually. Norbert fired the guy who made it. They assigned me a line producer, an old pro, and I went to work breaking up the book. Then we cast our leads and I walked out onto the floor and said ‘Action’ for the first time.”
“What was that like—being in charge of a shoot at age nineteen?”
He sat back in his chair, hands behind his head, a contented smile on his face. This recollection he was enjoying. “Lots of people have asked me that through the years. For me it was no problem. The leads were kids, for one thing. They looked up to me. And the crew, they don’t care how old you are. All they care about is whether you’re decisive. If you are, you earn their respect. What they can’t handle is indecision, tentativeness, vagueness. It makes them freak out. That wasn’t a problem for me. From the first day I walked out on the set, I felt I belonged there. I felt at home. And I knew what the show was supposed to be—something fun, something I would watch. I can’t emphasize that last point enough, Meat. Because that’s all I’ve ever tried to do—entertain myself. It’s as simple as that. People in this town, they’re always trying to figure out what will or will not work for this or that audience. It’s all bull. If it’s something you yourself would go see, then it works. That’s the only marketing strategy I’ve ever followed. And, as far as I’m concerned, it’s the only one there is.” He dug into the package for another Oreo, animated and effusive. “I knew what I wanted. And I knew when I’d gotten it. That made me a director, even if I was only nineteen. We had to work tremendously hard, fourteen hours a day, to grind those episodes out. It was a grueling pace. But they left us alone, which was a real plus. Nobody from the studio interfered, or even paid much attention to what we were doing.”
“How did Bunny feel about all of this?”
“She thought the whole thing was nuts,” he laughed, smacking the table with delight. “She couldn’t believe I was actually directing a real television show. She figured I was selling drugs or something. She insisted on coming down to the set for a look. And she still didn’t like it. Thought it was some kind of fluke. That I ought to go back to school. She’ll deny that now, of course. Say she was one hundred percent for it. But she wasn’t. Although she did get a bit more supportive when The Rocket’s Shadow premiered. It did really well in the ratings. The kids responded to it. The critics loved it. I started getting a few requests for interviews. At first, I did them, but they made me so uncomfortable I decided to stop. The press didn’t understand that. Still don’t. They don’t get that someone might want to be left alone.”
“They get it fine,” I said. “They just don’t care.”
“Norbert immediately got me started on another Brant, One Hundred Fathoms Under, which was all about deep sea diving. We got to use a water tank in that one, which was real neat. It did even better than the first one. By then my one-year contract with Panorama was up. The series was hot. Norbert wanted me to keep going with it. He offered to double my salary to a thousand a week. But Shelley got an offer that was even better. An independent company offered me the chance to write and direct my own low-budget feature. Any film I wanted to do. Shelley called Norbert and told him I was leaving. Norbert hit the ceiling—this would never have happened if they hadn’t screwed up my contract. He basically had to match the offer or lose me. So he went to the Panorama feature people and talked them into matching it. And I did The Boy Who Cried Wolf for them, with Norbert moving over into the feature business with me as my supervisor. I ended up staying there with him for the next twelve years. Eight pictures in all. Panorama was my second home. I had my own playpen there. It was great. Norbert let me make the pictures I wanted to make, and let me spend what I wanted to spend. Because my pictures made hundreds of millions of dollars for him. It’s funny—Norbert always takes credit for me. Says he made me. And for a long time I believed that. But the more I look back on it now, the more I realize that I made him. He got into the feature business because of me. He made it all the way to the Panorama throne because of me. He needed me. He’s always needed me. That’s why he’s trying to get me back. Trying to buy this place. But I’ll never work for him again. Never. I’ll retire from the business before I’ll make another movie for that man. I mean it.” He grabbed the basketball and jumped to his feet. “C’mon, I’ll play you again.”
“You’ll just lose again.”
“Fat chance,” he exclaimed, dribbling the ball out the door. Until suddenly he stopped. “I can’t go to the reunion dinner, Meat.”
“Why not?”
“It’s a fancy dinner dance.”
“So?”
“I don’t have anything to wear.” He fingered his ravaged scalp. “And my hair …”
“Leave that to me,” I said soothingly. “All part of the service.”
He brightened. “Really?”
“Really. One question—do you care how much you spend?”
“I guess not.”
“Good answer,” I said, rubbing my hands together.
“I still can’t go, Meat,” he insisted stubbornly.
I sighed. “Why not, Matthew?”
He reddened. “I—I don’t know how to dance,” he confessed.
“Well, don’t look at me, buttwipe. I don’t dance with boys.”
Chapter 8
THE BRAND NEW HEADQUARTERS OF THE Harmon Wright Agency was on Beverly Boulevard, a half block from Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. It was a squat, rather ugly six-story concrete bunker with a flat roof and narrow slits for windows. It reminded me a lot of an Iraqi bomb shelter. Except not quite as cheerful.
Joey Bam Bam met me on the fourth floor at the elevator. “Johnny just got here—he’s freshening up,” the pint-sized agent informed me brightly. “This is the new Johnny: professional, cooperative, happy to talk. Scared shitless but happy to talk.”
“Thanks for including me.” He nodded with a vigor that bordered on the convulsive. “No problem. We’re all family here.” He lowered his voice. “Besides, I understand you’re tight with this Lamp.”
“I wouldn’t exactly call it tight.” The corridor was long, narrow, and dismal. The walls were bare concrete, the carpeting institutional, the lighting so dim that Lulu, with her shades on, kept bouncing off the walls like a bumper car. I had to remove them for her.
“Great place, huh?” burbled Bam Bam as he bopped along ahead of us. “It really, really sends out the new message: We’re here to serve our talent, not ourselves. CAA, they go out and spend millions on themselves. Hire I.M. Pei to design their place. Not us. We’re lean and mean.”
“Seems like an awfully grim place to spend eight hours a day,” I observed.
He laughed. “Eight hours?! Eight hours is a morning around here. Oh, hey, somebody I want you to meet while you’re here …” He opened the door to a small, windowless conference room. A half dozen baby agents were crammed in there like caged animals waiting for a slab of fresh meat to be thrown in. I was the slab of fresh meat. Quickly, Bam Bam shut the door behind us. “Okay, Stewart Hoag, these guys all know you. Christ, who doesn’t? But you haven’t met them yet, and are you in for an ultratreat. Say hello to the new team, each of us pulling for the other. From left to right that’s Len Levitt, Cuffy Cohen, Moke Mokatoff, Bruce Blick, Patty Plunk and Baby Jane Mandel. The Cuffster here is an ultraintellectual. When you go to his house you’ll find hardcover books all over the place.”
“I don’t t
hink so,” I said.
Bam Bam frowned. “You don’t think he reads?”
“I don’t think I’ll be going to his house. Look, kids, this is great, but—”
“We can make you a star,” vowed the Cuffster.
“Tried it. Vastly overrated.”
“At least let us show you what we can do for you,” Bam Bam pleaded.
“Bam Bam is ultraexcited about you,” chimed in Patty. Or maybe it was Baby Jane. Or Bruce. They all looked alike—like hamsters in Italian clothing.
“Some other time,” I said. “Unless, of course, you’re interested in representing a dog act …”
Lulu scrambled for the door, moaning, and hurled her body against it, paws first. It was the fastest I’d seen her move since the time she surprised a bat in Merilee’s barn. I guess civilian life didn’t look so bad to her all of a sudden.
God, I was proud.
Johnny was waiting for us in Bam Bam’s office, a drab little cubicle with a steel desk, a sofa, and no art or personal objects of any kind. It was the sort of office that would belong to an assistant professor of economics at a state university—in Gdansk. Johnny sat hunched in one corner of the sofa, smoking a cigarette and trembling. He was pale and drawn, his eyes bloodshot. He had tied a red bandana over his dreadlocks, and put on a black Bedford Falls T-shirt. His jeans were still torn. He was nervous and jangly, his mouth dry. He kept licking at his lips.
Lulu took one whiff of his Patchouli and went back out in the hall to wait.
“Here’s your friend Hoagy, John-John,” Bam Bam announced, raising his voice as if we were speaking to a small, slow child. Everyone talked to Johnny that way. Everyone except Matthew.
5 The Boy Who Never Grew Up Page 21