Where did you grow up?
I
was born in Chicago, but I grew up in Southern California. My father
worked in steel cable distribution, which was allied to the
construction business. He couldn't stand the Chicago winters so we
moved to LA. I had a fairly normal childhood.
Did
you love films as a kid?
I
lived across the street from a movie theatre for six years, so I went
to the movies every week. This was during a time when they had
Saturday matinees, and we saw all these 50s science fiction movies
and horror movies.
When
did you decide to become a writer?
I
went to UCLA and I was a History Major. I wrote for the college
newspaper, The Daily Bruin, and I started to see my name in print. I
had a lot of fun being a college journalist and it inspired me to
start a writing career, although I couldn't make any money at it. In
the day I parked cars, I was a messenger, I was a telephone operator.
I'd write at night.
How
did you get involved with writing about sci-fi movies?
I
had submitted a letter to a popular science fiction film magazine in
Chicago called Cinefantastique. Fred Clark and I started to be very
close. I became their 1950s expert. The irony is that all of those
movies that I saw at the kiddies matinees became the sources of my
interviews. I did a long retrospective on FORBIDDEN PLANET (1956), THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL (1951), WAR OF THE WORLDS (1953), and THEM (1954). I got a lot of
attention. I got a very nice letter from Leonard Maltin, the great
film historian, complimenting me on my work. These were not typical
magazine articles. For THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL piece I worked
for six months gathering all the information and the behind the
scenes materials. I went up to Stanford and interviewed Julian
Blaustein, I had a long interview with Robert Wise, and I talked to
the writer Edmond North. In fact he answered one of the great
questions of all time in movie history – 'What does Klaatu Barada
Nikto mean?' He told me it means 'There is hope for Earth if
scientists can be reached.' I love this kind of stuff. I love looking
in old files for old film stills and gathering information on behind
the scenes, and interviewing the actual filmmakers.
I
decided to write a book, and since I was really interested in WW2 and
movies, my first book was called Combat Films. I was really
interested in writing about how movies were made. I was fascinated by
the concept of how a movie gets put together. The very first
interview that I did was with Michael Blankfort. He was a blacklisted
American screenwriter who wrote a movie called HALLS OF MONTEZUMA (1950) with Richard Widmark. I sat down with him and he told me
all these fascinating stories about the writing of the screenplay and
the making of the movie. I just knew I had tapped into something. I
started interviewing filmmakers and screenwriters and I did that for
years, just gathering information. I did a long interview with John
Sturges about the making of THE GREAT ESCAPE (1963), I talked to Henry
Hathaway about THE DESERT FOX (1951), Don Siegel about HELL IS FOR HEROES (1962),
Carl Foreman about THE BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI (1957). The book was published
in 1981 by MacFarland.
Why
did you decide to write The James Bond Films (1981)?
By
the mid-70s I had been a big fan of John Brosnan's book James Bond in
the Cinema (1972). I actually went to London and met him. I decided
that somebody should do for Bond what I had been doing for science
fiction films and war films. At that time, there was nothing around
on Bond. I kind of tested the waters. I wrote a letter to 'Cubby'
Broccoli, the prioducer of the series, in mid-1977. I told him I had
written a book on combat films and that I was a film historian. He
was impressed by that, and I met him. He gave me an entree to his
stepson Michael G. Wilson, and so in the summer of 77 I went over to
London with this official support of 'Cubby' and met with Michael.
They had just wrapped THE SPY WHO LOVED ME (1977), so I was a little too
late, but I went out to Pinewood Studios and I was one of the first
people to see the finished movie. It was very cool. I went out there
with Ken Adam and Michael in a Rolls Royce. I felt like royalty. They
were so cooperative. They opened their filing cabinets to me. I was
able to copy call sheets from the first ten movies. When I started my
book I had carte blanche and a lot of information even before I began
doing my interviews. I spent a month in London and did a lot of
interviews. I talked to Ken Adam, Lewis Gilbert, John Glen, and back
in LA I talked to Richard Maibaum and Tom Mankiewicz. I had a lot of
fun.
Why
did 'Cubby' eventually withdraw his support of the book?
I
made a strategic blunder. I was so impressed by my interviews with
Richard Maibaum, Terence Young, Ken Adam and Peter Hunt that I
decided I was going to show them to Cubby. I was like a little kid
saying ''Look how cool all this great information I'm getting is. ''
Rather than get Cubby excited about my book project, he became
offended. He felt like I was telling everybody's story and not his
story. He didn't want to correct what Richard Maibaum said, or Ken
Adam or Peter Hunt or Terence Young. He kind of walked away from the
project. But he also ordered the movie studio not to give me any
movie stills. So there I was, after two or three years of research,
and I had no photographs. Fred Clark, who was my editor at
Cinefantastique, got wind of it, and he did something that was a real
unfortunate thing. He took out a kind of sensationalist tabloid ad
for the book and in it there was the question ''Who is this producer
and why did he want this book stopped?'' next to a picture of Cubby.
Michael G. Wilson saw the ad and was furious at me. He had been
sympathetic to me because we had become friends in London, but he
thought I was taking a cheap shot at his stepdad. That ended our
whole relationship and I haven't spoken to Michael since. I was able
to find ways of illustrating the book that got around their edict. I
went to places like The Associated Press. In the old days, MGM/ UA
would send the movie pictures to AP. They'd stamp on the back
'Official AP Photo'. A person could walk in and buy the picture. So,
for example, I would have a picture of DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER (1971) and I
would publish it in the book, and reference it AP. The book came out
in 1981 as 'The James Bond Films: A Behind the Scenes History'. It
was published by a company in London called Talisman, and the US
imprint was Arlington House. It sold really well. An updated edition was published in 1983.
Very proud. I thought it turned out swell. We
actually thought it might get banned and never see the light of day,
but I'm kind of a tenacious person when it comes to making sure my
stuff gets out there in the world. I think I had 235 stills and I
couldn't use 190 of them. I expanded the ones I had to about 100. I
did things that there were unusual. For example, for the MOONRAKER (1979)
chapter I went to NASA and got pictures of the space shuttle. I found
file photos of actors. In the same year my book was published I did
an article for the LA Times on 'Whatever Happened to All the Bond
Women?' Jane Seymour agreed to pose with me for some pictures for the
article, and one of those pictures got on the back cover of the book.
How
did you get involved with the Criterion laserdisc of FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE (1963)?
One
of my best friends, and now writing partner, David Lee Miller, used
to run Criterion when it was just laserdiscs. In 1991 he got the
licence to put the first three Bond films on laserdisc. He hired me
to do the commentary for FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE, and we did a great
one with Terence Young, Peter Hunt, and Richard Maibaum. I assumed it
was all above board, but nobody had mentioned to 'Cubby' anything
about a commentary. 'Cubby' was understandably furious because of
what the people were saying. Terence Young is one of the great
raconteurs of all time, and he would say stuff like ''Oh, Lotte
Lenya. I love her. She was like 72 years old and still ...'' well,
let's say, very sexually active. And they left it in the commentary!
Can you imagine what he must have said when he heard that? The discs
were all withdrawn so they could remove the commentaries. An
interesting postscript is that years later when the battle between
Sony (representing Kevin McClory) and UA (representing the Broccolis)
began, both sides called me to be an expert witness. I turned them
both down. There was no way I was going to get in the middle of that
because I want to have a career as a filmmaker in Hollywood.
Given
how things went, how do you feel about the whole situation with the
Bond producers now?
I
have great respect for the Broccolis. I think of all the producers
who have ever graced Hollywood ,I think the Bond producers have been
the most responsible to their fans. They really try to do a good job
every time and they have protected their franchise well. What
happened between us was unfortunate and not really consequential. I
think by becoming an outside writer it gave me a little bit more
freedom to offer more of a critique in my books. In terms of the
illustrations, it allowed me to explore new avenues, particularly
when it came to getting the Bond Encyclopedia done.
In
1990 I heard from a publisher called Contemporary Books of Chicago.
They had had great success with a Marilyn Monroe Encyclopedia and an
Elvis Presley Encyclopedia. The idea of a James Bond Encyclopedia was
a real natural. I went to London in 1989 and I went all over looking
for photos. I found a real treasure trove. I found pictures in the
most unusual places. I went to Ronnie Udell, who was the construction
manager at Pinewood. He opened up one of his cabinets and there were
tons of wonderful, extraordinary pictures of the sets. I put out an
all points bulletin for friends to find pictures and people came out
of the woodwork. I did a lot of new interviews. Writing an
encyclopedia is a fascinating experience because you literally
collect information from everywhere. With the advent of computers, I
was able to do everything more efficiently. It was a lot of fun and
the book was very successful. It's a fun compendium. I was a little
disappointed that the publisher didn't really want to spend the money
to realphabetise for the new edition. In the second edition in 1995
and the third edition in 2003, they put all the Pierce Brosnan
material at the back of the book.
With
all the interviews that you've done for the Bond books, what are some
of your favorite revelations that you managed to uncover?
For
me personally it's the little details. Kevin McClory was very helpful
to me because he gave me a lot of behind the scenes information and
some of the early drafts of the THUNDERBALL (1965) script. Usually the most
interesting stuff for me was related to the first six films because I
grew up with them and they are my favourites. Although I've always
enjoyed the series ever since, I would say my love of Bond dissipated
after ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE (1969). I love the little details like
Peter Hunt explaining that they never changed the line of dialogue in
GOLDFINGER (1964) when the A-bomb ticks down to 007 because they couldn't
get Sean back to loop the dialogue. He still says ''Three more ticks
and Mr. Goldfinger would have hit the jackpot.'' Which makes no
sense!
How
did you research the Encyclopedia?
One
of the things I did was watch each movie and keep a pad in front of
me. When I saw an interesting fact or mistake I would note it. I
found surprising and fun things. For example, when they are loading
the gold into Mr. Solo's limousine in GOLDFINGER, the fork lift
drives by the camera and on the side it says Leland Industries of
Coventry in England, when it's meant to be Kentucky, where
Goldfinger's horse ranch is. It's a bit of trivia that people don't
normally notice. It's interesting that Mie Hama's character in YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE (1967), Kissy Suzuki, is never named in the movie. I've
never seen a main character in a movie literally have no name! I
remember that when I was writing The James Bond Films, I interviewed
Bill Hill, the production manager on FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE. I spoke
to him in London in 1977, and he told me that he was also the British
agent that Grant kills. We joked about what could possibly have made
his character follow Grant into the bathroom!
Going
back to when I was researching the Combat Films book, I was looking
for those things that could only come from the horse's mouth. Maurice
Binder told me that when he was doing the main titles for THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN (1974), a model's pubic hair was sticking out and he
asked her to put some vaseline on it. She asked him ''Can you do
it?'', and he was down on his knees applying the vaseline when Cubby
Broccoli and Roger Moore walked in. Roger turned to 'Cubby' and said
''Cubby, I thought you were the producer on this picture?'' It was
hysterical. Maurice was a lot of fun. In 1981 I started working on
movies as a unit publicist. I'd be the PR man on the set. Two years
later I was working on a scince fiction film that Ivan Reitman
produced called SPACEHUNTER: ADVENTURES IN THE FORBIDDEN ZONE (1983). Frank
Tidy was our director of photography, and he also happened to have
been a camera assistant working with Trevor Bond and Robert Brownjohn
on the titles for FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE. He told me how they came up
with the idea of the credits being projected on the belly dancer's
body, and also that they did a joke by putting Ted Moore's credit on
the woman's bum. I thought that was funny. There's always someone who
has a story.
Do
you remember the moment you fell in love with Bond?
Christmas
1964. By then I was in junior high school and I had started reading
the Signet paperbacks. Everyone had them. My father was doing a lot
of travelling and he used to take the Bond books with him. He usually
read Westerns but he brought Goldfinger home once. I have to say I
was intrigued by the cover, which was very colorful. I started
reading it and I loved it. And then it was announced that the movie
would be coming out. By 1964 they had released the first two films in
the US but they weren't what you call high profile releases. They
came out in double features and they weren't really treated with the
hoopla that came afterwards. It's not surprising that when GOLDFINGER
went through the roof they rereleased DR. NO (1962) and FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE
as a double feature. And then everybody saw them. I would say that it
was the most successful double feature ever because after GOLDFINGER
everybody wanted to catch up with the first two. It's also lot more
fun than FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE. The movies for me are equal in
stature but GOLDFINGER is a much more fun movie to watch with an audience
because they laugh in all the right places and the humour and the
drama were just perfectly in tune. Because I had read the book of
GOLDFINGER, seeing the movie after that was cool.
The
following year we got THUNDERBALL, which had the most beautful women
I had ever seen. I had read the book of Thunderball too. I think for
me, and with the rest of America, my obsession with Bond peaked with
that film. I saw YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE and I didn't like it as much as
the earlier ones. There are parts of the film that are beautiful, but
it felt like Connery was sleepwalking through the movie, like he was
already tired with the character and ready to get done with it. It
kind of showed in his performance. A big problem of the film for me
is the big setpiece of the helicopter chase. I just thought it was by
the numbers, and could have been more dramatic. The big complaint at
this time was that Bond was becoming too obsessed with his gadgets,
and so the big joke in ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE is that the
only thing left for Q to come up with was radioactive lint, which was
hysterically funny. I think SECRET SERVICE, which didn't fare as
well, was a much better movie and better produced.
How
did Bond impact upon your life around this time?
It
kind of ruined me for women for about twenty years! I expected all
women to be like Bond women. You'd just flirt with them and they'd
hop in the sack with you. They had to be witty and fun and very
compliant. I couldn't have been more superficial in my relationships.
I would be driving down the road in my car and I would see a pretty
girl driving down the highway and I would chase her. I was Sean
Connery driving the Aston Martin in GOLDFINGER. Suddenly I'd realise
that I was going over the speed limit and I'd reduce my speed and ay
to myself ''Discipline, 007.'' Bond has a tendency to turn you into a
chauvinist and it took me quite a few years to break myself of the
habit. I think when I turned 30 I realised I had to grow up a little
bit. Certain aspects of Bond never intrigued me. I never had any
interest in smoking. I am not much of a drinker. I do not like
Martinis. Ironically when the Encyclopedia came out the LA Times did
a story on me and they had me pose holding a Martini. I'd rather
drink motor oil! I do love cars though. My very first car was a 69
Mustang, and then I got the 280Z, which was the car I posed with Jane
Seymour next to.
I
have interviewed a lot of people but I have never really stayed close
to actors. I loved Terence Young, who could talk your ear off.
Richard Maibaum was a little bit of a mentor for me and I got to know
him pretty well. He was very nice, as was Peter Hunt. Actually, when
I became a film publicist I got to work with him for two months as a
unit publicist on a film shot in Calgary and Alberta. It was called
Hyper Sapien. That was produced by Jack Schwartzman, who produced
NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN. I worked with him for two years from 85-86. We
had a very great relationship.
What
did Jack Schwartzman have to say about the
making of NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN (1983)? Connery blamed a lot of the problems on his absence.
Jack
admitted that he made a lot of mistakes on the film and he took
responsibility for them. He really wanted James Horner to do the
soundtrack, but Sean Connery had what apparently was a terrible
meeting with Horner, and chose Michel Legrand, regrettably, instead.
I think Jack really let Sean Connery run certain aspects of the
production - and that was a huge mistake. But what can you do, he's
***ing Sean Connery. I
believe Jack wanted to fire Irvin Kershner at one point, but saner
minds prevailed. There was a lot of rancor on the production - and
Jack had to constantly appear in court in London to deal with Cubby
Broccoli's suit, etc. So Kersh was finally left alone a lot of the
time. The movie needed more action - and, unfortunately, it wasn't
happening because Kersh was not an action director. As he mentions in
the commentary track, he was just bored with it - and the final
action sequence in the temple shows off that boredom. It's BORING!
Jack was too inexperienced a producer to have a strong creative say
in the matter - he was a deal maker not a story guy.
Can
you talk about the teaser you wrote for NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN?
When
he was finishing the film, Jack asked me if I had any ideas for a
teaser. Jack told me about his original teaser, which starts at a
medieval jousting match, in which one of the knights turns out to be
an assassin who kills a knight with a deadly lance. Bond jumps on a
horse and chases him through London traffic on horseback. Jack said
it would have been too expensive, and I can believe it. My teaser was
fun. Bond is attending the Queen's birthday celebration with the
female Governor of New York when a hydrofoil craft comes flying up
the Thames and nearly kills the governor. Bond excuses himself and
races aboard the HMS Belfast, a World War II heavy cruiser which is
moored nearby. Using his naval rank - he's a commander - he takes
control of one of the gun turrets, has the gunning team load high
explosive shells, and they train their guns on the retreating
hydrofoil and blow it out of the water. Bond returns to the
Governor's side, and they both head for a romantic dinner, and
wherever your imagination lets you go. I do know that the writers
were really pissed that the teaser sequence that was filmed was
squeezed in under the titles and the music. It was supposed to have a
lot more suspense.
I
did close to a hundred films as a film publicist, a lot of them for
Showtime. In addition to being a unit publicist, I started doing EPKs
and behind the scenes featurettes. I got hired by Fox and Sony to do
the special feature packages on the 67 CASINO ROYALE and NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN. I got to go back and interview a lot of people with my
partner Steve Mitchell. Irvin Kershner refused to do the interview
unless we paid him, but we had no money. I gradually wore him down.
He gave us a great interview. We were able to cut together some good
behind the scenes stuff but we had to leave out a lot of the
negativity as he was not happy making the movie!
What occupies your time now?
Since
2000 I've been producing, or at least developing, full time, and I'm
focussing on that. I have a lot of irons on the fire. It's hard
because being a producer today because it means finding money and I
am not very good at finding money! You open up a Rolodex and over the
course of six months you might be able to raise 50, 000 dollars. On a
typical movie, that pays for the food! Right at the moment I'm
putting the finishing touches to a two and a half year project of
mine – The Complete Encyclopedia of The Twilight Zone. I also have
the cover of the latest issue of Cinema Retro. It's my retrospective
of THE BRIDGE AT REMAGEN (1969), and has some nifty interviews with George
Segal, Robert Vaughn, Bradford Dillman and others.
I spoke to Steve by telephone on 26th October 2012 and by email during October 2015. I'd like to thank him for his time.
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