Robert Towne and Old Hollywood’s Best Alumni Association

The death of screenwriter Robert Towne on Monday made me lament the passage of time. Towne’s great era was the Seventies, when he wrote such gritty films as The Last Detail, Chinatown, and Shampoo, while also making vital (though uncredited) contributions to The Godfather and other hits. Though these were all major studio pictures, I will long associate Towne with his Roger Corman days, when he played the male lead in Corman’s 1960 cheapie, The Last Woman on Earth, while simultaneously pounding out the script on the set. This was filmmaking, Corman style: assemble some ambitious pals and get them to take on as many jobs as possible (for as little money as possible). Eventually, the idea was that they’d find out what they were really good at, and maybe move on to the big bucks. For many would-be Hollywoodites, it worked.

 Here's the opening of Chapter 8 of my independent biography, Roger Corman: Blood-Sucking Vampires, Flesh-Eating Cockroaches, and Driller Killers:  Roger Corman and the Academy Awards are not usually mentioned in the same breath. But on April 8, 1975, many of the big winners had a Corman connection. Best Film and Best Director Oscars went to Francis Ford Coppola for The Godfather Part II. Best Supporting Actor was Robert De Niro, for his performance in the same gangster epic. Ellen Burstyn was named Best Actress for Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, directed by Corman alumnus Martin Scorsese. Other nominees that year: Talia Shire and Diane Ladd, both up for Best Supporting Actress; cinematographer John Alonzo, whose very first film was Bloody Mama; and Jack Nicholson, favored to win Best Actor for his starring role in Chinatown. (The award went instead to Art Carney, for Harry and Tonto, leading Corman to joke that Nicholson’s loss had spoiled his personal sweep.) Robert Towne, who won the year’s Best Original Screenplay honors for his Chinatown script, surveyed the glittering multitudes and said, in the presence of reporter Bill Davidson from the New York Times Magazine, “This joint looks like a meeting of the Roger Corman Alumni Association.”

 For those who aren’t up on Corman’s long career, here’s the lowdown.  Coppola, straight out of UCLA’s film school, went to work as a Corman production assistant, then made his directorial debut, 1963’s Dementia 13, with money left over from Corman’s The Young Racers. In 1970, De Niro had a major role in Corman’s Bloody Mama. Corman produced Scorsese’s second film as a director, 1972’s Boxcar Bertha. Talia Shire and Diane Ladd both acted in early Corman movies, as did Jack Nicholson, who first met Roger (and Robert Towne) in a Jeff Corey acting class, then went on to play in multiple Corman movies including The Little Shop of Horrors, The Raven, The Terror, and his 1958 film debut, The Cry-Baby Killer. Nicholson, who remains deeply appreciative of Corman’s role in his career, recalled for Roger’s own memoir working on films whose budgets were so low that the actors all had to share the same script.

 Not everyone who worked for Roger in the early days became famous. But take the case of Dick Miller, who started out as a would-be screenwriter. Roger saw potential in the short, pugnacious Miller, and cast him in leading roles of films like 1959’s A Bucket of Blood. Eventually he became a featured actor (and good-luck charm) in all the films of a later Corman alumnus, Joe Dante. Eventually he starred in That Guy Dick Miller, a 2014 documentary made by one of his fans. I remember Dick well, and I hope the world will remember Robert Towne too.

 

 

Bill Cobbs: That Thing He Did!

We all know who the big stars are, even if we haven’t always seen their movies. Their faces are on movie posters and magazine covers; their names are embedded on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and their footprints decorate the forecourt of the Chinese Theater on Hollywood Blvd. Long after they’re dead and buried, we still talk about Elizabeth Taylor and Marlon Brando and Marilyn Monroe. Their bodies may not have survived, but their reputations certainly live on and on. Greta Garbo’s career was before my time, but her image remains in my memory banks. Such is the power of movies.

 Most working actors in Hollywood don’t achieve that kind of celebrity. Even those who land fairly steady paychecks for their film and TV roles can expect to remain unknown to the public at large. I remember once interviewing a wonderful actor named René Auberjonois in his lovely Windsor Square home, complete with a verdant garden and a yoga hut. I’d delighted in seeing him many times in local theatre productions, usually playing lead characters who were charming and flamboyant. My interview with him, for the Los Angeles Music Center’s program magazine, of course emphasized his stage roles. But stage stardom is a sometime thing, and can’t often support a cushy lifestyle. Auberjonois mentioned to me in passing that he was lucky indeed: his looks and skill-set were in great demand in Hollywood, and he was paid handsomely to take colorful character parts. Examples: he was Father Mulcahy in the original Robert Altman film version of M*A*S*H, and had small but significant roles in both Star Trek VI and The Princess Diaries. He was also featured on television, and  did a great deal of voice work for animated films, TV, and video games. A household name? Hardly. But a very comfortable life indeed. When he passed away in 2019 at age 79, there were small tributes in the press.

 Another of those great journeyman actors has just reached the end of the line. Bill Cobbs made it to 90, still active through 2022. His film roles were sometimes modest, ranging from Man on Platform in The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974) to Man in Lunchroom in Silkwood (1983). Happily, his parts gradually got larger. He had a significant presence as Moses, the clock expert, in the Coen brothers’ screwball The Hudsucker Proxy, and played a sneaky security guard  in the first Night at the Museum (2006).

I cherish his performance in the first film Tom Hanks ever wrote and directed, That Thing You Do! (1996). The light-hearted story, set in the rock ‘n roll Sixties, is about four young amateur musicians who record an original pop song that unexpectedly tops the charts nationwide. Hanks gives himself the role of the A&R record exec who spots the quartet. The Wonders (as in “one-hit wonders”) seem poised for genuine stardom until—inevitably—their very different goals pull them apart. The four nicely-cast musicians are Johnathon Schaech as the ambitious lead singer, Ethan Embry as the naïve bass player who’d rather be a Marine, Steve Zahn as the stoner lead guitarist, and Tom Everett Scott (a young Hanks lookalike) as the drummer who has a deep-seated love of music. It is Scott’s character who, late in the film, happens upon a legendary jazz pianist, someone who reinforces his true passion for great musicianship. The film’s climax is their impromptu jazz duet, one that reminds young Guy of what he truly values in life. This is a small role for Cobbs, but a deeply appealing one. Bill Cobbs will be missed.