Elegy Written in a Westwood Burial Ground

Recently I attended an event both sad and uplifting:  a memorial service for Frances Doel, who was Roger Corman’s right-hand woman for decades. The high esteem in which she was held by everyone who knew her was indicated by the who’s-who list of attendees, including producer Gale Anne Hurd, who credits Frances with being the very first to read and support her and James Cameron’s landmark script for Terminator.

 Frances’ celebration of life, wonderfully stage-managed by her sister Rosemary, was held at what is now called Pierce Brothers Westwood Village Memorial Park. As cemeteries go, it’s tiny, and tucked away behind office towers that make it hard to find. But it dates back to 1905, and has been an interment site of choice for many well-known members of the Hollywood community. That’s why it’s a popular draw for tourists. L.A. has several celebrated burial sites that attract looky-loos. Hollywood Forever cemetery near Paramount Studios boasts the celebrated wall crypt that holds the remains of Rudolf Valentino and for years was ritually visited by the mysterious Lady in Black. (Hollywood Forever also hosts an annual summer film series on its sprawling lawn.)

 Westwood Village Memorial Park is known, first and foremost, as the final resting place of Marilyn Monroe. I couldn’t resist seeking out her site, and admiring the fresh flowers in a vase next to her wall plaque. Famously, right next door to Marilyn is Playboy honcho Hugh Hefner, although his flowers are fake (which seems rather apt). On my leisurely stroll through the premises on a very hot day, I missed many other famous names: among them Burt Lancaster, Natalie Wood, Dean Martin, Ray Bradbury, and Billy Wilder. Still,  I saw some historic resting places, like that of early director Josef von Sternberg, celebrated today for directing Marlene Dietrich in The Blue Angel. Kirk and Anne Douglas share a simple space that also bears a poignant reference to their troubled son Eric, who died young. Screenwriter Ernest Lehman’s gravestone sums up a busy, fulfilling life; composer Ray Coniff’s boasts a snatch of one of his most popular musical themes. Carl Wilson of The Beachboys is memorialized as “the heart and voice of an angel.” Soul singer Minnie Riperton (mother of Maya Rudolph), is honored by the presence of some actual CD’s of her work. Any native Angeleno will be especially moved, I think, by the joint resting place of Harry and Marilyn Lewis, whose Hamburger Hamlet restaurant chain was the backdrop for our growing-up years.

 Most eccentric gravesites? Comic actor Don Knotts has a plaque etched with images of him in highly familiar roles, like Mayberry Deputy Barney Fife. The splashiest site I saw belonged to German-born filmmaker Wolfgang Petersen, whose most celebrated work was 1981’s World War II submarine drama, Das Boot. (His ample section boasts candles, a world globe, landscaping, and a lot of fabric roses.) I also appreciated the sites of more modest Hollywood figures, like one Jeff Morris, whose plaque describes him as fine actor, and records what must have been a favorite phrase: “weather permitting.”

 But of course not everyone interred here has a Hollywood connection. I don’t know who Rita Kaslov was, but her stone contains her photo, as well as the information that she was a psychic. At bottom, passers-by can read an advertisement for her services: there’s the image of a hand, fingers  outstretched, and the announcement that she offers $5 palm readings. It’s impossible to say where the late Rita is now, but I’m sure she has gained a lot of insights since she shuffled off this mortal coil.

PS I couldn't resist looking up the gravestone for writer/director Billy Wilder, famous for (among many others) Some Like It Hot.  It reads: "I'M A WRITER. BUT THEN .  . . NOBODY'S PERFECT." 

Catherine Cyran: Force of Nature

This year had barely started when I was shocked by an item that appeared in several Hollywood trade publications. The headlines read “Catherine Cyran, Emmy-Nominated Director, Dies at 59.” It turns out there were several errors in these stories (for one thing, Cyran made it to her sixtieth birthday), but the basic facts were all too true. The vibrant young woman with whom I had worked closely at Roger Corman’s Concorde-New Horizons had been carried off by cancer, after two years of valiant struggle.

From my perspective, at least, it all began in the 1990s, when Catherine moved into an office next door to mine. She had been recommended to Roger by a fellow Harvard graduate. Roger, always impressed by Ivy League credentials, doubtless also liked hearing that she’d spent some time in the business school of his own alma mater, Stanford. Nonetheless, she started off in a modest job as assistant to the two women in charge of distribution. Catherine being Catherine, she didn’t stay behind that desk for long..

It helped that Roger appreciated strong women, and enjoyed promoting them into positions of power. (Producer Gale Anne Hurd, who would go on to launch her own big-league career with The Terminator, is only one of the Corman alumnae who insist that Roger preferred hiring women because they were smarter, worked cheaper, and were more loyal.) As Catherine’s role at Concorde grew, she and I spent some time trying to work out the plot for a martial arts movie, to feature our in-house kickboxing star, Don “The Dragon” Wilson. When I discovered that back at her New York high school Catherine had been a top--rank violinist (who knew?), we came up with the notion that our hero would be torn between his budding kickboxing career and his love for the violin. Yes, in retrospect it sounds like a bad mash-up of old John Garfield movies, but plotting it out was fun.

Later, when Roger’s wife Julie Corman bought the rights to a Middle Grade adventure classic called Hatchet, the three of us talked at length about exactly how to adapt it for the screen. Once all the details were ironed out, I noted that someone would have to do the actual writing of the script. Catherine quickly volunteered, and A Cry in the Wild became a notable success. (The title was changed from Hatchet, because anything connected with the Corman name would probably be mistaken for a horror flick.) Once Catherine earned that first screen credit, her ambitions grew. She wrote a second wilderness adventure that took advantage of her own outdoor skills, and then directed it herself. White Wolves nabbed her an Emmy nomination for outstanding direction in a children’s special, and she was well on her way.

Since those long-ago days, Catherine’s résumé has grown to include 15 films as a writer, 18 as a director, and 8 as a producer. Along with family films like The Prince & Me II: The Royal Wedding, she’s made erotic thrillers and delved into the horror genre. Notably, she wrote Werewolf: The Beast Among Us (2012), to be directed by her longtime life partner, Louis Morneau. Last September, while battling Stage 4 cancer, she rallied to direct Our Italian Christmas Memories, which aired in November on the Hallmark Channel.  Louis told me, “It's a very nice final film which deals with Alzheimer's. She was very proud of it, her mother having died from the disease. We are hoping Beau Bridges receives an Emmy nomination.” 

 As Roger Corman knew, a strong woman can do just about anything.

 

Gale Anne Hurd: How a (Walk of Fame) Star was Born

When I was interviewed by Roger Corman for a job at New World Pictures, he asked me if I was married. (Back then a personal question of that sort was not considered off-limits.) I informed Roger that I was a newlywed, and he seemed mightily disappointed. “All my previous assistants,” he said, “have married directors.”

If marrying a director is the ultimate mark of success, Gale Anne Hurd is a champion. Over the years she has been married to James Cameron (1985-1989) and Brian De Palma (1991-1993). Current spouse Jonathan Hensleigh is a successful screenwriter who’s recently moved into the director’s chair.

But Gale herself takes a back seat to no one. The Terminator was her project as well as Cameron’s (he directed, she produced, and they wrote the script together). She also produced Cameron’s Aliens and The Abyss. As head of her own production company since 1985, she’s launched such major action flicks as Terminator 2, The Ghost and the Darkness, Dante’s Peak, Armageddon, and The Incredible Hulk, while also shepherding a sensitive indie called The Waterdance. Zombie enthusiasts love her AMC series, The Walking Dead. And somehow she finds time to be the queen of social media: her Twitter followers number 22,500 (and counting). No wonder she’s just been awarded her very own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Like me, Gale was an academic type who was surprised to find herself making genre films as a Corman assistant. After completing a degree in economics and communications at Stanford (Roger’s alma mater), she came to Roger’s attention through one of her professors. As generations of Cormanites can attest, Roger has always preferred hiring females, based on his conviction that women work harder, work cheaper, and are more loyal. And he seems to lean toward candidates with strong basic intelligence, rather than job-specific skills. In the case of Gale, he hit the jackpot.

In her three years at New World, Gale was never treated as a secretary. In short order Roger named her head of advertising. After she proved her mettle as a production assistant (responsible for making coffee and emptying -- ugh! -- the chemical toilets in motor homes), she was promoted to assistant production manager. At the famously decrepit Corman studio, she worked ‘round the clock, supervising the making of sci-fi extravaganzas. As she told me, “I remember that there was an army cot that we had when we were making Battle Beyond the Stars, and you’d just catch whatever sleep you could. And half the time it would be raining and the roof leaked and there’d be four inches of water on the ground and people were using power tools, while standing in the water. Thank God OSHA never came by, and thank God no one died.”

It was amid this chaos that Gale found her future husband and creative partner. Jim Cameron was also working on Battle Beyond the Stars, first as a model builder and then as the film’s art director. (More on this later, I promise.) It wasn’t long before the two of them dreamed up The Terminator, and a franchise was born.

Despite the daunting working conditions at New World, Gale has never felt anything but gratitude to her former boss. He’s famously tight with a buck, but she praises his personal generosity: “He’s the only person I’ve known in the industry who wanted his protégés to succeed and perhaps have even more impressive credentials than his own. I don’t know of anyone else like that. He was genuinely thrilled for everyone who broke out and made a career for themselves.”