Bert I. Gordon: A Really B.I.G. Show

Filmmaker Ron Howard has always admired aging directors who continue to ply their craft. It is his goal to someday emulate the late John Huston on the set of his last film, “out there at eighty-one or eighty-two, wheezing in a wheelchair.” Remarkably, back in 1965 when Ron Howard was eight-year-old Ronny, he was directed by a man who is today still actively making films. The  project was Village of the Giants. Its director (who also served as producer, screenwriter, and creator of visual effects) was Bert I. Gordon, also known as Mister B.I.G.

Mister B.I.G. was given his nickname by sci-fi maven Forrest J. Ackerman, in tribute both to Bert’s initials and his fondness for using camera tricks to put on screen various enormously oversized creatures, including giant ducks, giant ants, and The Amazing Colossal Man. In Village of the Giants, Ronny Howard played a boy genius whose invention (a magic growth compound called “Goo”) is stolen by marauding teenagers led by Beau Bridges. Next thing you know, the teens are thirty feet tall. As the ad campaign promises: “SEE THEM BURST OUT OF THEIR CLOTHES AND TERRORIZE A TOWN.”

I was a high school classmate of Bert Gordon’s eldest daughter, Carol. Years later I spoke at length to Susan Gordon, whose stellar career as a child actress began in 1958 when she subbed for an ailing performer on her dad’s Attack of the Puppet People.  Sadly, we lost Susan in 2011. But Bert stays busy. His 2010 memoir recounts that when he arrived in SoCal from Wisconsin, he fantasized buying a yacht. Now, his office is a boat docked at Marina del Rey, where he’s writing a second book and working out details for the release of his newly-completed movie, Secrets of a Psychopath.  He also spends time tending his website: www.bertigordon.com   

Bert admitted to me that many of his lifelong dreams have come true. From the time he got his first movie camera at age 9, he’s been determined to make his way in Hollywood. The fact that his productive years have been spent in the B-movie world, making low-budget horror flicks interspersed with a few sex comedies, has never bothered him. Unlike Roger Corman, whose career paralleled his when both were creating films for American International Pictures, Bert has never given much thought to social message. Yes, in several of his movies, it’s radioactive matter that causes tiny critters to mutate into giants. Still, he doesn’t seem much interested in the political implications of such things as plutonium blasts. Above all, he just wants to tell stories on film.

The challenges he’s most enjoyed over the years have largely been on the technical side. At the Directors Guild’s recent Digital Day, he found a session on the making of Avatar “as fascinating as hell.” But such trendy terms as Motion Capture don’t have much meaning for him, and if he were doing visual effects today he’d rely on a tied-down camera, just as he did in the past, instead of opting for contemporary CGI technology. One modern innovation, though, definitely has the B.I.G. seal of approval:  he loves shooting digital, which allows the director to see his footage immediately, instead of waiting for expensive film stock to be processed.

“I’ve always been open to imagining change,” says Bert. Which is why, perhaps, his upcoming movie is a thriller, with no visual effects at all. (It’s privately funded, and he’s in talks to make a second film.) Of the subject matter, he says only, “The horror’s in the mind now.”

Susan Gordon: A Child Star Makes An Early Exit

How sad to learn that Susan Gordon has left us. Susan — who as a child played Danny Kaye’s daughter in The Five Pennies, starred in a memorable episode of The Twilight Zone, and became a fantasy object for ten-year-old males in The Boy and the Pirates — grew up in my neighborhood. Of course I was aware of Susan’s celebrity, which made me feel slightly jealous. How did this little blonde girl get to make movies?

Years later, I spent an evening with Susan, discussing her life as a showbiz kid. She had taken a brief holiday from her husband and six children to enjoy a whirl of reunions and nostalgia events. She was petite, pretty, and very serious as she explained how her career began by accident: “My parents never wanted any of us girls to be in movies. They thought Hollywood was the wrong place for a child to grow up.” Yet her parents were movie people themselves. Her father, Bert I. Gordon, made low-rent movies in the Roger Corman mold. In 1958, he was shooting Attack of the Puppet People, which contained a small role for a young girl. Though Susan coveted the part, he hired a professional actress, then invited Susan’s Brownie troop to be extras in the scene. When the young pro fell ill, Susan stepped into the breach: “I did the scene, one take—and history began. . . . When the film was released, we got some calls from agents. And finally my parents said, ‘Susan, if you’re really interested. . . .’ But they set some ground rules.”

Rule #1: she was not to make her sisters jealous. Skimpy costumes were out too. And her father announced, "The day that they say, ‘There goes Susan Gordon’s father’ is the day you quit the business." He was joking, but he didn’t want his daughter to outshine him. Years later, though, his pride in her achievement was unmistakable. Still, this was not a case of stage parents pushing their darling toward ever greater success. It was drilled into Susan by both elder Gordons that Hollywood flattery should not go to her head. In protecting her from unrealistic expectations, they helped stave off the despair that hits many child actors on the inevitable day that “you don’t have this adoration any more. You’re off of the pedestal and your balloon is deflated.”

But Susan was so careful to keep her accomplishments under wraps that she ended up short on self-esteem. She told me about a long-ago playground incident: a close pal confided that “when I first became friends with you, it was because you were in the movies, but now I really like you.” Said Susan, “Although I’m sure she meant it as a compliment, it shattered my world.” Her voice dropped low as she recalled thinking, “Well, does everyone — all my friends — want to be friends with me because I’m in movies? What about me?” At this point in our conversation, her eyes filled with tears.

Susan was once up for a film with William Holden that would have taken her to Africa. As always, her parents warned her not to raise her hopes. Her own attitude was different: “Let me dream about it. Let me dream I’m going to be in Africa. And then if it doesn’t happen, . . . . at least I’ve had that moment of being in it.” She added, “I feel that way basically about life. Looking forward to things.”

I’m grieving now that cancer cut a good life short. Susan Gordon, alas, can’t look forward to things any more.