Women Under Attack: Theresa Saldana and Some Others

Somehow it’s fitting that, at the time that a particularly ugly campus rape (and its prosecution) is making news across America, media sources are announcing the death of actress Theresa Saldana. Saldana, who died of an unnamed illness at age 61, was a working actress celebrated for her role in Martin Scorsese’s Raging Bull and for a number of TV appearances. But the public best knew her for surviving an attack by a deranged fan, who traveled from his home in Scotland to track her to her West Hollywood apartment. On the morning of March 15, 1982 he approached her on the sidewalk and stabbed her ten times, only stopping when accosted by a passing bottled-water delivery man. Thankfully she recovered from her wounds, founded an advocacy group to push for stricter anti-stalking laws, and had the fortitude to play herself in a 1984 TV movie titled “Victims for Victims: The Theresa Saldana Story.” Re-enacting the scene of her attack for the cameras must have taken real courage. (Sadly, the story was repeated—with a much more tragic outcome—last week when a finalist on The Voice, singer Christina Grimmie, was killed after a concert in Orlando, apparently by yet another male “fan.”)   

It’s not only women who suffer at the hands of stalkers: look at what happened to John Lennon. But women, whether famous or not, are particularly vulnerable. Which reminds me of another death that occurred this past year, that of British actress Adrienne Corri. She may not be well known, particularly in this country, but personally I’ll never forget her. For it was Corri who played a ghastly scene in Stanley Kubrick’s brutal dystopian drama, A Clockwork Orange (released in the U.S. in 1971). In the film, Corri is an affluent housewife, lounging with her husband in an isolated suburban house filled with arty bric-à-brac. Suddenly, the sanctity of their home is violated by protagonist Alex (Malcolm McDowell) and his band of marauding delinquents, known in the parlance of Anthony Burgess’s source-novel as Droogs. As her husband, bound and gagged, is forced to watch, Corri’s character is attacked by the young punks. Her red jumpsuit is sliced away, leaving her naked and vulnerable. Alex then assaults her viciously to the cheery tune of “Singin’ in the Rain,” before ramming her with a phallic-looking piece of object d’art. The scene is staged by Kubrick to be darkly funny. Most of the first-run audience surrounding me at the Grauman’s Chinese Theatre howled with laughter. Personally, in all my days of moviegoing, I have never felt so female, nor so vulnerable.

Why would a woman want to play such a role? The legend is that Corri took the part when another actress refused to go through with it. For her, a role was a role. In the course of her long stage and screen career, she acted in the works of Samuel Beckett, and was directed by legends like Jean Renoir (The River) and David Lean (Doctor Zhivago). Her New York Times obituary describes her as “fearless,” and she was even able to approach a harrowing rape scene with a sense of humor.

But rape, as we keep needing to be reminded, isn’t funny. Jonathan Demme drove  home that point in a 1988 film, The Accused. The role of the victim of a brutal gang rape in a pool hall won Jodie Foster her first Oscar. The film forcefully argues against the “blame-the-victim” mentality that still shows up in too many courtrooms. Still, it’s sad that Hollywood actresses are so often rewarded for parts that trade on their characters’ victimization.

Muhammad Ali and Katherine Dunne: Two Who Are Down for the Count

 The death of Muhammad Ali has made me take a look at what’s sometimes called “the sweet science.” What is there about boxing that so enthralls spectators? Maybe the fact that it’s an up-close-and-personal sport, one in which two well-muscled athletes wearing very little come together in a violent mano à mano in full view of the fans in the ringside seats. Maybe when we watch boxers in dubious battle we’re calling up historic memories of gladiators slugging it out in the Colosseum. Maybe boxing is so brutal, and those who participate in the sport are so vulnerable, that we can’t avert our eyes from what promises to be a kind of human trainwreck.

In any case, the motion picture industry has always loved movies in which much of the action is set in a boxing ring. The tradition, dating back to the 1940s, is that boxing films focus on a champ’s corruptible flesh and even more corruptible moral fiber. It was in 1947 that Body and Soul (written by Abraham Polonsky, directed by Robert Rossen, and starring John Garfield) galvanized audiences by showing how an upstart with pugilistic talent can become the fallguy of unscrupulous operators who see him as their meal ticket. (The story is that legendary cinematographer James Wong Howe donned roller skates and carried a hand-held camera into the ring in order to convey a close-in look at what goes on in a boxing match.)

In 1949, Kirk Douglas achieved stardom as double-crossing boxer Midge Kelly in Champion, the first film produced by the great Stanley Kramer. In a story (based on a Carl Foreman script) that reveals its “hero” as capable of deception, backstabbing, and even rape, Champion makes the point that winners should never be confused with good guys. The same message is reinforced in Martin Scorsese’s Raging Bull, a 1980 biopic of the boxer Jake La Motta that powerfully charts its protagonist’s rise and fall.

Of course not every movie boxer is depicted as ruthless. The 1970 screen adaptation of the Broadway hit, The Great White Hope, uses the real-life story of Jack Johnson to highlight the racial aspects of the boxing world, with the leading character (James Earl Jones) penalized for his color and for daring to love a white woman. In 2005, director Ron Howard made heavyweight champion James J. Braddock (Russell Crowe) a sympathetic figure, one who turns to boxing as his family’s way out of the Depression. And of course there’s Sylvester Stallone’s Rocky, which starting in 1976 made a lovable loser into a figure of blue-collar dignity.

Muhammad Ali himself inspired many documentaries as well as a 2001 biopic starring Will Smith, who had gained Ali’s seal of approval as the only Hollywood actor pretty enough to impersonate him. Most audiences agreed that the dynamism of the real Ali did not fully come across in this fictional look at his boxing career and his gutsy civil rights stance. Ali was simply too remarkable a figure to be captured by someone else’s performance, and it promises to be the videotapes of Ali in action (both fighting and talking) that will be treasured in years to come. While I say goodbye to Ali, I also mourn the loss of author Katherine Dunne, with whom I enjoyed chatting when I was on Roger Corman’s payroll. I hoped she’d write a script for us, but it was not to be. Dunne’s masterpiece was an outrageous circus story, Geek Love, but she also won prizes for her take on boxing. So sorry that she and Ali were not saved by the bell.

The Dog Merchants: How Movies Have Got Us Going to the Dogs

Do you love dogs? Then you’ll appreciate the work of my colleague, Kim Kavin, whose career as a journalist and a dog-lover is dedicated to the well-being of canines everywhere. Her latest book is a bold exposé of how dogs are exploited for human gain. The Dog Merchants: Inside the Big Business of Breeders, Pet Stores, and Rescuers was published in May. Now a politician has been compelled, after reading Kim’s book, to introduce an amendment tightening a piece of “pet store puppy mill” legislation that’s pending in the New Jersey state legislature. If the amended law is passed, it should serve as a model for laws in other states.

Like any author, Kim wants to make sure her book is read. That’s why she’s posted on YouTube a series of lively video book trailers intended to warm the hearts of dog lovers everywhere. One called “The Blue-Eyed Mutt” actually went viral, seen by 23,000 people the world over. (See below!) Curiously, the inspiration for Kim’s trailers came from her knowledge of a dog who had conquered Hollywood back in 1923, the very famous Rin Tin Tin. This German Shepherd was an accidental star. He was rescued from a French battlefield at the end of World War I, learned some new American tricks, and found himself in the leading role in a silent epic from Warner Bros., Where the North Begins. So popular was Rin Tin Tin as a screen performer that he starred in 25 films, ultimately saving his home studio from bankruptcy. In the silent era, it was easy to make his appeal universal: his barking needed no translation, and the studio had only to replace the film’s English-language  dialogue frames with those in other languages. Kim followed this same logic, filling her trailers with adorable pooches and changing out the text to serve her own evolving needs.

Rin Tin Tin was so popular in his own era that suddenly the German Shepherd became the backyard pet of choice. Fads in dog-breeding continued in later decades, reflecting whatever was popular in local cinemas. In 1961, after Disney released the original animated 101 Dalmatians, suddenly every kid in America wanted a big white dog with black spots. When a live-action version of the film appeared in 2000, the yen for Dalmatians intensified. Something similar happened with Chihuahuas in the late 1990s, on the heels of a series of Taco Bell commercials featuring a particularly ungainly Chihuahua pup. And the sitcom Frasier started a rush on Jack Russell Terriers..

There is, of course, a downside to the public’s waves of enthusiasm for various dog breeds. Those good souls who dedicate themselves to animal rescue know that many families who fall in love with a cute dog at the movies or on TV are not prepared for the challenges of pet-ownership. Unscrupulous breeders are only too happy to pump out supplies of whatever sort of dog is currently in fashion. They’re not bothered by the fact that a number of the dogs they’re selling will be cruelly abandoned by their owners. That’s why, according to Kim, tenderhearted  rescuers are resigned to showing up in front of movie theatres with their own dogs in tow, begging parents not to succumb to their kids’ pleading for a real-life carbon-copy of the rambunctious critter they loved on screen. These rescuers, like Pati Dane of Dalmatian Rescue, try hard to explain that dog ownership requires expense and hard work, and that a plush toy dog would probably work better for many kids in the long run..

And that’s something to bark about.

It’s a Bird! It’s a Plane! It’s a Superboss! Roger Corman and Some Others

 Roger Corman doesn’t often show up in how-to books aimed at the business world. And these aren’t the sorts of books I normally gravitate toward reading. But Superbosses, a 2016 publication by Professor Sydney Finkelstein of Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business, is the exception. Five years ago I was approached by Dr. Finkelstein’s research assistant, who probed me about my Corman years. The published book contains a number of quotes from my biography, Roger Corman: Blood-Sucking Vampires, Flesh-Eating Cockroaches, and Driller Killers. And it makes a good case for Roger as what Finkelstein calls a Superboss, a mogul whose gift for nurturing and inspiring talented underlings has helped to transform an industry. That, of course, has always been a key part of Roger’s legacy: the fact that such major filmmaking talents as Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, Jonathan Demme, James Cameron, Gale Anne Hurd, and Ron Howard (as well as countless less famous folk) all got career boosts from him.

Finkelstein’s book is not primarily about show business. Yes, it surveys the talents spawned by George Lucas (via such enterprises as Lucasfilm, Skywalker Sound, and Industrial Light and Magic). There’s even an extended look at the career of Ben Burrt, who through his involvement with Lucas on the original Star Wars became a pioneer of modern sound design. And Finkelstein also traces the impact of Lorne Michaels, creator and long-time producer of  Saturday Night Live, on the scores of comic talents whose lives he’s transformed. (Think of Bill Murray, John Belushi, Gilda Radner, Mike Myers, Chris Rock, Tina Fey . . .  and the list goes on.) 

But Finkelstein also delves into other kinds of superbosses. There’s Alice Waters, whose emphasis on simple cooking with fresh local ingredients at Berkeley’s Chez Panisse has revolutionized the restaurant industry by way of chefs inspired by her methods. There’s Ralph Lauren in the world of fashion. There’s Jay Chiat, advertising guru, and journalist Gene Roberts, a beloved editor at the Philadelphia Inquirer. Not to mention a good many figures from the business world. Each, in his or her way, has brought forth whole generations of protégés who continue in the master’s footsteps, though not without contributing their own unique twists.

Finkelstein makes clear that superbosses are not all alike. In terms of personality, he divides them into three categories: the Innovators, the Nurturers, and the Glorious Bastards. His prime example in the latter category is Larry Ellison, of Silicon Valley’s Oracle. Ellison, according to those who worked for him, was not always easy to take. And he could never be accused of selflessness. Roger Corman, too, seems to fit into this group. Former employees will agree that they didn’t always like him, but they always respected him . . .  and his example prodded them to do their very best, often while working at tasks that seemed impossible.

 

Reading Finkelstein’s book made me think back to my own hiring by Roger at New World Pictures. He personally chose me as his assistant even though I had no filmmaking experience, merely some opinions I’d vented as a campus movie reviewer. He hired me, I believe, not because I fit some formal profile but rather because in conversation we clicked. And once I came on board, he encouraged me to spread my wings. I naturally gravitated toward developing scripts, but he also tried me out as a location scout. I worked on a production, got involved with casting, helped on publicity campaigns, and even oversaw a looping session. I may not have always liked him, but he changed my life. Thanks, Roger! 

Will you be anywhere near Richmond, Virginia on Saturday night, June 4 at 8 p.m.? If so, head on over to Hardywood Craft Brewery, 2408 Owenby Lane, where I'll be talking about my Roger Corman life prior to a screening of Death Race 2000, one of the many Corman classics I helped to make. Y'all come!