RIP BETTIE PAGE, ARTHUR C. CLARKE, FORREST J. ACKERMAN.
Remembering Bestoink Dooley, too!
I think there are two ways of knowing that you are getting older. One is that you can see the sign in bars that says IF YOU WERE BORN BEFORE THIS DATE AND YEAR WE WON'T SERVE YOU and you remember whom you were sleeping with that date, the other is that those older than you that influenced your life start dying.
Forrest J. Ackerman, Arthur C.Clarke and Bettie Page have all passed away in 2008. One published monster mags, one began his writing career writing in pulp magazines, one posed for pictures that the government ordered destroyed danced in burlesque and posed for fetish photography. These three seem to have nothing in common but they do, each did what was considered to be "trash" at the time they began. Each would be elevated far beyond that dismissal before they died.
Television in the 1960's had become a classroom for film. The Three Stooges shorts once seen at a movie theater every several months were now on TV on a daily basis. Horror movies starring Boris Karloff, Vincent Price, Bela Lugosi and many others were everywhere, often on TV shows with horror hosts. In Atlanta we had Bestoink Dooley whose show followed the news and he would often interrupt the weather to clown around with the weatherman.
I would wait for my parents to fall asleep and get up quietly to watch Bestoink, I was only caught once when I fell asleep during FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLFMAN and my parents caught me n the couch the next morning! I would meet Bestoink, aka George Ellis at the Festival Cinema and was able to see Andy Warhol's CHELSEA GIRLS, Kenneth Anger's FIREWORKS and I dated one of the beautiful girls that worked there. She had to audition for Russ Meyer and I met Russ for the first time. Years later I was the judge and host at The Limelight for a LEAVE IT TO CLEAVAGE contest and reminded him of our first meting. He was stunned, and remembered me, but thought she was baby sitting me. He took me to the bar and ordered me three Bombay and tonics in a row and said any kid who was dating girls like that at 12 he had his hat off to! He would come back several years later for his birthday party hosted by myself,girls from an all girl band called HOT HEELS, and co-host Roger Ebert!
You can read Roger's intro to the event and my onstage interview with Russ here:
I was being exposed to horror and science fiction movies and wanted to know more about them, who the people were in them, anything I could. I even had the Aurora monster models that I would paint and glue together. My room was becoming a shrine to monster movies. I bought a six sheet poster for THE MOLE PEOPLE made for billboards and that covered one wall of my room. My models were on shelves and tabletops.
Funny how my love for horror films would lead me to the 60's film rebellion from the underground here and to the terrific foreign films coming out at the same.
Then I saw a copy of FAMOUS MONSTERS OF FILMLAND, and discovered not only the back stories to the movies I loved ( the 1933 KING KONG remains my favorite film), but started promoting the films ad actors myself. I hand printed a fanzine called FLORES' INFERNO and would rent it out for a nickle for fellow students to read.
There is no way to know how many parents took one look at FAMOUS MONSTERS and threw the magazine out. The kids who read it however, would often go on to create films and books. John Landis,Steven Spielberg, George Lucas and many others would acknowledge his influence on them. Beneath the puns was a wealth of information, respect and love for the films considered trash by the general public and serious critics.
For the longest time horror and sci-fi films were only came out for kids n the summer and Halloween. Ackerman began the change so that today film subjects once considered trash now dominate the film market year round, with huge budgets and major stars. Here's a toast to the Ackermonster.
Arthur C. Clarke started in the penny a word pulp market writing for magazines like ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION, GALAXY and others. I loved his writing with its almost mystical approach to technology. Clarke himself was an atheist, but for many hippies watching 2001 he had made a scientific advance come across like a mystical trip.
I was a student at the Art Institute and was living in Hyde Park. I learned he was going to be at the University of Chicago to speak and after his lecture on satellites I asked him about 2001. He quickly dismissed me, and said he wasn't there to talk about it and he was tired of talking about it. The students in the hall applauded, and when the audience applause and laughter died down I persisted. What did I have to lose? I sat in on classes with Milton Friedman and others, no one noticed I wasn't a student!
I said I had a question that was not about the film in general, but an idea in the film that I felt was relevant today.
That got his attention. The hall grew silent. He relented.
"In the film, the Russians and the U.S. are shown to be allies though you get the feeling they still are wary of each other. How do you think we can reach this point, and do you think we will?", I boldly asked.
Mr. Clarke immediately apologized to me twice. Twice. He then said that was the best question he ever received on the film. Every single student in the room turned around and looked at me.
Then he declined to answer the question due to the political climate in America under Nixon, but he would answer me after the lecture if I'd come forward. After the lecture I shook his hand and he told me to read an article, which turned out to be about how we would become reluctant allies after the fall of the Soviet Union!
For months after students and Professors would come up to me and congratulate me on an outstanding question.
A penny a word writer, whose writing was sometimes adapted for radio on the show X-1, ends up speaking at the U of C. A toast to Arthur C. Clarke.
The range of emotions I have about Bettie are entangled in personal feelings and fan feelings.
I first saw her picture when was 13 at a comic book/ junk shop called Cantrell's in Atlanta. Here she was, tied up and in her undies looking directly at me . I would put Bettie in three of my plays, THE BETTY PAGE STORY, BETTIE PAGE UNCENSORED, and THE GOOD TIME GIRLS.
The first play was THE BETTY PAGE STORY. She had become a recluse and I had only seen 8 plays in my life, so when the producers at The Prop Theater approached me to do a show I jumped at the chance. I had a few story meetings, which ended with Scott going off to buy cocaine, and me leaving. The auditions were to be held at the theatre. What I didn't know was the actors were there hoping to be paid for their last show which had been a huge hit starring Tony Fitzpatrick.
Scott showed up coked up and suddenly announced everyone there was in the show, no audition needed. I was in shock. There were over 20 people there! The actors fell for his ruse as did I, and before we cold finish the script I had loaned him several months rent, for his apartment, and money for a huge gas bill at the theatre. ( He had used kerosene headache causing machines to heat the place!). And money for rent at the theatre. Meanwhile it was all going to drugs, as presumably the last shows money had.
Two weeks before the show opened Tony Fitzpatrick, a terrific artist in town, warned me to not do the show. After 4 months work and thousands paid out, it was kind of late to tell me.
There was no way I'd ever get any of that money back. The show hadn't even opened yet. One night an actor who had done a speedball with Scott, passed out on the couch in the lobby. Scott was sweating and shaking and told me I had to go onstage. To the shock of the cast I entered the stage and performed.
Penn and Teller had flown in for the show. The met us for dinner after, though Scott was too high to go, and they congratulated me for my performance!
Our agreement had called for Scott to pay the actors, the money was going for drugs instead. I got in a fight with him, but I had realized the only people Scott was paying were the musicians and tech people, the actors he had fully bamboozled. So I called the techies, told them what was going on and they refused to work unless the actors got paid. And that I was at the theatre as well. An apology came within minutes and Scott left before the actors got there. It happened quick. The actors never knew what happened.
During rehearsal Scott was awful. I had to figure out a way to get around him and his pompous partner. His partner would lecture the cast on sleeping with each other, but was banging one actress and trying to get others in the show as well. I'd had enough of these clowns and decided to pull a prank. I followed the lead of a fellow prankster JB, and got my hands on a urine specimen jar, label and typed Scott's name on the label, poured apple juice in it, a doctor's name and placed it Jonathon's fridge.
The name I used was Boutrous- Boutrous, the then head of the U.N., I knew actors didn't follow politics and they wouldn't get it.
A couple of days later I got a frantic call from Jonathon, was Scottie OK and why did he leave his urine in his fridge! I played dumb, they decided it had to be one of the actors. For three weeks they did nothing at rehearsal but try to find the culprits, often skipping the rehearsals.
Finally during tech week they called everyone together in a circle and Scott and Jonathon stood in the center. They thought they had guessed who did it. They held up the bottle looking at a confused actor and Scotty asked, "What's this?", I stepped forward, opened the bottle and drank from it. Then I said, "It tastes like urine". I laughed, they looked shocked, I explained the prank to the cast.
Some years later, and after I learned Scott had used me as the excuse not to pay actors as he had his former girlfriend to not pay Tony and the others in his previous show (to this day actors ask me when they will be paid for Bettie, I tell them to ask Scotty and also ask him when I'm getting back my money for his drugs, I mean rent). They never get it.
That play however became a critics hit. It would also destroy an 11 year loving relationship, but that story I'll get back to. Including the story of my drunken late night call to Penn that would scare him. He doesn't drink, and has never been dunk. Never do a late night drunk call to a tee totaller! More on that later.
Walking on North Avenue one day Scott ran out and hugged me. I didn't know whether to hit him and the first thing he said to me was we had to work together. This time would it be different. I could pick the play, direct it alone, pick the cast. He loved my work and wanted me to do more.
This was very odd as Scott and Jonathon were bad mouthing me all over the place.
He wanted to do a meeting right then and there, but I had a meeting to go to.
On the walk back I saw a frantic Scott, pleading with a sheriff as he was evicted from the theatre.
A couple of years later a Hollywood pal of his would have Scott pick up a rented car to drive to get him from a set. He warned Scott not to use the car to buy drugs but Scott drove off to find drugs, got wasted and was in a car accident leaving the actor with a huge bill for the car. Call it carma!
My Bettie experiences will be coming up a lot including my phone call with her, Playboy putting me on cable and in the magazine, and the actress I discovered in a brothel, the botching of the movie by an egotistic producer- there is much more coming. But for now, a toast to Bettie Page, a fetish model and burlyq dancer whose obituary ended up in the New York Times!
Life is like that.
