Fellow Breast Man Roger Ebert

Poolside: an Urgent call . . .

Roger Ebert is one of the best ever - perhaps the finest -  movie/film critics in the world over the past 50 years (Take that, Paulene Kael!).  He and partner Gene Siskel (R.I.P.) created the "thumbs up/down" rating shorthand and had true chemistry as a reviewing team. 

Roger is a fanatic, on par with Peter Bogdonovich; he's also always honest and thoughtful - and I think quite fair - in his reviewing.  I appreciated this review of Roger's.  I still disagree with RE about Ryan's Daughter, though....

Thumbs Up !

Usually treated as an amusing footnote to his bio, the young Ebert of 1970 dabbled in debauchery with my hero Russ Meyer as screenplay collaborator on Beyond the Valley of the Dolls.

Ebert Surrounded - the Gang's All Here

In the spring of 2005 I finally got to meet Roger when he was honored with a CINE Lifetime Achievement Award on M street NW in Washington DC.  A friend had invited me to the event at National Geographic TV, and after seeing the Raymonds (Patient Zero progenitors with their high-quality PBS innovation "American Family" that indirectly begat today's 'reality' sewage) honored, I caught up with Roger.

First stop (establishing shot): Men's Room.

"Porter Hall," I introduced myself.  Ebert brightened, quizzically. "We have a good, mutual friend - RM" I continued.  "How do you know Russ?" asked Roger, and we were off.

Initial exposition and plot-set-up.  Backstory.  All that rot.  Choice private anecdotes for validation (see below).  Confirmation.  Camaraderie.  Continuity.  Drama, pathos and everything else, in ten minutes chat and a stroll from the Sumner School building down to the street, round the corner and a sidewalk parting at the cab on 17th street, NW.

Ebert instantly connected the dots - he had heard Russ talk of his Washington 'insider' buddy, referring always to a "Porter Hall," whose original namesake is a shady character whom Ebert/Meyer contrived in the BVD script, played to a villainous T by Duncan McLeod.  Well, that insider is yours truly.

Two Gentlemen without Equal

Roger and I lamented RM's passing the previous September.  By his words about Rus,s it was instantly, abundantly and cantilevered-ly clear that Roger had been as genuine and devoted a friend as any man could ever have.

Now, Russ was without doubt the best raconteur I ever met, with a genius for tale-telling, a vocabulary that he could have copyrighted, and a bottomless well of incredible stories ("Hemingway rousted us out of our fartsacks and paid our way into the best whorehouse in Paris"... "I screwed Uschi all that summer on the carpet of my office at Fox!"... "Ebert got blown by the pool!" ... etc.).

On and On . . .

The bond between Roger and Russ was borne out by the hours of tales RM had spun with me about his exploits with the youthful Ebert, which are more fully chronicled and liberally sprinkled throughout RM's 19-lb., three-volume "Breast of Russ Meyer."  And RM loved to recount these hi-jinks when we were out on the town.  Once, over huge portions of liver and onions at the Daily Grill in Palm Desert, Russ referred to Ebert (with obvious gleeful affection) a "that Moravian bastard!"  Russ was a demanding friend - he had no distractions in his own life other than self-selected obsessions, and he offered little and grudging latitude to those of us whose attention he craved; yet, although he no doubt vied competitively with her for RE's attention, RM always spoke with highest regard for RE's wife Chaz.

When we met, Roger was already struggling with the cancer that would eventually ravage his larynx, shoulder, jawbone, and facial structure.  Head held high, he soldiers on un-deterred, and un-abashed, just like his best friend.

News: Roger Ebert passed away April 4, 2013.

Rest In Peace, and See You At The Movies. 

My Friend Russ Meyer

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, to a HAPPY MAN

One of the true great joys in my life was to know and share laughter with the amazing, brilliant filmmaker Russell Albion Meyer.

I was already a fan dating back to 1975 and SuperVixens, and in awe of the Meyer 'intensely personal and unique vision of the world,' when we met in Las Vegas in 1989 and became friendly.  Over the next several years we saw each other many, many times.  Russ was a guest in my home in Washington DC, and I his guest numerous times in the Hollywood Hills and out in Palm Desert.

We enjoyed a great many meals, film screenings, nights on the town, and sundry adventures - including a rendezvous in Paris, and a day shooting cutaways in the Mojave Desert.  One of the great nights of all time was our dinner, twenty years ago tomorrow night, celebrating Russ's 70th birthday.

Magnum Opus

I was staying at the Bel Air Hotel, and we'd arranged to celebrate in style on the premises. He drove across town, arriving late, and laden with armloads of artwork - Annie Fannie-style illustrations he called "Bust-oons" that he was having prepared for his long-awaited, by then much-unfinished masterpiece "A Clean Breast."  He laid these out on the table at dinner.

We talked about the book, the production hassles, his can't-miss film project ideas (a shot-for-shot remake of Faster Pussycat, Kill! Kill! with LaToya Jackson, for instance), the usual recounting of amorous escapades, and life as an iconoclast in the company town.

Then we turned to his third marriage, to Edy Williams. It turned out the 1970 wedding had taken place on the premises, in the Garden of the Bel Air Hotel.  Russ's tardiness arriving for dinner was due to his having rooted around in the garden on the way in, but he'd gotten lost; we agreed that after dinner we'd scout around to see if we couldn't find the 'scene of the crime.'  Many glasses of wine later, that we did.

To stand under the stars at midnight, stumbling about on the rolling lawns of the Bel Air, while Russ rhapsodized about Edy Williams' charms even as he brandished the rolled-up Bust-oons in the air, batting wildly at the stars, railing against her "shrewishness!" - "But I have no regrets, Sir - I have None At All !"  Pure heaven.

Over many years' time, Russ introduced me to a cavalcade of characters, among them Dave Friedman, Stuart Lancaster, James Anthony Ryan & Bert Santos, Charles Napier, John Lazar and others, as well as trusty Janice and his leading ladies Melissa Mounds, Haji and Tura Satana.  Here is a beautiful clip that provides a glimpse of the work, the spirit and joie de vivre of old RM.

I learned so much from this unique man.  And our friendship meant and still means very much to me.

Thanks for the memories.

Happy 90th Birthday, Russ.

R.I.P. Charles Napier - He Put the Square Jaw in "Big Bosoms (and...)"

Napier: "Where's The Growler?!"

Farewell to Charles Napier - a tremendous character actor who embodied the best and the worst of power & authority.  He died at age 75 on Wednesday in Bakersfield, CA.

Napier and his leering, maniacally toothful smile captivated audiences in Super Vixens, Blues Brothers, Rambo, Silence of the Lambs, and a host of other films over his long career.

Russ Meyer's - A Life Well-Lived

My first-ever theater experience of a Russ Meyer film (Campus Cinemas III, Hadley, MA) was Super Vixens, and it's still my favorite of all his masterpieces.  Charles Napier, as homicidal cop Harry Sledge, is the dastardly accelerant that propels the film, bedeviling Clint Ramsey hither and yon.  As Ramsey, Charley Pitts charges from one pair of breasts to another (six abreast -that's twelve breasts all told; fourteen if you count Angel and SuperAngel separately), one step ahead of Sledge, like the Road Runner leading Wile E. Coyote a merry chase.

Napier, Eubanks - Mountaintop Tableaux

You'll think twice, "Hoss!" after seeing how Sledge brutalizes Angel (Shari Eubanks) - beating and stabbing her before electrocuting her - how? - by dropping a plugged-in radio into her bathtub.  In 1975, the whole thing was one of the most gory, protracted killing scenes that had been played out on screen.

Charles "Super Vixen" Napier

Of course in Meyer's world, Shari comes back to life as SuperAngel and runs around the desert in high heels and a crazily-short waitress uniform, the whole thing ultimately leading to a mountain-top square-off punctuated by a long, raucous series of harsh and non-sensical threats and taunts bellowed across the echoing valley by Sledge, like "She'll squeeeeeeeze ya like a lemon!" and "Why buy a cow, when y'can git free milk?!"  SuperAngel ultimately has her revenge in, let's say, the film's explosive climax.

In 1994, I was fortunate to have an introduction to Charles by RM himself when Napier was in Vegas to promote the video release of "Raw Justice" (re-titled for video as "Good Cop, BackCop") in which Charles had played Mayor Stiles, whose daughter's death is to be avenged.  When I met Napier, I persuaded him to re-deliver the 'free milk' line - and he roared when I told him of the movie's indelible power and imagery 'persisting for me from boyhood to adulthood Undiminished, and Unrefined' - he recognized the reference and hooted "Thank you, Mr. Portnoy!"

Super Vixens (1975) - Harry Sledge . . . about to Explode

Russ chided Napier over having given him his first feature break, as a crooked sheriff in Cherry, Harry and Raquel (1970) before casting him for Super Vixens in the defining role of Harry Sledge.  When Chuck rebutted that he'd appeared in two earlier films (a dog Western and an obscure Swedish vehicle) and cameo'd on Star Trek before their meet-up, Meyer rejected those as 'nonsense,' and corrected himself: "Not your first break, but your only important break."

Our star said that he mostly "played (him)self, or some version of (him)self."  But Charles Napier had a serious talent that went beyond central-casting villainy, and was especially admirable playing Judge Garnett in the beautiful film, "Philadelphia."  An Army man before heading to Hollywood, Napier had the features, the intensity, and the talent to capture authority in its best and worst forms.

Charles Napier, b. April 12, 1936 - d. October 5, 2011

God rest his merry soul!

Carny Night in Vegas with Dave Friedman

First Tura, now Dave.  RM, you have dear company up there, and I salute you.

RIP Dave Friedman

"Two Old Warhorses and Porter Hall"

Russ Meyer and I enjoyed an annual dinner in Las Vegas for many years, and it was in August, 1992 that he insisted I join his good friend and old partner in crime Dave Friedman for a magical evening of gigantic steaks, good wine, cigars, ... and then lining up in the parking lot to micturate on the wall of the Rosewood Grill restaurant, before pressing on to the Olympic Gardens for a floorshow and finally drinks at the Riviera Hotel: No Greater Glory.

We corresponded a bit following.  Dave sent me a copy of his tremendous memoir, A Youth In Babylon: Confessions of a Trash Film King, and later a videotape about drive-in/exploitation movie history in which he was heavily featured, Kit Carson's "Sex and Buttered Popcorn."  My life was enriched by Dave Friedman.

How many times in life do you get to crack carny all night with the man who brought you

"ILSA, She-Wolf of the S.S." ?

For me, just once,

and it was glorious.

Breaking News - Tura Satana Has Died

Sure it sounds crazy, but Tura and I were acquainted, and once had the good fortune to drink champagne together at midnight with Russ Meyer on the rooftop of the Hilton Hotel in Paris.

I just learned (thank you Dr. Rising) this sad news, and will take the time to give this a proper write-up very soon, as - unlike so much of what's here in this blog - it deserves a genuine, full and honest treatment.

Tura Satana: "Awesome, Unbridled Womanhood"

Goodbye, Varla - Rest In Peace.