FRANK MANCUSO, SR.:
Frank Jr. getting into the movie business—that was never my choice. It was his choice. And when I was sure that that's what he really wanted to do, I did whatever I could to help him. And it's important that you define help. Help is nothing more than getting him the opportunity. Once he got in the door then it was totally up to him.
Nepotism? Nonsense. Frank, he earned everything—he paid his dues. The first job he ever had was on Urban Cowboy when he was still in college. He was directing traffic in a parking lot in Houston, Texas. That's literally what he was doing—making sure that nobody drove their cars through the set when they were shooting. And after a while, he got promoted to John Travolta's assistant. Then, when Friday the 13th Part 2 came around, I knew the boys from Georgetown and we put him on as a gofer. And that's exactly what he was, out there in the woods along with everyone else.
The trials and tribulations of "Jason" notwithstanding, and boosted by the presence of an eager young Frank Mancuso, Jr., Friday the 13th Part 2 would complete its first two weeks of daylight shooting with relatively few problems. Yet the most rigorous tests were to come: five weeks of night shoots, constant rain, and complex effects sequences that stretched the film's already low budget to the breaking point. It would be a bonding experience for the filmmakers, who would form a closely knit community enlivened by juvenile hijinks, occasional youthful indiscretions and early-morning cocktails of alcohol and marijuana. With the average age of any individual cast or crew member just north of 20 years old, the experience was often more akin to survival training than a movie shoot—albeit one with a body count. By the end of production, war wounds would include frequent trips to the hospital, a minor revolt, fainting spells, and one missing finger.
STEVE MINER:
90 percent of the picture took place at night. We began shooting in September, and it was already getting cold, and eventually it had to rain. It was a very difficult and debilitating schedule shooting from dusk to dawn, and it was very hard on the cast and crew.
DENNIS MURPHY:
I look back and say, "How did I get these people to come up and do a movie like this in the middle of the woods?" Then I remember looking out over the lake one night and seeing people cavorting on the other side of the camp. It was indicative of the whole experience, this group of children out in the woods by ourselves, doing crazy things.
Darkness falls on Crystal Lake.
JOHN FUREY:
We shot it in Connecticut, in a beautiful little town called Kent. We were there for seven or eight weeks. Everything during the day was shot over the first 10 days, and then it was all night shooting. We stayed at a real campground, in these little hut-houses, and they put four or five of us kids in it. It was like camp—only the food was better. Though in retrospect, I wish I would have goofed around a bit more. I was really young, and it was the first time I had a lead in a movie, so I took it very seriously. But I have very fond memories of it.
STU CHARNO:
We were staying in these small camp cabins, and I remember John Furey, driving from one cabin to the next, which was about 50 feet or so. He just said, "I'm from LA." Now that I live in Los Angeles, I understand the joke.
LAUREN-MARIE TAYLOR:
The word that comes to mind is "ensemble." Doing a movie is an experience where you have to accept everybody for who they are, and just respect everybody for who they are—like going off to college for the first time, and being thrown in with a roommate you don't like. It doesn't matter. And it really hit home for me that, even if you wish you were elsewhere, or you're jealous of somebody, or you like somebody and it's obvious they don't like you back, making a movie is a living experience and you have to support each other.
I wanted to be smart like Amy Steel and be able to ride a horse. I wanted to have big boobs like Marta Kober. I wanted Tom McBride to move in with me and be my best friend forever. I wanted to jump John Furey. And I had the biggest crush on Bill Randolph. I just found him so hot and mysterious. And Russell Todd, he was beautiful. You're talking about a well-groomed man for 1980. I used to envy his nails.
RUSSELL TODD:
We were all so different, from different backgrounds and different types of work. I was just beginning my acting career and to be cast in a Paramount movie was exciting. It is the socialization of it that I still remember most, to be young and working, and that we all became a family during that time. I remember filming inside the lodge and doing all the silly dancing with the dog, and the interaction amongst all of us—some people shooting on one end of the lodge, while the rest of us were on the other end, relaxing and having fun. And there was this bar and restaurant place in town that was really the only place to go—it was where some of the scenes in the movie were filmed—and on our time off we'd drink and play pool and get to know each other. It's not always like this on a lot of movies, but it was so sad when that project ended.
AMY STEEL:
I think horror is the genre where you get people right off the bus. You don't have to pay them a lot of money. They're all excited, young and fresh-faced, ready to go with energy to burn. I don't remember anybody really complaining, but it was exhausting, no question about it. We were in these cabins without heat and there were no amenities. And there were no cell phones back then, only this phone booth where everyone made phone calls.
Initially, all the cast members were segregated—girls in one cabin, boys in another. There are always romances, just like any set. It was cool to spend that much time with people. You couldn't really go into a town and go party anywhere. It all happened there, at the camp. I remember there were great roads around where I'd take a walk or run, or go fishing. How could it not be fun? It was only weeks, but it seemed like months.
CLIFF CUDNEY:
There are quite a few stories, and some of which cannot be passed on. I remember once the movie was all finished, we were wrapping and I had to take some props back to wardrobe, which was actually one of the cabins. I knocked on the door, opened it and said, "I just wanted to say goodbye..." And there were three people in the bed—two girls and a boy. And I'm not going to tell you who they were.
BILL RANDOLPH:
There was always a lot of attention paid to jiggling and nudity. When I filmed the sex scene with Marta, I was on this bed naked for like 10 hours. It was the least sexy day I've ever had. Because there are all these guys hanging out, and of course they all can't wait until Marta gets in there. So I remember joking, "Hey, what about a pickle shot?" Although to be honest, I don't know whether I was just saying that to be socially correct, or to impress Marta. To make her more comfortable in terms of, "Well, if she's going to have to hang out her tits, why isn't there equal exposure?"
But what a shame to have to worry about that. It's so high school, it's unbelievable. I can remember a couple of nights before they were going to shoot that scene with Lauren-Marie Taylor walking around in her underwear, Steve Miner said something about what she was eating at dinner—"Don't forget, you're going to be running around in your underwear!" And then for the next two days she was eating nothing but celery.
"My last day on set was to shoot my death scene," remembers Russell Todd. "The day before, I called my mother, and she said, 'Russell, don't you think that's a little odd? Are you sure this is legitimate?' She thought it was a snuff film. I said, 'Mom, this is Paramount. They're not going to kill me!'"
LAUREN-MARIE TAYLOR:
That underwear scene was uncomfortable because I was never comfortable with my body. I was very "soft" back then. I was representing 17-year-old girls in 1980. I never felt as though I was hot or anything like that. Ever. And they were like, "Oh, it will just be a real quick shot." It's not like you see the whole shebang or anything like that, but still. In retrospect, my mother should have signed something. But back then it was very different. Things were just more relaxed.
So when I did that underwear scene, I turned it into a joke—I started shaking my butt to annoy Steve Miner
and the crew. If it were me today, I would take my underwear or whatever I was wearing in the scene, and just pull it into the crack of my butt and shake it. It's funny, I think the movie helped me get over my body phobias.
STEVE DASKAWICZ:
There was a guy on the show who was gay, Tom McBride. Cliff put pictures of him up all over my cabin. I would move a pillow and there's this guy's picture. I would go to the bathroom and lift the toilet seat up and there's this guy's picture. He had this guy's picture in the refrigerator. That was funny as hell. But Tom was a very nice guy. And even back then, nobody was making a big deal out of it. Everyone was saying he was gay—but only under their breath.
BILL RANDOLPH:
Tom had a great physique. He was probably the best-looking guy there. And everybody knew he was gay, but nobody really talked about it on the set. It wasn't a problem because Tom never made it an issue.
I ran into Tom a few times in New York City after Part 2, and I know that before his death he was very angry, just at dying at such a young age. It always seemed like he had something he was working on—at one point, he was considering himself a photographer. It seemed like he really had expected a lot more, that it all would have led to greater success.
STU CHARNO:
I remember Tom as a quiet, gentle, sensitive guy. And I thought that it was great for him—this muscular, athletic guy—to play someone in a wheelchair. I always liked what he did with that role. He played it with a confident, sincere acceptance of his condition.
LAUREN-MARIE TAYLOR:
I used to squeeze Tom's muscles all the time, and mess with his hair, because it was so amazing to me that a guy looked like that. He was like Superman to me. Tom wasn't in your face about his sexuality. He wasn't like, "Deal with me." He was very natural. It is a testimony to Tom's genuineness, and his ability to share that trueness with everybody, and also his ability as an actor, that there was such a mutual respect amongst all of us, for each other.
After the film, I used to see Tom at commercial calls and I actually went on a couple of auditions with him where we were supposed play husband and wife. It was hysterical because, after all those years, we still had an instant rapport. Looking back at it, I sometimes think that maybe Tom felt sorry for me because I was such a dork. Vickie was the girl next door. The innocent. She wasn't, you know, the floozy—she wasn't like that. She didn't feel bad for this guy in a wheelchair, or pity him. She just thought, "You know, I like this guy." Really, genuinely liked him. That was the approach that I took to the character. I didn't want the audience to think she just viewed him as a challenge. There was such a purity about our relationship, even in this little horror movie—we put a lot of ourselves into our characters. He always wanted to be true to being an actor. It wasn't like, "Oh, here's Tom sitting in a wheelchair, playing make-believe." It was almost intimidating to somebody like me, being only 17 years old. I learned so much from Tom. I will always miss him.
BILL RANDOLPH:
A lot of the character stuff I wanted, Steve Miner wouldn't let me keep in the film. But he was fun to work with as far as being able to bounce ideas off him. Though, in terms of my performance, I wish I would have fought more for some of the colors I wanted. What I really appreciate now was that I had so much fun doing it, and I was unpretentious about it. I was relaxed, and I think that showed on screen. All of us were, because as your career goes on, the more seriously you take the whole thing.
"It was actually very funny doing that bar scene," remembers John Furey. "We were teasing Amy so much. She kept saying that there was a "man boy beast" or something out there. Every time she said it, we could barely keep a straight face. Steve Miner actually started to get pissed because we were fucking up takes."
JOHN FUREY:
In the script, all it says about Paul Holt is that he's "President of the Counselor Training Center" or something. Steve Miner and I talked a lot about the fact that I was maybe a couple years older than the other counselors, so I was supposed to be the authority figure. Amy was, too, but she was a little younger than me. We worked really on hard on making sure that came across—what I learned on Part 2 was that it was important to work hard in spite of the fact that what you're working on may be goofy and fun. It's important to be serious, and that there's a technique to it—acting isn't just fooling around.
I did always look for the jokes, though. I think that makes characters more interesting, and that's one thing about Part 2—I think there was more of a sense of humor with ours. Like that scene Amy and I have with the cop. I like that scene—I wanted to be a real asshole to him, be really self-deprecating and mock the whole thing. I even improv'd the line, "No seconds on dessert." It was written as something else but I wanted to make it sillier. Steve Miner was great that way—as long as he liked it, he didn't care if you changed it.
JACK MARKS:
Steve Miner was nice, but the truth is, they weren't interested in your acting ability. It was one take, and you'd move on—not much else mattered, unless you used profanity. Performances were lost. You had to do your own thing. And I was playing a cop, yet again. So I always felt pressure just to get it done as quickly as possible for as little money as possible, so they could make as much money as possible. I guess that never changed, though, with the rest of the movies in the series.
AMY STEEL:
What I learned the most from Part 2 is that a human being is not a nocturnal animal. Human beings are supposed to work during the day and sleep at night. To reverse that left me wasted afterward. We would work all night and then we would be fighting the sun. Dinner break would be at like 2:00 a.m. It was eggs, bacon, biscuits, and Jack Daniels.
BILL RANDOLPH:
Being the wild, ridiculous kids that we were at the time, it was like, "Who can come up with the craziest drink for breakfast?" It became a competition between the crew and the cast to see who could come up with the drink that would knock your socks off.
CLIFF CUDNEY:
It would be morning, and you're supposed to go to sleep and get a good period of rest, just so you can get up later that night and go to work again. But you're fired up—the dawn is breaking, you're getting your second wind and you've just had a meal, which is supper, but it's breakfast, actually, and now you're supposed to lay there and go to sleep? So everyone would have a couple drinks and mellow out and crash. I don't think we used drugs to keep going, it was more to come down.
LAUREN-MARIE TAYLOR:
Pot smoking was what it was back then; everybody did it. But it ended up being the biggest issue I had during the movie, when my character was supposed to smoke a joint. I asked Steve Miner, "Does Vickie have to do this? Does she have to be high? 12 years of Catholic school—I don't do that!" Now normally, Steve was really relaxed. He was always a calming presence in the midst of this insane movie. But when I tried to make believe I was smoking, that was the only time Steve got irritated with me, because he was like, "Haven't you ever smoked before!?" I was like, "No!" And I can't tell you how many takes it took him just to teach me how to hold the thing.
JOHN FUREY:
In Kent, there wasn't much to do. So sometimes we'd go to a hick bar, like the one we shot at. It was actually very funny doing that bar scene. I don't know where those people came from—they obviously had never been anywhere near a movie. We laughed so hard at the girl who played the cocktail waitress, because she was so bad. And in a way, it really helped the scene, because we thought she was hilarious. And we were teasing Amy so much. That's why we were laughing all the time. I think we got a little drunk, too. And she kept saying that there was a "man boy beast" or something out there, and we just thought that was hysterical. Every time she said it, we could barely keep a straight face. Steve Miner actually started to get pissed because we were fucking up takes.
JACK MARKS:
I'm supposed to play a cop in this small town, but I was like the worst cop ever! Because of the extraordinary expense that the production spared, they had a gun they gave me to
use for a while, but the gun guy on the set took it back. So if you notice, I go into Jason's house where all these body parts are, and in that moment when I'm startled by the toilet—they rigged the toilet to collapse—I would have intuitively, as a cop in real life, gone for my gun. But now there was no gun, so Steve told me not to reach for it. So I'm supposed to be a cop, but with no gun!
I also had never driven a car in my life when I did the movie. And never have, except for that film—and I'm 68 years old! So there is this other quick scene, where Jason runs across my path while I'm driving, and I have to chase him and run into the woods. Well, they put me in the car on a hill, and I'm supposed to take the brake off, but then I jammed the brake on. If you look closely, I almost go through the roof of the car because I stopped so fast. I was so nervous. They gave me some driving lessons after that, and from there on out, no one trusted me to do anything else. I was more feared on the set than Jason.
The death of Mark (Tom McBride, left) is "probably the best in Part 2, and my favorite," says director Steve Miner. "Part of the thrill of the Friday films is that the audience knows that the guy or gal is going to get it, but the tension builds up as they're trying to guess when and from where it's going to come. So the build to the machete killing is nice because it really throws the audience off. I still think it's really cleverly conceived and executed."
LAUREN-MARIE TAYLOR:
There was a lot of behind-the-scenes scaring. I fainted at one point. Stu, Russell, Tom and a couple of the other guys came to the window of my cabin and started scratching at the screens with one of those old man masks. I turned around, saw that, screamed bloody murder, and just fell flat on my face on the floor. I thought I was going to get killed.
Crystal Lake Memories: The Complete History of Friday the 13th (Enhanced Edition) Page 17
