Stirling Silliphant: The Fingers of God

by Nat Segaloff

  178. Corcoran correspondence with Author.

  179. Coburn’s production company.

  180. Bruce Lee, The Silent Flute, October 19, 1970.

  181. Walter had previously worked with such directors as Robert Wise, Billy Wilder, and Jack Cardiff.

  182. “Bruce Lee Treatment Fighting Its Way to Theatres,” The Wrap, April 15, 2010

  183. February 4, 2013 conversation.

  184. Interview with Author, March 28, 1993. Tiana’s birth date on her marriage license is August 11, 1951.

  185. She has also called herself Tiana Dulong, Tiana Alexandra, Tiana Silliphant, Tiana Alexandra-Silliphant, Tiana Mayo, and Catherine Mayo.

  186. Madame Nhu (Tran Le Xuan) was married to Ngo Dinh Nhu, brother of the unmarried President Ngo Dihn Diem. Although not the official First Lady of South Vietnam, this did not stop her from keeping a high and demanding public profile. The Diems were first installed by, then assassinated by, the CIA.

  187. From Hollywood to Hanoi, op cit.

  188. Interview with Author, March 28, 1993.

  189. Interview with Author, March 28, 1993.

  190. Interview with Author, March 28, 1993.

  191. Interviewed on “Let’s Talk Movies,” Channel 9, Manila, January 1983.

  192. Interview with Author, March 28, 1993.

  193. Tiana e-mail to Author, May 30, 2013.

  194. Interviewed on “The Reed Farrell Show,” courtesy Silliphant estate.

  195. Hank Grant, Hollywood Reporter, February 2, 1974.

  196. Billing not contractual.

  197. Tiana e-mails to author, February 8, 2013 and May 21, 2013.

  198. Tiana e-mail to author, May 18, 2013.

  199. Kopaloff interview, May 10, 2013.

  200. The pilot and first three episodes of Kung Fu aired between February of 1973 and January of 1973 before becoming a weekly series.

  201. E-mail correspondence with Tiana, February 8, 2013.

  202. One of only five made in 1976, which is when he ordered it, it took ‘til 1981 to arrive. Silliphant letter to West Coast Bank, January 15, 1984. (UCLA)

  203. Tiana, ibid.

  204. Silliphant letter to Author, October 23, 1992.

  205. The genre was resuscitated in the 1990s once computer generated effects were perfected.

  206. The Swarm was about African killer bees hitting the U.S., and When Time Ran Out (produced under the modest title The Day the World Ended) was about a volcano blowing up on a resort island.

  207. Interviewed in Fire in the Sky, Hell Under Water. Produced by Andrew Abbott and Russell Leven. London, England: Nobles Gate for Channel 4, 2003.

  208. Hollywood Reporter, March 26, 1969, and Daily Variety, June 23, 1969.

  209. Army Archerd, Daily Variety, June 1, 1972.

  210. Weekly Variety, August 8, 1971.

  211. Hollywood Reporter, November 18, 1971.

  212. Mayes interviewed by Rui Nogueira, Backstory 3, Patrick McGilligan, ed. (Berkeley, California: The University of California Press, 1997).

  213. Over the years the Writers Guild of America has codified its credit system. Writers are listed in order of work on the project and are separated by the word and, while writing teams are joined by an ampersand (&). Arbitration over percentage of authorship, however, remains muddy, if not downright loopy.

  214. Author’s conversation with Tiana on March 24, 2013 and e-mail of May 21, 2013.

  215. Undated clippings in Silliphant papers, UCLA.

  216. Army Archerd, Daily Variety, July 8, 1973.

  217. As this is being written, those numbers have become minimally $200 million for a major film and $30 million for advertising.

  218. By way of disclosure, if not credibility, the author was one of the regional publicists for The Towering Inferno and gleaned certain knowledge in the course of his duties. The budget estimate is Allen’s.

  219. Privately, Silliphant told the author that he only read one of the novels and couldn’t remember which one.

  220. This may be Silliphant’s “Rosebud.” Was it Ednamarie? Skouras? Irwin?

  221. While Silliphant was writing The Towering Inferno on the Fox lot in Century City, producer Ilya Salkind, who was there finishing The Four Musketeers, was trying to persuade him to write Superman: The Movie that he was about to produce.

  222. Author’s conversation with Scott Newman (October 1974), Paul’s son, who appeared in the film as a young firefighter and was befriended by McQueen.

  223. Another twist is that McQueen spoke with a bilateral lisp (“th”) and those who wrote for him quickly learned to avoid “S” words in his dialogue.

  224. ADI (Area of Dominant Influence): the physical territory reached by a broadcaster’s signal.

  225. Forbes interview with Author, May 24, 2013.

  226. Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre.

  227. Fire in the Sky, Hell Under Water, op cit.

  228. Kopaloff interview, May 10, 2013.

  229. Notable exceptions include Ethel Waters, Lena Horne, Hattie McDaniel, and Paul Robeson. One still remembers McDaniel’s scripted Oscar acceptance speech for Gone with the Wind in which she said she hoped she would always be a credit to her race.

  230. $7.1 million rentals on a $1.140 million negative cost.

  231. Joel Freeman interview, February 17, 2013.

  232. It didn’t hurt that the Motion Picture Association of America rated the film “R,” allowing the studio to use the tag line, “If you wanna to see Shaft, ask yo Mamma.” Shortly afterwards, the MPAA cracked down on producers who exploited ratings.

  233. Carol Munday and Robert N. Zagone, Fade Out; Nguzo Saba Films, WNETTV, New York, 1984.

  234. Tidyman would win the Academy Award in 1972 for the screenplay adaptation of Robin Moore’s book, The French Connection.

  235. Shaft financial records, Silliphant family collection.

  236. New York Times, May 30, 1971.

  237. Hollywood Reporter, December 3, 1971.

  238. Munday and Zagone, op cit.

  239. Tiana interview with Author, March 9, 2013.

  240. Tidyman Synopsis and letter exchange between Arnold D. Burk, esq. and David M. Sklar, esq., August 3, 1972. Silliphant papers, UCLA.

  241. A recent example is The Africa Channel that imports English-language specials, soap operas, documentaries, and other programming produced in various African countries and runs them on cable.

  242. In a 1980 conversation with the author, Wambaugh called the LAPD “assholes” and blamed the television series Dragnet for imbuing them with a sense of self-righteousness to the point of arrogance.

  243. But not enough, as the 1991 beating of Rodney King, and the riots following the 1993 exoneration of his assaulting officers, confirmed. They spent the first decade of the Twenty-First Century under a court-ordered Consent Decree litigated by the ACLU of Southern California

  244. Froug, op cit.

  245. Michael Schiffer’s screenplay for Dennis Hopper’s 1988 film, Colors, was set in this milieu and brought the LA gang problem vividly to national attention.

  246. Joyce Haber, Los Angeles Times, December 5, 1971. Towne, Oscar-winner for Chinatown, is Hollywood’s most celebrated script doctor.

  247. Dirty Harry was written by Harry Julian Fink & R.M. Fink, Jo Heims, Dean Riesner, and John Milius; Magnum Force by Milius and Michael Cimino, all of whom, briefly or long-term, were Eastwood collaborators.

  248. Patrick McGilligan, Clint: The Life and Legend. London, England: HarperCollins, 1999.

  249. At the time of this interview (1992), Silliphant made no mention that he had intended Harry’s partner to be an Asian woman: Tiana. (See Chapter 10.)

  250. In The Hollywood Reporter (March 4, 1976) Silliphant explained that Riesner was brought onto the project by Eastwood and producer Robert Daley after he (Silliphant) had departed for other commitments, not out of anyone’s dissatisfaction with the script.

  251. Neither of Silliphant’s sons named Stirling is
a junior. The younger Stirling took the middle name Linh but it does not appear on his birth certificate.

  252. ibid.

  253. A “four-wall” deal occurs when a distributor rents the theatre from an exhibitor for a flat fee and keeps 100 percent of the gate. The risk thereby falls on the distributor, not the exhibitor.

  254. Los Angeles Times, August 12, 1970.

  255. Sources include David Sunfellow, New Heaven New Earth Pulse, Sedona, Arizona (http://nhne-pulse.org/the-dark-side-of-carlos-castaneda/) and an unsigned article “Patricia Partin, Blue Scout Chronology” citing various Court documents.

  256. Showtime mini-series, 1992.

  257. Silliphant quoted the budget as $4.6 million, “probably one of the costliest pilots ever made for TV.” (SS correspondence with Author, October 23, 1992).

  258. Gary Conway and David C. Engelbach.

  259. “Let’s Talk Movies,” Channel 9, Manila, January, 1983.

  260. “The Mike Douglas Show,” Group W Productions, March, 1975.

  261. Which Tom Hanks, Ron Howard, Brian Grazier and nine other producers did in 1998 with From the Earth to the Moon on HBO. Eleven writers were hired for the thirteen-episode series. Similarly, Canadian filmmaker Michael Len-nick created an exemplary thirteen-episode TV documentary called Rocket Science (2002) that covers the same territory with compelling — not to mention actual — realism.

  262. Conversation with Frank Konigsberg, March 5, 2013.

  263. Perhaps also because The Longest Day was in black & white so intercutting footage would have been awkward.

  264. Taped remarks, premiere of From Hollywood to Hanoi sponsored by American Standard.

  265. Letter, Silliphant to Kopaloff, June 4, 1981.

  266. Kopaloff interview, May 10, 2013.

  267. Stirling Linh interview with the author May 25, 2013.

  268. John Corcoran, “Up Close and Personal with Stirling Silliphant,” Kick magazine, August, 1980.

  269. Memo to self, January 25, 1984, Silliphant papers, UCLA.

  270. December 19, 1983, letter from Co-operate Bank PLC and Bachmann & Company, Ltd., in the Channel Islands, Silliphant papers, UCLA.

  271. The Sunday Show, July 4, 1983.

  272. Charles Champlin, “Silliphant: Critic at Large: Clearing the Decks for Fiction.” Los Angeles Times, July 20, 1985.

  273. Silliphant papers, UCLA.

  274. The Pennant magazine, September, 1973: “What is a Nice Movie Writer Like You Doing Out Here in the Middle of This Nasty Ocean, Anyway?” by Stirling Silliphant.

  275. Like countless other skippers, he lived the maxim, “Your two happiest days with a boat are the day you buy it and the day you sell it.”

  276. This note applies to Bronze Bell.

  277. MACV’s responsibilities varied over the years but included training South Vietnamese troops.

  278. October 13, 1992, letter to Author.

  279. “Let’s Talk Movies,” Channel 9, Manila, January, 1983.

  280. Quoted by Jerry Hopkins, Bangkok Babylon, Singapore: Periplus Editions (HK), Ltd, 2005.

  281. Daniel Cerone, “Expatriate Games,” Los Angeles Times, March 6, 1994.

  282. Letter, June 9, 1992, courtesy of Charles Matthau.

  283. Matthau interview May 11, 2013.

  284. Budget from IMDb.com; fee from e-mail, May 18, 2013, Tiana Silliphant.

  285. Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

  286. Silliphant letter to Author, March 13, 1994.

  287. Cerone, op cit.

  288. Stirling Linh interview with Author, May 25, 2013.

  289. In the ensuing years, Hampton and Tiana would become linked in entertainment news coverage; she would become associate producer of A Dangerous Method (2011), the film version of his 2003 play The Talking Cure), of which she was dedicatee. Their relationship is not the subject of this book.

  290. He might mean contracture, a chronic tightening of the muscles.

  291. Undated home video footage provided by the Silliphant estate.

  292. Stirling Linh interview with Author, May 25, 2013.

  293. Interviewed on “The Reed Farrell Show,“ courtesy Silliphant estate.

  294. Silliphant letter to Author, September 11, 1995.

  295. Silliphant letter to Tom Brown, September 16, 1995.

  296. Morrell conversation with the author, July 19, 2013.

  297. Stirling Linh interview with the author, May 25, 2013.

  298. Ibid.

  299. San Francisco Sunday Examiner, April 7, 1967.

  300. William Froug, op cit.

  301. Stirling Linh interview with Author May 25, 2013 referring to Robert Ludlum’s The Bourne Identity series.

  302. Fries e-mail to Author, April 4, 2013.

  303. Twenty years prior to this interview, however, Silliphant told Froug (op cit), “The only time I truly feel good is when I hit my last act…not the conceptualization period.”

  304. “Bill Collins Showbiz,” August 19, 1979. Seven Network, NSW (Australia).

  305. From “Kiss the Maiden, All Forlorn” (Route 66).

  306. Michael Ventura, “Letters at 3 AM: Stirling at Road’s End” from If I Was a Highway (Lubbock, Texas: Texas Tech University Press, 2011).

  307. Women’s Wear Daily, December 18, 1974.

  308. Daily Variety, April 2, 1985.

  309. Los Angeles Times, May 29, 1979.

  310. New York Times, January 2, 1966.

  311. Charles Fries e-mail to Author, April 4, 2013.

  312. Silliphant sued Levine for $150,000.

  313. The Great Escape II was made for TV in 1988 with neither Mirisch nor Silliphant involved.

  314. Hollywood Reporter, October 26, 1964.

  315. Hollywood Reporter, June 8, 1990.

  316. Author’s October 23, 1992, correspondence with SS.

  317. Silliphant papers, UCLA.

  318. Daily Variety, April 2, 1985.

  319. Hollywood Reporter, undated clipping in archive

  320. Daily Variety, April 12, 1989.

  321. Tiana, e-mail, May 6, 2013.