All This in 60 Minutes

by Lee, Nicholas

  As the sun was going down at 5.45 p.m. Dylan strolled out the back door, pointed to the chairs I’d set up and said, ‘I’m not sitting there, I’ll sit here,’ pointing to the corner of a table in half sun and half shade. I got the feeling it was non-negotiable. I looked through my pitch-black filter and couldn’t see him at all. With the sun sinking as rapidly as my heart, we started.

  Dylan wearing aviator-type sunnies and brown leather jacket started rocking from side to side like an autistic child.

  George’s first question, ‘What do the sixties mean to you Bob?’ was met with, ‘For me the sixties existed, but it’s just a number really,’ and the interview went downhill from there. I wasn’t the only one with a sinking heart. But George soldiered on.

  ‘The song and the phrase that people have attached to you most regularly probably is “The times they are a changing”. Do you think that they have?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’ve got no idea.’

  ‘Did you think it would at the time?’

  ‘I had no idea of knowing.’

  ‘If we talk about the sixties as a protest decade, and you said the seventies was a period of healing, how would you describe the eighties?’

  ‘I have no idea.’

  ‘I get the feeling that you see yourself quite differently from the way other people do, that other people have given Bob Dylan an importance that you don’t necessarily like?’

  ‘‘Well, I spend more time with myself than other people do, so what I do doesn’t really thrill me that much.’

  The sun had set and Bob was in complete shade. With my pitch-black filter the only way I could tell whether he was in my shot or not was his relentless swaying. He might be a great poet, but his first language is silence. George kept trying. We were here for an interview and we were bloody well going to get one.

  ‘Why is there confusion about whether or not you’re a born-again Christian, a practising Jew or what the hell you are religiously?’

  Pause ... ‘Well, people are confused about everything these days, they’re confused about what type of car to drive.’

  ‘Do you think that you articulate your feelings and views about things much more musically than you would any other way?’

  ‘Not only much better but the only way.’

  And on. And on. If only we’d got him to sing. But I’m still a fan. Dylan’s not a singer, or a rock star. He’s a great musician and poet.

  •

  As opposed to Rod Stewart, who was once a rock star and is now a sell-out. Rod was pushing his Great American Songbook CD and I found myself alone with him in the studio while he was recording. Everyone else was in the control room. Before Rod put on his headphones I tried talking to him. I think he thought I was one of the microphones. It’s a wonder he didn’t start tapping me on the head, saying ‘Testing, one, two’. He wasn’t going to listen or talk. He couldn’t give a fuck. For the sake of PR I asked him to let me know if he thought I was getting too close with the camera. I knew he wouldn’t hesitate to yell if I was, but he just stared straight through me.

  ‘Recording,’ said a voice from the control room. Rod put on the headphones, closed his eyes and started to sing. It was woeful. To be fair, maybe he was having an off day. I could hear no music, only his voice annihilating some of the greatest classic songs ever written. How good are those music producers.

  I don’t expect to become everyone’s best friend, but I’d like it to be acknowledged that the cameraman is a fellow human being. Just a handshake would be nice. I found the greater the talent, the nicer they are, and smarter. After all, it doesn’t seem too bright to get the cameraman off side, he who is in charge of the whole look of the story. In fact, I always tried that little bit harder if I liked our subject. I know we all have off days, and maybe so do Sting (easygoing), Mark Knopfler (charming), David Attenborough (wonderful), Heath Ledger (great bloke), Willie Nelson (spaced out of his head), Isabella Rossellini (beautiful), Michelle Pfeiffer (even more beautiful), Steve Martin (super bright, unbelievably shy), Glenda Jackson (charming, nonstop swearing justified by, ‘I have never been a prisoner of Anglo Saxon epithets’), AC/DC (all good blokes), Hugh Jackman (dinki di), Marcel Marceau (verbose), but none of these had an off day when I met them.

  Then there are the real heavies. The ones who’ve absolutely nothing to prove. They are so comfortable in their own skins they couldn’t care what’s said about them.

  Keith Richards is one of them. I was a fan, but nowhere near as big a fan as Micky who idolised Keith and knew everything about him. For years we had dreamt of meeting ‘Keeff ’. Micky would have given anything to meet his man.

  After shooting a few stories in Australia, I was told I had a trip coming up, but I’d have to do it with a freelance soundman because Micky had asked if he could stay home for the birth of his first child.

  The day before I left, I rang Micky to wish him luck with the birth. ‘I’m off on a trip to do, blah blah blah and Keith Richards.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Micky. ‘Have a good trip. See you when you get back.’ No mention of Keeff. It’s amazing how a pregnancy can rearrange your priorities.

  Richards was great. Dressed in black T-shirt, black jeans, black sports coat, an earring in his left ear and a skull ring on his left ring finger, he smoked and drank through the entire interview.

  On drugs: ‘It was an experiment that went on too long. It changes your sense of time. That was ten years? I thought it was a week.’

  On rumours of changing his blood: ‘Do you think I’d do that? I’m keeping this blood, my dad and mum gave this to me, we don’t give it away lightly.’

  On fame: ‘We were having fun playing music, people were coming to see you, you were getting paid, chicks are going I love you. The events take over. You become more than just a band, you become symbols of things. Still am. You get used to it and you work your life around it. I wouldn’t know what to do not being famous, ’cause I’ve got the hang of it now.’

  When asked if there were times he looked in the mirror and didn’t like the person looking back, ‘Yeah ... but we soon bashed him into shape.’

  And at the end of the interview Richards hung around and chatted, telling us as that much as he loved fatherhood, he was hard-wired for the muso’s life. ‘So I sleep all day, read the kids a story before bed, then I’m out all night. Nights for me have never been for sleeping.’ That was one cool dude.

  When I got home I rang Micky to congratulate him on becoming a father and to tell him how cool Keith Richards was.

  ‘Keith! Keith Richards? You did Keith Richards!?’

  ‘Yeah, I told you before I left.’

  ‘You bastard! I thought you said Cliff Richards.’

  It’s probably not a good thing to have a deaf soundman, but I’m sure his wife Virginia and first-born son Dominic will be forever grateful.

  •

  Then there was the ambassador to Czechoslovakia. Cool, elegant, funny and charming. And why is she amongst this lot? She was the hottest, most highly paid star in Hollywood for four years, earning an obscene amount of money (making Tom Cruise’s salary look like he was on the dole). She was six years old and was The Littlest Rebel. Then she made Bright Eyes with her name above the title, a true sign that you have ‘arrived’ in Hollywood.

  Shirley Temple’s most famous years (making megabucks for the studio) were from age three to seven and her popularity had practically deserted her by the time she was nine. The world and her studio wanted her to be perpetually four. The studio pushed their luck and their star by casting her in Wee Willie Winkie (her favourite), directed by the great John Ford. In the movie she still looked and sounded six, but was actually nine. The renowned British writer Graham Greene, a film critic in 1938, wrote, ‘She was too nubile for a nine year old, her admirers, middle-aged men and clergymen respond to her dubious coquetry, to the sight of her well-shaped and desirable little body, packed with enormous vitality, only because the safety curtain of story and dialogue drop
s between their intelligence and their desire.’

  That probably says a lot more about Greene than middle-aged men and clergymen. These days the cops would be watching him. Shirley and the studio sued for libel and won.

  Most child stars end up with major psychological problems when they become adults. Shirley, now Shirley Temple Black, ended up being US ambassador to Ghana, then Czechoslovakia, where we met her in the biggest office I’d ever seen. As we walked over acres of thick whiter-than-white carpet, she came round from behind her huge desk to meet us halfway with a good solid ambassadorial handshake. She was beautiful, with a huge welcoming smile and those shining eyes that were obviously a big part of why she was cast in Bright Eyes. In no time she was cracking jokes, and we knew we were onto a winner. ‘How do you like my carpet?’ she said. ‘It only went in last week.’ Before we could answer, she said, ‘So you damn well better not damage it. If you do I’ll send you the bill.’

  I guess she knew film crews better than most. But we were professionals, so we all laughed and agreed to the terms.

  She continued to charm Richard the reporter and Stewart the producer while Micky and I set up the lights. I was already captivated by her warmth and had decided to do a really nice lighting job on her. I didn’t want her anywhere near her desk, I was going to make use of the acres of carpet and the quality furniture and lamps scattered all over the place. To create the best background I could, I asked if it’d be all right if we moved some of the furniture just a few inches, taking good care of the carpet, of course. She agreed. Micky and I were so gentle with the furniture-moving and the lighting set-up she would have thought we were midwives in a past life.

  Satisfied with my set-up I turned on the first light. Bang! It exploded, and molten glass spewed out all over her new carpet. I stood there transfixed, but superhero Stewart jumped in to save the day. He ran to pick up the largest hunk of glass that was fast burning a huge hole in the pristine pile. As he picked up the offending incendiary he yelled, ‘Fuck!’ and hurled the glass from his scarred hand, creating yet another burning hole in the carpet. We stared at each other, frozen in total disbelief. The carpet was a wreck, acrid smoke curling up from the blackened holes, and the smell wasn’t too crash hot either. None of us was game to look at Ambassador Shirley Temple Black.

  With a terrifying cold fury she got stuck right into us, demanding money. We were in big trouble.

  Then, ‘Gotcha!’ She threw her head back and burst out laughing she was well aware that these things happened.

  That night we went to an ambassadorial dinner full of heavies from the US, all ingratiating themselves with the new ambassador in an attempt to get introductions to locals and lucrative contracts with the new improved Czechoslovakia. The ambassador knew exactly where I was the whole night, positioning herself perfectly in frame, playing up to the camera with winks and having little asides with Richard Carleton. What a pro. Everyone in the room was captivated by her and that huge smile. Including us. We left Prague as total fans of Ambassador Bright Eyes.

  •

  There came the day when I got to meet one of my own ‘living legends’—Clint Eastwood. From 1959 to 1965 as a teenager, I couldn’t get enough of the macho actor as Rowdy Yates in the TV show Rawhide. He was cool. In Sergio Leone’s Spaghetti Western trilogy as ‘The Man With No Name’, he became even cooler. Then when I met him, he was the coolest. We had been offered more than just an interview. We got to spend a day with him on the set of In the Line of Fire.

  I’d been on a lot of film sets round the world and there hadn’t been too many great memories. It’s not that we are seen as the poor cousins of the movie world, it’s more like we were not remotely related. The worst are the Aussie film sets. I’d turn up with a camera on my shoulder loaded with film just like they had. But I guess the fact that I was shooting 16-mm as opposed to their 35-mm was what made them so superior and condescending. And until widescreen digital video emerged, to appear on set with a tape camera was to be treated with utmost derision. Not from the top-end creative brains, they wouldn’t even acknowledge your existence, but from the gaffers, grips and makeup crew. All of them obviously having directed and shot their own highly successful feature films.

  So it was with trepidation I stepped forward to introduce myself to Wolfgang Petersen, the director of In the Line of Fire. This boy was big time and I was a huge fan. His movie Das Boot, showing the boredom and terror of being in a WWII German U-boat, was a masterpiece. But to my surprise and delight, Wolfgang had a huge smile and couldn’t have been friendlier. First thing he did was apologise, saying that today’s shoot might be a little boring for us because there wasn’t a lot of action.

  He then took Micky and me over to meet Clint who was practising his lines inside a car parked at the arrivals entrance to Los Angeles airport. Clint jumped out of the car to greet us, smiling, shaking our hands. He said he was just rehearsing a scene they were about to shoot and he’d chat to us when it was over. I then introduced myself to John Bailey, the director of photography. He’d shot two films I really liked, The Big Chill and Silverado. He was also friendly and chatty.

  While they prepared to shoot the scene, Micky and I walked away to film it on a long lens, making sure we kept out of everybody’s way. Then Wolfgang yelled, ‘You guys come in as close as you like.’

  I looked at John Bailey, who nodded. Then Clint cried out, ‘Come right up here, guys. You’ll get a great shot.’

  That’s Confidence. That’s Professional. That’s PR. That’s a Star.

  We hung around for most of the day, with Jennifer Byrne chatting to Clint in between takes, and after a few chats they were nudging each other’s shoulder and laughing like old friends. He was so easy-going and relaxed (which fits my ‘nothing to prove’ theory). As we prepared to leave, he called me over. ‘Hey, what time’s the interview? And where?’

  ‘Beverly Hills Hotel, six o’clock.’

  ‘Okay, see you then.’

  We raced back to the hotel and the private bungalow we’d organised for the interview. After setting up the lights, Micky and I wandered outside to check out the sunset and a small four-wheel drive pulled up, and out got Clint Eastwood.

  Alone! No manager. No PR. No makeup artist, no hair designer, no hangers-on at all. Just Clint. It was so refreshing.

  As he stepped out of his car he said, ‘This must be where the Aussies are.’

  He was cool, smooth and relaxed and his sense of humour wasn’t the only thing that was dry. We offered him a beer and he had two before the interview, chatting with all of us as if we were old friends. He told us how much he loved Queensland and that he couldn’t wait to get back to Australia.

  For the interview we had an American second cameraman who hadn’t bothered to change out of his sweaty tennis gear. He acted cocky and confident. I just hoped his footage would reflect that confidence.

  With everyone relaxed, we rolled cameras. The room suddenly echoed with a noise like a B-52. Micky said to the second cameraman, ‘Mate, your camera sounds like a bloody chaff cutter.’ He casually replied that it might be a bit noisy and suggested he could move back a few feet. Micky was furious and told him he couldn’t record sound with that noise. We ended up gaffer-taping two pillows to the Yank’s camera to try to baffle the sound. It helped a bit, but it still wasn’t perfect. The tennis gear, pillows, gaffer tape and delay made us look like a bunch of amateurs in front of Clint, who sat calmly making small talk with Jennifer while we fumbled around trying to get organised. The tennis player’s footage turned out to be scratched and overexposed, and once again his rate for a three-hour shoot was more than my weekly income.

  When we did finally start the interview, I noticed Clint was a bit shiny so asked him whether he had any makeup. Stupid question. ‘Nope,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry about it.’ But I did. So I asked Jennifer if she was carrying any makeup. She was. So as he drank his beer and chatted, I dusted Dirty Harry’s forehead with Jennifer Byrne’s girly powder puff. Then
we rolled for the interview.

  Jennifer asked Clint if he had any similarities with Harry Callahan of the Dirty Harry movies. ‘No, I don’t think so, maybe the only similarity is any frustration with some sort of bureaucratic quagmire that mankind put themselves in. That may be a similarity, other than that I don’t have the inclination to take a forty-four Magnum out and blow everybody away. Oh, maybe I do occasionally ... in traffic.’ He then chuckled at his answer.

  The interview was great. Unlike most stars, he genuinely did not want to talk about himself, but was happy to talk about movies, acting and directing. The Dirty Harry movies paid the bills while Clint experimented with directing, from thrillers to musicals, the kind of movies that might not be hugely popular but were interesting to make. Then there was Every Which Way But Loose, the film that really paid the bills. It was his biggest-ever commercial success. Clint played a trucker roaming the American West in search of a lost love. His co-star was an orangutan named Clyde.

  ‘The script was so bizarre I thought there was something out there about it,’ he said. ‘Everybody kept saying, “Don’t do this film, you’re crazy, it’s not you.”’

  Clint reckoned that Manis the orangutan who played Clyde, ‘Was one of the most natural actors I have ever worked with, but you had to get him on the first take because his boredom level was very limited.’

  And first takes is what makes Clint Eastwood such a sought-after director. He is famous for always working with a minimum of fuss and coming in under budget.

  At the time he had never won or even been nominated for an Academy Award. When Jennifer asked if he’d like an Academy Award, he said laconically, ‘Don’t know. I guess I’d like one.’

  A few months later his classic film Unforgiven came out. He starred, directed, produced, and wrote the theme music, and it was nominated for nine Oscars. It won four, including Best Picture and Best Director. Rowdy Yates had come a long way.