Stardust Memories
Page 27
The filming went very well, but Apted was disturbed to hear that Bianca had telephoned Jan Smithers in the middle of the night. For those of us privileged to know Mrs Jagger well, this was not an uncommon occurrence, but since Smithers had to be up at five it was certainly inconsiderate. Jan and Bianca had another long telephone talk that Sunday lunchtime, and when Michael Apted went down to see if Jan was okay at around tea time he was met with floods of tears, accusations that he was making a pornographic film and that everybody was trying to turn her (Jan) against Bianca.
Apted now decided that there was no way he could carry on knowing that he didn’t have the confidence of either of his leading ladies. Jan Smithers was clearly more influenced by Bianca than by anybody else: she was an emotional girl, it was true, but she was now saying that she had no intention of doing the nude scenes which were scheduled for London. For weeks she’d been complaining that she couldn’t get close to Bianca, now they appeared to have formed an alliance.
Dinner that night was a sober affair: shooting for the next day had been cancelled, and even Nigel Davenport’s valiant attempts to keep us amused weren’t working. Sandy Lieberson, who had quite as much to cry about as the rest of us, came up with the most apt and philosophical comments: ‘For Christ’s sake, you guys, all we’re trying to do is to make a movie… it isn’t the end of the world … nobody’s dying… all it is is a movie… moving pictures… just like Donald Duck.’ He paused for a moment: ‘In fact we’ve even got Donald Duck.’
The next day, while I worked with Nigel Davenport polishing a scene to be shot later in the week, Apted and Lieberson went into secret session with the two leading ladies. By now the argument about nudity had turned into a full-scale attack on the script led by Jan Smithers (which was strange because when she’d been cast she’d had hardly any criticisms at all). Bianca, because she liked me, defended me. In the meantime, Gavrik Losey calculated that to stop the film now would have cost a quarter of a million pounds at the very least. Apted was still refusing to shoot, and was being supported by Lieberson and Puttnam, who had flown from London to join the sinking ship. The crew were bemused by the behaviour of the two girls: ‘I really don’t know what that Bewanker is all about, Ray, I really don’t,’ said one of the stand-bys. But now even a nickname was no laughing matter.
Eventually, back at our hotel, Michael Apted said to me: ‘I don’t think that you and I can carry on and make this film together, Raymond. Not now. One of us has to go.’
I went home that afternoon with Philip Collins. It was, he said, the worst few days of his entire life. ‘Thank God you’re out of it,’ said my wife when I arrived home. It was finally my turn to cry.
Shooting was then abandoned in Rome and the crew returned to London to work in the studios. It was considered impossible to replace Bianca. The plan was now for the crew to work until Christmas and then to break for three weeks, during which time it was hoped that my replacement, Kathleen Tynan, would be able to produce a new screenplay to meet with everyone’s satisfaction. She didn’t, either. Work went in fits and starts for one week, during which the leading ladies took to censoring the lines in the script of which they didn’t approve, and then at the beginning of the next week Jan Smithers caught flu.
It had now been agreed by the director, the producers and the financiers that some indication of intent on behalf of the leading ladies towards the question of nudity should be ascertained before Christmas. Because of Jan Smithers’ illness it was impossible to do this until the Friday (the last possible day). Both girls reported to the studio at ten o’clock in the morning, but it wasn’t until four in the afternoon, after six hours of arguing, cajoling, crying, fighting and threatening that filming could begin. Even then Michael Apted found that his every request was being questioned. At ten o’clock the scene was completed and the unit broke for Christmas. At last, one of the girls had actually revealed a little bit of nudity: Jan Smithers had bared her breasts. Bianca, for her part, was unmovable. Throughout the whole scene she stayed securely under her sheet.
Over Christmas, Kathleen Tynan and Michael Apted worked on a new draft of the screenplay (the seventh) but it was all to no avail. The Friday before shooting was due to begin, David Puttnam got a message from Los Angeles to say that Jan Smithers would not be coming back. Immediately he left for America with Kathleen Tynan to find out what was going on. Bianca, meanwhile, resorted to her lawyers. When it was sorted out it seemed that both girls, through their lawyers, were saying that they wanted to considerably alter the terms of their contracts to include, in both cases, more money and what amounted to an approval of the final cut of the picture. No director can work in that situation. The picture was cancelled.
The last time I spoke to Bianca was at five minutes to one on the morning of January 14, a day or two before the end. I was lying in bed, asleep, when the bedside phone rang.
‘Don’t answer it,’ said my wife. ‘It’s that woman again.’
I did. And she was right.
Trick Or Treat? was an education for everybody involved. At £400,000 you could say that we all had a very expensive education.
Footnote: Shortly after the film had been abandoned a miracle occurred. My hair stopped falling out.
POSTSCRIPT This is probably the most widely remembered article I ever wrote. In retrospect, although the experience seemed like a never-ending nightmare, most of the principals now appear to have survived — and even prospered. As Sandy Lieberson said it was ‘only a movie… moving pictures … just like Donald Duck’. Sandy later went on to become President of Twentieth Century Fox and is now head of the Ladd Company in Britain. David Puttnam, after a period in Hollywood, returned to Britain where he won prizes and honours and provided all his old friends with gainful employment — including Michael Apted and Ray Connolly, despite all the things I had said about him. As for the ladies, well… Bianca Jagger has carried on much as she had always done, although she and Mick are now divorced, while Jan Smithers is presumably back in California with her jars of vitamin pills and homeopathic cures. And I still think Trick or Treat? is a good idea for a movie …
This electronic edition published in 2011 by Bloomsbury Reader
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Copyright © 1983 Ray Connolly
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