Four For Friday - I Knew Her When - A Himmmm Blind Item

The clues to identities (___)  are mine, but the rest is all Himmmm

Let's rewind the clock to the early aughts in this century when my own personal and professional lives intersected on a single project with friends.  A foreign-born director (who has done about three projects in the past decade after working on one blockbuster after another as a cinematographer) was fairly new to the job with only a couple of films he directed and he really wanted to make a good impression.  He'd been the Director of Photography for major action movies and dramas for many years, and worked with the biggest s**itheels and pricks in the biz.  He was probably the best cinematographer in the biz and he was a total pro, and a real gentleman, and loved by everyone including this demanding prima donna (Permanent A list singer/actress who is an Academy Award winner/nominee in more than one category) who said he was the only one who could light and shoot her correctly.  He didn't care, he just wanted to be a successful director.  Most of all? He wanted to be a nice guy – and he always was.

I had met the director on another project for the same studio in 1998 (A sequel to a huge hit which had been based on a television show) and more than working together, we enjoyed being friends.  As it happened, the director's manager was also my manager at the time (you will have better luck guessing him as the producer of a movie which stars an original friend of the site, a permanent A list singer who would kill to be a movie star and that foreign born actor everyone loves) and I got to know the director pretty well.  The director and I shared a love for the same old movies, cars, and yummy wine. Boxes, bags, or bottles didn't matter. We weren't snobs.  The manager was helping steer the director into his full time directing career and out of being a D.P.  So the manager was also Fourth-Executive-Uncredited-Associate Producer on their newest upcoming movie project (action movie with a pretty good cast and a multiple mug shot taker). In other words the manager was there doing nothing but hanging out with the director.  This movie was one of several directed under the Warner Bros. Studios deal of a major big Producer (permanent A+ list producer who has not had his name in the trades regarding any sexual harassment) who basically gave them the keys and let them run with the project (as long as it was profitable).  It would also turn out to be the first film where I'd make several important life-long relationships, including one lady who was cutting her teeth as a Third-Associate-Executive Producer on this project for the big producer (The wife of someone we all initialize and adore on the site). 

So aside from being a gentleman, the director had worked for some major sleazy directors and producers, and had seen abuses, casting couches, and heard about payouts and wrecked careers.  Including one very nasty actor who had payouts built into his salary deals (Former A list f**ker who molests tweens in a foreign country and colors his hair). This was anathema to the director because he wanted to avoid that at all costs. As a D.P. he'd worked with the most beautiful and sexy A-list actresses ever (Permanent A list mostly movie actress who will be out promoting a movie for the first time in forever. Mostly seems happy to stay home with her kids. Two franchises she did and her new movie is a reboot of one), including many nude/sex scenes (foreign born A list mostly movie actress who is not always nice and is an Academy Award winner/nominee).  They trusted him totally and he never made them look bad or abused that trust with them. 

Thus, when our manager told me that the director was nervous about some of the cattle call auditions for this new film, he suggested some outside expertise may help.  So I was called upon to heroically help out the manager and director (and 4 others) to do the audition process for the actress who would play the female lead.  The script called for a rump-shaking strip tease scene to seduce one of the male leads.  It was integral to the plot. Honest. (Come on, this was an action movie not Remains of the Day).  So off I went to do this chore for great art (uncredited for my dangerous hard work too I might add).  Or at least I was supposed to help select the booty that would look seductive on a 12 foot-tall screen. As a heterosexual male who had seen a real live woman naked, I was qualified as an expert on booty shaking.  I was also between marriages and bored at the time.

The audition was all proper, and agents were notified to advise clients of the scene, the content, and that the role would require panties/bikini (but NO HARD NUDITY! Which was actually a studio mandate).  So the casting directors spent a week wading through headshots and tapes, and narrowed down four ladies for callbacks.  Live auditions.  Held in the presence of females, males, cameras, and all very standard for the biz.  No hotel suite casting couch crap here.  Even with girls in bikinis the poor director was fidgety, even though he had been married to a gorgeous and talented actress (tough one to get. Umm, she was in my favorite Bryan Brown movie from back in the day) years before.  But he was a gentleman. 

Our actress (A- list mostly movie actress married to a former A lister) had done lots of tv roles, and even had stolen the movie from her first co-starring feature (movie with the maybe sometime heavy drinking actress who would love to do a superhero franchise again and promise to never trash getting paid to really do a whole lot of nothing) and was working her way up the ladder.  But she was not getting the roles she wanted and seemed destined to be the fourth lead forever with no magazine covers or paps to follow her.  She was a "featured" actress, not a star and people in flyover states would not know her name. Yet.  So when it came time for this particular actress to do her lines, do her moves, and do the striptease scene she came in looking like she just stepped out of a magazine.  Beautiful.  Good actress, and she had ambition dripping from every pore.  She was very…excited…about being there.  Or maybe just happy and aggressive. 

She began by saying to the entire room that this is the role she was born to play and nothing would stand in her way.  The director, manager, and I all kind of side-eyed each other but kept straight faces.  I think I audibly heard the director "gulp" and swallow hard.  Because this actress was one of the most beautiful women ever – white or black – and made Halle Berry look like Precious. Which is okay, if you're casting for Precious.  We weren't.  The script actually called for "a carmel-skinned goddess who is part cheerleader and part maneater; she should be equal parts secret agent and exotic dancer". That's literally what the writer wrote. Not exactly Sense and Sensibility here).

To repeat: there were more than five people in the room (two were women). A video rolled the whole time. Music rolled, and the actress really got into her strip scene.  Really into it.  And would not stop.  Did not stop at the part where she was supposed to strip to her undies/bikini and seduce the star. She went ALL THE WAY. Totally full frontal. Nude. In front of everyone, with a smile. IT WAS HER CHOICE! Everyone was floored.  The music stopped, and she was still grinding.  The poor director (who was ashen faced and stuttering like Steve Coogan by now) was saying: "Uhh…yes, well, very good. Great uh…muscle tone there. Thank you young lady".  You could hear a pin drop.  The actress, with her megawatt smile and a little "oops" then thanked everyone and said she got "carried away". Yeah, right.  Thankfully, that was the last audition because nothing could out-do that for sheer spectacle.

The director, manager, and little old me all went to Hamburger Hamlet on Sunset for supper (a very elite chichi gourmet eatery. Okay, not really but total kick-ass burgers). We decided the second actress was probably the better performer even if she didn't have the chemistry with our rap-star actor (previously mentioned for his collection of mug shots) we hoped for.  In fact, the rapper/actor didn't like her at all, kept calling her "a dog" (which as we later found out may have been a compliment coming from him).  With so much riding on this movie, the director wanted to go back over the tapes again.  So we three stooges piled into the car, bought every box of wine at Rite-Aid, and rolled back to my house in the old Hollywood section of Silverlake in Los Angeles.  We were watching the auditions again on my tv and the stage presence of this goddess actress just blew the others away.  And she was very…eager.  A real eager beaver (sorry, bad pun).  As the three of us guys watched it over and over…for research purposes…we realized she was going to be a star.  Even without the nudity.

About that time, my phone rang and it was actually the actress.  She actually called the house. How she got the number we still don't know but think she bribed an assistant for the number. She talked to me only long enough to beg me for the director's and manager's hotel and home numbers.  When I told her they were here – she actually said: "Ooohhh". Like Kathleen Turner in Body Heat. The most seductive "ohh" ever.  This lady could've looked like Jabba The Hut but just her low, breathy "oh" would give her a career in voiceovers if she wanted it. Or 900 numbers. Either or.  But that "oh" was not for me.  She wanted to talk to the director.  About auditions, and her craft.  So we three kings sat on the sofa together as she scared the hell out of the poor director over the phone with her purr.

She VOLUNTEERED to go over to the director's hotel that exact night and "discuss some notes" and wanted to "make up for it" in case she was too aggressive during the audition. Yeah, it meant what you think it meant.  She was basically DEMANDING he meet her at his hotel room to "give her another shot – one on one".  The director was pale and shocked and asked to call her back.  He told her his wife had just flown in and he had to run to the airport to pick her up.  But promised to get right back to her, just any time now. Honest.  (The director was divorced about 10 years prior).  His poor hands were shaking and he was sweating.

The manager and I could barely breathe while laughing, rolling on the floor, tears in our eyes.  He begged us to go meet her for him, or call her for him or somehow get him off the hook.  He really wanted her for the role (and the rapper/actor basically demanded it) and she was stunning and talented.  And did I mention she was E-A-G-E-R?  But as bad as he wanted her in the role, and would've been happy to accept her advances…he was petrified of screwing up the movie and probably too scared of her physically to "perform" anyway.  The director was afraid that if she got on set and couldn't really act? He'd be blackmailed into using her if he screwed her.  Or she'd set him up and charge him for harassment or quid pro quo (even back then some men had morals) and he'd end up like the action star (molester from earlier) or worse.  It was a no win situation and his career was on the line.  He said even (permanent A list singer/actress from earlier) wasn't this demanding! (not sexually, but just demanding!).

We finished the bottles of wine, and the director refused to call her back.  Said he would blame it on ME – since I had zero to lose on this film anyway.  What are friends for?  So the next morning – cheap wine hangovers and all – we made our suggestions that the actress get the part (pending business deals).  The studio was happy, the big producer was happy, the rapper/actor was happy and everyone was happy.  The three of us had a little pow-wow and I was chosen to tell the actress she got the role.  I called her agent (on behalf of the director) and was invited to meet the actress at a restaurant that night to tell her in person, her agent said.  Uhh…no thanks.  But damn that was tempting.  Probably the most tempted I've ever been (except ((actress I wrote about earlier this week in a blind. Had two franchises, one of which is based off a city in the desert)) skinny-dipping in my hotel pool at 4am but that's later)  Told the agent he'd get a call from studio biz affairs and they could hammer out the details.  I think the agent was so happy to get the actress a starring role that they'd have done it for free. 

I stopped by the set a few weeks into production to visit my friends, with the manager, and happened to run across the actress.  She totally blew off both me and the manager.  Beginning to regret not taking her agent up on the "dinner" that night, I asked the director how it was going.  As nervous as ever he admitted she was doing great, but had to be handled with kid gloves.  Why?  She was now a very special "friend" to the big producer who had "introduced" her to a new big shot director.  Gone was her enthusiasm for this role, and she was already on the next rung up that ladder. The director didn't have that massive hit but he's still doing well.  On this movie there were many who would become big shots, and some who went uncredited even though they did the dangerous work (stuntman worked with wife I discussed earlier on a big superhero movie among others).

The actress made a great career for herself and an even greater married life.  Despite her chemical issues. I often reflect on that time period with a chuckle and think of why we agreed to give her that break.  It wasn't just her acting (there's plenty of great actresses out there); and not just her beauty (plenty of those too). Why? Not because of HER offers, but because we all figured any actress that determined to get that role was going to work her ass off to make the movie great and would have a great career.  She did, promoting the movie and working hard and landing lots of bigger roles.  Funny enough? The gentlemanly director never personally called her back that night at my house, never was alone with her, and never made eye contact with her to my knowledge during the entire shoot!  It wasn't long after that the big producer got her "in" with that new hot director.  And when she got her breakout hit role (A sequel to a big movie which is retooling after a decade and starred two A+ listers at the time) for him (A list director who is a tool and will have sex with any actress who breathes in his direction. Hookers are his second choice)? The director, the manager, and I all wondered how aggressively she auditioned for that role too.  With that new director? It figures.  And these days when I hear her "standing up"? I just shake my head.  She's got a lot to be proud of.  Including a short memory.  I wonder what happened to that audition video though? Hmmmm…