This by all rights should be a short post, since the only Hollywood film I acted in (as an extra) was Jack the Bear (1993), and my scene ended up on the cutting room floor. My three oldest kids were extras on the same set, and they too ended up cut from the final except for one fleeting frame where we can see Peter from the back, wearing an old shirt of mine, and throwing a piece of bread toward Danny DeVito, who was pretending to a seal.
I spent a lot more time behind the scenes in Hollywood as a writer -- off and on for over a decade. I wrote pitches, story summaries, screenplays. Sometimes I got paid, sometimes not. Some stuff got produced, some not.
I scored one screen credit throughout those years, and that was for shared story credit on Rollover (1981), an IPC Films/Warner Brothers release starring Jane Fonda and Kris Kristofferson.
My old friend and writing partner, Howard Kohn, and I researched and wrote a pre-script document that was essentially a narrative story line, which was then turned into the movie by director Alan Pakula and screenwriter David Shaber.
The most vivid memories I have from that project were our working sessions with Jane Fonda and her producer Bruce Gilbert. We'd fly down to Jane's ranch at Santa Barbara or Bruce's house in Beverly Hills or to one of the studio lots for day-long brainstorming sessions.
These sessions were usually about three weeks apart, as Jane was acting in another movie at the time. Every time we got together, I found it remarkable that she was able to pick up exactly where we had left off, as if the previous meeting had been yesterday, not three weeks ago, and as if nothing else had happened to her in between our working sessions.
She had an impressive ability to concentrate. Part of the plot involved a character I'd developed based loosely on Walter Wriston, the then-powerful Chairman of Citicorp. We had decided we needed to develop a better idea of the psychology inside large corporations, and Bruce had somehow located a psychologist who catered to such clients; so this one night they invited him to have dinner with us.
As he was drinking his first glass of wine, I asked him who his biggest client was, and he said, much to our surprise, "Confidentially -- Citicorp." Jane became so excited I could see she was about to interrupt him and spill our beans. But I kicked her under the table, getting her attention just in time to cut her off, and we proceeded to find out what we needed to know for this part of our movie.
Rollover was hardly a box office sensation, but 30 years later I was still getting royalties every quarter, usually enough to buy a burrito from the place around the corner.
HEADLINES:
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Maurene Comey, daughter of James Comey and prosecutor of Jeffrey Epstein, is fired (Politico)
The persisting furor amongst the conservative MAGA movement over files related to accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein has forced Trump into an unfamiliar role: trying to shut a conspiracy theory down. (Reuters)
Justice Dept. hits states with broad requests for voter rolls, election data (WP)
What Could Become of the C.I.A. (New Yorker)
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The US sends third-country deportees to the small African kingdom of Eswatini (AP)
Chinese hackers are hitting a wider range of U.S. targets, including agencies and journalists (WP)
Sirens and evacuations as Taipei rehearses to counter China invasion threat (BBC)
Exclusive: China-linked hackers target Taiwan's chip industry with increasing attacks, researchers say (Reuters)
Israel strikes Syrian military headquarters, IDF says (ABC)
More than half of large US employers plan to scale back healthcare benefits next year as rising costs from weight-loss and specialty drugs squeeze budgets, according to a new survey released by consulting firm Mercer. (Reuters)
Trump's bid to claw back $9B in foreign aid and public broadcasting funds nears Senate vote (AP)
KQED to Slash Workforce by 15%, Cutting Dozens of Jobs in Latest Round of Layoffs (KQED)
Supreme Court Reaches Landmark 'It Depends' Ruling (The Onion)
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