John Clark Pro Se Blog

When you get to my age, a refresher covering most aspects of an active life in the Showbusiness is always a good idea.  Also, the nature of the current showbiz tends to get away from you.  With that in mind, I noticed a 1 week movie-making course being given just down the road from me, at the premises of Universal Studios (which brought back memories of the House Calls disaster).

The course, which cost $1,500, covered the latest advances in communication and supply of recorded entertainment to the masses - unlike live theatre, with which I have always been more comfortable back in New York.

The six day course was provided by the Hollywood branch of the New York Film Academy, in a surprisingly clean and modern office building, and bussed students to the nearby Universal lot, where we could shoot on their Western and European sets, or practice location work in Griffith Park.

Provided was the latest in video camera equipment (Panasonic), and editing software (Final Cut Pro). Things being what they are, these days, state-of-the-art changes take place almost every day.

The instructors are seasoned professionals, taking time out from their not busy enough creative schedules, to impart some of their special knowledge to people like me, and their acting students were happy enough to perform for my camera.  An aside here, I have too much respect for SAG and AFTRA and Equity members to expect them to work for nothing (sorry USC and UCLA student wannabe movie makers, and their elite schools who demand professional performer freebies, giving nothing in return.)

Day 1 the class of just 6 paired off, and then we met the instructors who introduced us to student actors we'd work with, and described the functions of the workshops and the safety hazards to avoid on set. We were also told to prepare a 2 or 3 minute story to be shot in about 20 shots, with a point of view, a beginning, and an end. Day 2 we were introduced to video cameras, their technical capabilities and how to operate them, and Day 3 was a discussion on screen-writing, with the necessity for story containing conflict and suspense, then a trip to Griffith Park just to test out the cameras. As a stills photographer more comfortable with 35mm film, I was told to just multiply the unfamiliar exposure settings of video by 7.2, to get recognizable results.  Day 4 we met the editor guy, who put post-production in its place, and showed how the editor could make or break a film. I didn't know that Walter Murch made Apocalypse Now into a movie out of a mess of a million shots. Murch believes in editing from a standing position, and asked to be left alone for many days in a dark quiet room, producing a masterpiece. Then we went out to the U. lot, on a very hot day of pure exhaustion. But it was worth it. And after, I slept well. Day 5 was spent editing what we shot, and trying to put muscle memory into the fingers in the dark in an attempt to operate the computer keys. And the final day, it was viewing the results, mutually criticizing the 6 movie clips, and taking home the DVD for further work (maybe.) Audio and special effects and lighting were deemed too complicated to tackle in a 1-week course. Agreed.

So my next thought is to buy a Canon digital camera to go with my FCP Studio package which I hadn't yet dared inspect. Thank you NY Film Academy and the instructors I met. I'm happy to promote all of it. A freebie from me.

Next I look forward once again to Digital Day at the Directors Guild headquarters at the end of July.  A chance to see the latest advances in digital cameras and to get inside the heads of famous directors and software makers.

But for now it's back to Wimbledon. 6' 9" John Isner, 68 all, final set, the Queen, what more could you want for unbearable suspense (unless it's U.S.A. v. England in the World Cup)?

Message to Lynn:

Hey Lynn,

I've been reading some of the terrific notices after your opening last night on Broadway.  I saw the play last year in L.A. but now I see that with the aid of your canny director (hi, Joe) you've added references to our 32 year marriage which, you now say, was for you filled with loneliness and lovelessness.  Linda Winer of Newsday says your tales of our marriage teeter uncomfortably close to revenge.

Why didn't you let me know? You misled me all along, it seems. I pulled out a book we put together a few years ago, This Is Living.  I wanted to check the dedication you surprised me with when it went to the publishers. It says "For John.  Who has opened my eyes to myself, has been a part of every good thing that has ever happened to me, and has loved me through fat and through thin."  So you lied? Now I feel uncomfortable, and wish you had saved me from your years of perdition.  I could have gone elsewhere, created my own career, and saved myself from being demonized and alienated by you and our children.

Well, carry on, anything for a successful show, and the critics DID spell my name right. We know that you have the performing talent to make the phone book sound interesting (there's an idea.) 

LATER

Vanity Fair has recorded a clip from your show. Reader fans may want to hear this.

Investigative reporter Lucy Komisar saw it. This is what she has to say about it, click here for her review.

You've made everyone aware Nightingale may be your swan song, and I don't want to rain on your parade (yet. My warehouse, which you stocked, is still full of good family memories, and all I need for my book which keeps me busy. Also my own solo show. which I may call Canary.)

Meanwhile, say hi to my kids for me, wish them a Happy Christmas, and treat yourselves to a read of A Christmas Carol.

Most of us will remember exactly what we were doing on 9/11/2001. For me, I was safely out of it, living a quiet but lonely life in peaceful Topanga Canyon, California, in the home I created for me and my family 22 years before.  On that fateful morning, I had been watching, as I usually was, CNBC at 5:30 Pacific Coast Time, tuning in for a few hours stock market viewing (maybe as a trader). I was just in time to see the carnage caused by an airplane crashing into the North tower of the World Trade Center.  I switched over to CNN, and watched unbelievably as the second plane crashed into the South tower 15 minutes later.  Confusion reigned. Obviously no accident, but what was this? A few hours later, we had our answer.  Terrorists! Foreign terrorists, of course, from overseas, acting within our own borders.

My 2 sons and 1 daughter were living in New York City, and I hadn't heard from them for a while, and was worried.  Especially for Benjy. He was a co-pilot for Delta, flying East Coast runs. Was he in the air, about to get involved too?  Were they all OK?

I went to the phone, unable to raise anybody at that point, not even Lynn, by now my ex-wife.  Two days went by before I learned that my children were safe.  Of Lynn, no word, because I knew she was filming in London. 2 days later, I took breakfast at 8am, relieved and happy to hear that all three of my children were safe and sound back in Manhattan. A film crew had arrived that morning, about to film 4 pretty girls playing a doubles match on my tennis court.

They unloaded their gear. I would be paid $500 renting out my facilities for the day. The producer was relieved not to have to secure permits for the shoot.  Also, my home was just outside Los Angeles City limits, helpful for the fact that the girls would be cavorting on the court topless.

My gate phone rang. It was the police! The producer was having a coffee with me, and immediately sprang to her feet, ran outside, and gathered her cast and crew together for a fast scramble and getaway.

After a short pause I let the police in, first making sure that all shooting has ceased on the tennis court. I went outside to greet them, with a smile on my face. A short-lived smile as it turned out, when they informed me that they had come for me, and I had precisely 1 hour to pack my things before being escorted off my premises. Court order of Judge Arnold Gold. Time enough only to hitch my pickup truck to my trailer, charge the battery, and leave for destinations unknown.

Later that day, it was 9/13 remember, I returned to retrieve a few things, and particularly one of my cars (I had several). At my gate, I found out why my ex, Lynn Redgrave, had been unreachable. She was not in London.  She was in my driveway, shouting instructions to several hangers-on who were there to make sure I did not re-enter my premises, guided by phone instructions from her lawyer Emily Edelman. Thank God I had my camera. I would record the events as they happened, because otherwise nobody would believe it. I called the police.  And now, read my pictorial of what happened next in the category to the left entitled "MY EVICTION PICTURES."

Terrorists? Yes. From overseas? No. Just members of my family, supported by judges, lawyers, the press, and court-order enforcers (from the Malibu sheriff's office).

Today is April 2, 2007. What is special to me first, is that this is the 40th anniversary of my marriage to Lynn Redgrave in 1967, which she ended in 2000.

The second reason is that this is the date 6 years ago that I met for the first time my wife-to-be stepping off a plane from Tokyo at LAX. To be, that is, if we liked each other. We did.

The third reason is that today I am restarting this blogsite, which has been asleep for 4 1/2 months because 4 1/2 months ago I was racing off to a hospital in an ambulance, with a heart attack. It happened just the day after I received notice of summary dismissal of my suit against Larry King by the Ninth Circuit, on appeal. (I THINK there was a connection!) Anyway, angioplasty surgery seems to have fixed things and given me a new lease on life, and new energy.

I spent part of my recovery time checking out the open encyclopedia Wikipedia in general and my page in particular.

Download file

Now I find that this freely available and free of advertising site is part of my daily life; there is so much to learn, and so much one can contribute by making new entries and editing.

Wikipedia.

What stays with me is their insistence on the NPOV (Neutral Point Of View). One gets so tired of the unending pitch of ego at all levels, personal and corporate, in all walks of life today. If mankind is to survive, the future of the world lies in this concept of NPOV.

I follow the careers of the Redgrave family with interest, although it's none of my business any more. I note that Vanessa is the latest toast of Broadway having just opened in Joan Didion's THE YEAR OF MAGICAL THINKING. I'm about to read the book. I want to find out whether a loss to death for a family or person is worse than a loss, AS IN DEATH, to a family or person when the subject is STILL ALIVE.

Still alive, as in the countless Family Court decisions to carve up families and spouses and children separating loved ones and dooming them to a lifetime of silence, as in death. I think I already know the answer, which is tied up with the idea of lack of closure. More on this later.

So stick around. I'm still here, and won't go away.

Never met him, but I find Tom Cruise to be an intriguing personality. Sumner Redstone, not.

He reveals a mind of his own, which the PTB (Powers That Be) don't allow celebrities to have, unless it's to do with some acceptable product or charity.

Scientology to me is also intriguing, and judging by the amount of real estate which features the name writ large hereabouts in Hollywood, they could be on to something. Their Celebrity Center is just down the road, and features one of the best French restaurants in town, possibly contributing in no small measure to the severe case of gout I now find myself having to cope with.

I never did get into the science of Scientology, but was introduced to it in the sixties, and read up on its tenets.

At the time, I had a talented wife who spent hours every week on an analyst's expensive couch, jointly researching her id for clues as to why she was unable to contribute to family survival in the zoo-like life of New York as it was then and still is. As an Englishman, I had the "pull yourself together" approach to all of the ills of the psyche, which didn't work for her, and sort of did for me.

By the ninth year, I'd had enough. An acquaintance of mine had given me a dog-eared paperback copy of L. Ron Hubbard's "Dianetics", and I couldn't help but admire his all-round showbiz background and original thinking.

What appealed to me about his approach to life's problems was that it cornered another part of the brain, the ego, through the superego, if you're still with me.

In other words, it caused you to expect something of yourself, and get up off that couch. No, I didn't join, I don't believe in letting others direct my thinking and doing powers while parting with hard-earned cash, not my style. But it did help me to realize that the relationship had to end. The beginning of the end.

I guess we are all hard-wired into slavish devotion to the things we do at an early age, leaving one with little real desire to change. But Scientology seems to get one to become impatient with oneself and concerned about unattained goals.

Anyway, to Cruise, I say "good on you", he can bounce on a couch instead of lying on it all he wants, and challenge his audience with ideas born of a fertile mind. Unlike many stars, he has found out that there's more to life than finding your marks and sitting in a makeup chair for hours on end, and in your trailer on the phone, hoping to set a bomb off under your paid alter ego, manager, agent, or lawyer, praying at the same time that you won't be causing the Sumner Redstones of this world to be upset or inconvenienced. (Of course, it helps if your producing partner is married to your CAA agent.) And with that, there's the waiting . . . and waiting . . .

I just watched tonight's show, and thanks to my new TIVO, I can report on this exactly.

Category: Actor Playwrights.

It was Vanessa's sister Lynn Redgrave.

How soon they forget! "Shakespeare For My Father" we put together for Broadway, and she was nominated for a Tony. You can read about it elsewhere.

Having spent my 32 year partnership with Lynn encouraging her to stand up and be recognized as the OTHER sister with considerably different talents, it now seems to have been a waste of my time, and perhaps, even, a waste of my precious productive life.

I see she has returned to the family fold, and the sisters appear together in a new movie "The White Countess". Yesterday the L.A. critic somewhat unkindly referred to them as follows:

"The Chekovian sight of so many Richardson-Redgraves lamenting their circumstances in heavily Russian-accented English and pining for Hong Kong, where their former social glory will be restored, makes you wonder if they'd have been better off in a stage production of "Three and a Half Sisters: The Twilight Years."

This critic isn't aware that they did indeed appear together in Three Sisters on the West End stage, just prior to Vanessa's ill-timed speech in Barcelona, denouncing the U.S. offensive in Iraq (the first one, that is), which impacted badly on the Redgrave brand name.

So there were even bigger reasons for Lynn to claim her independence, if only from her sister's views.

I don't think any of this matters any more. Corin, the Marxist brother, is silenced through ill-health, Vanessa appears now to be the holder of the franchise, has shut up, and just keeps busy working, and Lynn has returned to her roots, where she must be experiencing deja vu in her supporting niche. I hope she has found true happiness.

Emily Dickinson said it best:

"I'm nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?
Then there's a pair of us - don't tell!
They'd banish us, you know.

How dreary to be somebody!
How public, like a frog
To tell your name the livelong day
To an admiring bog!"

[maybe I should change that last word to "blog"!]

That's what you have to say these days to any small girl or boy if they hope to succeed. Laws and regs abound everywhere. It's not that you have to be a lawyer, but if you are not, you will be at a serious disadvantage all your life, at least in America.

But I find little reason for anyone studying for a law degree to want to be a practicing lawyer, especially a trial lawyer, not, that is, if they haven't already sold their soul to the devil.

The other evening, I met an elderly lawyer at a bar in a restaurant where my wife and I were dining at the counter. He was very drunk. I asked him the big question. He said, if he knew when he passed the bar, what the world of law-courts would turn out to be, he would never have made it the choice of a career. He said he never regretted becoming a lawyer, but he would have used his knowledge and education to do something else, probably along entrepeneurial lines.

He then said he'd have to leave, was needed in court.

At least he'd kept a sense of humor.

One of his more famous laws is "for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction."

There's a story that in a small village, with a church and a bank and a supermarket and a doctor and a drugstore, the local council was concerned that they didn't have a lawyer, with the status that brings. It was pointed out that there were no problems, they all got along just fine. Nevertheless, the mayor brought in an attorney he knew, who set up shop. Nothing. No business at all. He was about to pack his bags in disgust, when it was suggested that perhaps the village should expand its ambition, and bring in a second lawyer. And that's what happened. And guess what? These two guys were kept busier than ever.

In our society today, I think it is no accident that we see elections where there is no clear-cut winner. Both sides are about equal.

The polarization of America. Thank God we didn't get to see a vice president, in the latest go-round, whose training was that of a Trial Lawyer. Enough said?

I know a lot about this subject, it's everywhere these days. Lawyers are responsible for a lot of it, for it helps to feed their families, which I suppose is all very well - for them.

Let's examine the subject, for most is not good, and some I think is o.k.

Alienation - the bad sort

To most of the problems I see around me today I have a "been there done that" response. My problems, except the very current ones, have matured to a resolution because of the passage of time.

In this subject, peculiar to family relationships, I go back to around 1969 when it happened that my first wife Kay was subjecting our little lad Jonathan to her decision that he should not have anything to do with me. I then lived in London. It meant fighting in the Canadian courts for his right and my right as his father to have a real and proper relationship. My new family was solidly behind me in this endeavor, for which I was always grateful.

Well, I thought I had "won" in the sense that I got access to him if only in Ontario upon the posting of a $10,000 bond to pay her attorney in the event I kidnaped the kid, but at the accession of my fourth judge who loved theatre and Lynn Redgrave (the first three died in office through old age), he did get to meet his grandparents in the United Kingdom. Just once. And we had a ball. But the following year, curiously, he wrote to me himself, said "leave us alone". I was astonished, for he'd had a great time with us. Then I discovered that the last, old, and sympathetic judge had died too, and it would mean going back to court with a new one against her new attorney. I had no appetite for more of the same, trusting the kid to make the decision he was comfortable with. Perhaps he had no choice. Anyway, I let him go, and didn't pursue him further. He was then around 12 years old.

About 10 years later, living now in Los Angeles, I dispatched Ben and Kelly to drive to Toronto in my new pickup to track him down. They were successful, and he was thrilled to be able to embrace his siblings. I found he was by now a world traveling young man deep into music, and I was very proud of him. He hopped into the truck with his guitar, and they sang their way back to L.A., leaving the truck a total loss in Denver (my son Benjy thought it was ok to drive it without oil, oh well).

But the point here is, does he now feel that his mother did him a favor back in 1969, when she separated him from his father? I think that now she knows that he feels differently, and is herself separated from him, and, incidentally, her grandchildren.

Alienation, usually parental, is a terrible thing. It can take place at any age. It uses the powerful forces of guilt and emotional debt to force adults to act in strange and unforeseeable ways. It can create liars-in-training children. My policy is do what is always obviously the right thing to do, and let the chips fall where they may. Because then at least there can be no regrets later. The unknown becomes known. Time cannot be recalled.

And while on the subject, I want to say that I had a real success in freeing someone from what I call the "alienation effect". It was my sister-in-law Vanessa. She was in and out of a long affair with the Italian actor Franco Nero, and they had produced a little baby they named Carlo, whom I got to photograph for his first press appearance.

Franco lived in Rome, and Vanessa lived in London, and kept custody of their little boy. Franco was happy to come visiting often, but one day said to Vanessa, ominously, "I want to bring him to Italy to meet my mother".

Vanessa thought the worst case scenario, and put her foot down hard. and absolutely refused to allow it. War clouds appeared, so she hired the services of the best lawyer she could find, one who had a seat in the House of Lords, the venerable and elephantine Arnold Goodman.

He, of course, began to set up an expensive attack/defense for her "worst case scenario". I, for my part, was deep in the middle of perhaps 8 appearances in a Toronto court, trying to get to see my little fellow, who unfortunately had told his mother that he had found a copy of Playboy in my briefcase during a visit.

I sat her down. I said please, please trust me. Let Carlo go to Italy, do nothing to suggest you have concerns. He will be back at the end of the three weeks Franco wants, I know it, and I know you have nothing to fear (and I crossed my fingers behind my back.)

And thank the lord she believed me, because with great trepidation she did exactly that. And guess what, after just 2 weeks Franco called, and in a complaining voice said he could not possibly keep him any longer, please Vanessa, you must understand, I have a film to do, come and get him.

And since that time, Carlo got to be with his father and his mother on a free and easy basis, learned to speak both languages, and is now an up and coming film director, getting help from both of his parents who, I read somewhere, may be back together again after these many years.

We men are usually simple creatures before we get to be angry creatures.

Alienation - the good sort

So when can this be, when is alienation O.K?

I believe it is O.K. when the unknown becomes known, and decisions are made, usually by consenting adults, that there is no common ground to maintain a relationship of any kind.

I don't see anything wrong with this. I personally have 2 good ones, my one and only sister Sonia, whose style of life is so far removed from mine, and whose regard for me is so low, that I've entirely disappeared from her radar. I have now removed her altogether from mine. And with good cause.

It came to a head, rather amusingly in a dark way, when our mother died at a nursing home in England, and she refused to delay the funeral, not even for a few days. She wanted her put in the ground quickly, and refused to wait for the arrival of her brother (me) and her nephew (my son) and even her own son, from America. I wondered if she had switched religions from the C of E to conform to some Eastern burial rite, but no, the reason, she averred, was that the sandwiches had already been ordered and her friends notified and arrangements made.

The upshot was that I had a restraining order put on the body, and the funeral arrangements were delayed by a week. The scene in the chapel was right out of a Joe Orton play. Her crowd on one side of the aisle and mine on the other. And not a word passed between us. And that's the way it has stayed ever since. I wonder if mother got a chuckle out of it. Sadly, I think not.

No words pass between me and Kay, my first wife, either, for good cause, which I've just gone into, and now, it appears, between me and Lynn my second wife, her choice, hire a killer attorney, bring in the courts, get an order, no problem, too bad.

Feuds are a bit different. It takes two to feud, and the participants often sustain each other in the process.

One cannot overlook what might be called the "fun" feuds known to showbiz. The most famous case perhaps being between Olivia de Havilland, and Joan Fontaine. Others come to mind, that other Joan, Collins, with her sister Jackie.

There was indeed a feud between Lynn and her sister Vanessa and brother Corin, Vanessa acting as though unaware of it, with that kind of disassociated grandeur usually claimed by an older sibling. But now I'm glad to see that they are together again, with Lynn once again back to playing the dog. Woof woof! I hope it lasts. At least the work continues to flow for her.

Topanga and its people

I loved Topanga, a little town I found, just 4 miles from the beach.

Well, that is to say, not exactly. I loved the topography, I loved the views, I loved the vast park - I created a home right alongside it - and I loved the ability to be private and oneself. I loved some of its amenities, especially "ELYSIUM", a now, sadly, defunct affair, a place where I took my children.

Elysium became Topanga in many ways, where people could relax the way they were born, which is to say, naked. I met many wonderful people there, not the least being my friend Noel, a caricaturist, who drew that splendid picture at the top of my site. And by the way, the poor guy just suffered a mild stroke followed by a quadruple heart bypass. He'll be O.K., he's getting back to work, and I'd like people to know about it, maybe hire him. Check out "Noel's Corner" on the left, where you can find his website.

Many actors, producers, lawyers, psychologists, court appointed child evaluators, and, yes, even judges, would hang out there. And no clothes to separate people or put them in their places or identify their ill-gotten societal gains. The vast community hot-tub was the place to be, hair really let down, and everyone completely equal. The soaring discussions could get to be amazing. I think the place is now owned by a hotel mogul, his private sanctuary.

But Topanga's people. Hmm. First there's a feel-good publication called The Messenger, owned by an ex friend of mine called Brodie, which steadfastly refuses to get into anything remotely controversial, like me, f'rinstance. Perhaps they're afraid of making a profit.

Close friends I made there can be counted on the fingers of one hand. The rest are either 60's dropouts, local blue-collars, rednecks, self-conscious artists, spiritually good people, real estate agents, and trendy professional newcomers who just don't belong but can't afford Malibu.

Did you see George Roy Hill's last film, "Funny Farm"? That's Topanga.

So, I got thrown out, and many people helped themselves to the goodies at the trough of my leavings, courtesy of my ex-wife and the courts. So, correction to my first sentence.

I hate Topanga.

I've always preferred number two. If I rent a car, it's Avis. My word processing software is WordPerfect. I emigrated from England to the new world - to Canada. I married the number two sister in the Redgrave family. And I was the number two in my family, having an older sister. Perhaps that's how it got started.

My fantasy as a kid was that I would one day own a car that would look sleazy on the outside, the object of scorn, but under the hood would lurk the most powerful of engines, able to overtake all opposition.

And now I'm thinking about it, I was content to be the number two in my marriage to a famous wife. Perhaps that was my downfall. Eventually, you get to feel like number two.

I've noticed that there are 3 levels of communication.

The main level, the obvious one, is where I communicate with you, and you communicate with me.

Then there's where I communicate with you through a third party, a "spokesperson", my publicist, for instance, or even maybe my lawyer (perish the thought). And the same goes for you. I have little respect for it.

The third level is silence. Some see this as taking the high road. I see it as the refuge of the cowardly, and maybe even the guilty, and I have no time for it.