Rich Little on Orson Welles - Remembering Jake Hannaford

[Harvey Chartrand]

Orson rented a big estate outside of Phoenix and told the landlord he was going to write his memoirs. Then he brought a film crew in and tore down walls and ripped up the swimming pool. When those people came back from Europe, they got quite a shock.

I played Brooks Otterlake, a young film director and John Huston played Jake Hannaford, an older film director. There were so many great actors in the picture -- Edmond O’Brien, Mercedes McCambridge, Susan Strasberg, many more. It was a movie about a movie director. People were following him around, shooting his life, and that was what we were going to see on the screen. Everything was handheld.

I don’t know how Orson could keep everything -- this incredibly complicated sequence -- in his head like that. But then, he was a genius. He knew everything of what he wanted to do. He was obsessed with the project when he was doing it. My God, he worked hard! I don’t think he ever slept. I mean, how could he? Orson probably couldn’t lie down without suffocating. More likely, he’d prop himself up with two pillows and rewrite!

I never worked with Orson again, except for a couple of Dean Martin celebrity roasts. I got a lovely letter from Orson a couple of years after I left The Other Side of the Wind. I’d talk about the incident on talk shows, and tell some of the funny things that happened. Orson wrote me a long letter, explaining why some of the things were so bizarre. He wrote: “Everyone enjoys a good joke, but don’t make me look like a buffoon.” I still have this incredible letter that he wrote me.

Nobody could ever figure out what The Other Side of the Wind was about, and I don’t think even Orson knew. He was rewriting scenes all the time, even on the set. Sometimes, he’d stay up all night and rewrite, give us new pages in the morning. We had to learn all our new lines on the spot, with the crew waiting. I’d see the new lines and say: “What the hell is this?” He’d say: “Just do it!” Orson did offer to let us read the new dialogue from cue cards, but I said: “No, that’ll look bad. I’ll learn it.”

But Orson was extremely easy to work with. He had a wonderful sense of humor and took suggestions from anybody. He was not difficult at all. It was just that he was so heavy, he couldn’t get out of a chair without assistance. Whenever he wanted to get up to show us how to do something, we’d yell: “No, no, don’t get up!” We were afraid he’d have a heart attack! Orson couldn’t even bend over to tie his shoelaces.

One time, Orson was coming up to Vegas to talk to me about some other project. He phoned me from L.A., and I said: “Aren’t you in town? I thought we were going to get together.” He said: “I couldn’t fit into the damned seat! Western Airlines does not accommodate me. I don’t think they could have got the damn thing off the runway if I was on board!” And I said: “Well, you’ll have to drive up.” He did. It was so funny, but sad too.

[jaime marzol]

harvey, this is great. rich tells you everything but says nothing. it's wonderful reading between the lines here. where did you find this? i always wondered what happened between rich and welles, and in this he says nothing, except that he talked shit about welles on tv and welles wrote him a pissed off letter. this is excellent.

[Harvey Chartrand]

Thanks, Jaime. I interviewed Rich Little in 2000 for Ottawa Life Magazine. (Little was born and raised in Ottawa.) We focused on Mr. Little's post-1995 career, but also discussed his experiences working with Welles. Here is another excerpt from that interview:
_

Ottawa Life Magazine: You had the starring role in Orson Welles’ unfinished The Other Side of the Wind. How did you wind up working with the auteur of Citizen Kane?

Rich Little: In the early seventies, I worked with Orson on an ABC show called Kopycats, done over in England. He was one of the guests. We just hit it off, spent a lot of time talking and getting to know each other. Orson was a fascinating guy. He’d already started the movie in Spain, three years before I came aboard. Orson didn’t have any studio backing. He was paying for The Other Side of the Wind out of his own pocket. He would run out of money, then go put a nose on and play in some Italian epic to make money, and then go back and try to finish his movie.

When I met him, Orson had already abandoned the project and picked it up again. Some of his cast had died and he had to recast. He asked me if I wanted to play a part in The Other Side of the Wind and I said: “Of course!” So I went to Phoenix, where they were shooting this picture, and worked for about five weeks and never finished my part. I had to leave. I had commitments. Orson was so upset. I remember he was shooting me going to the airport from in back of the car. I said: “Orson, what are you shooting?” He said: “I’ll find a way to put it in the picture!” (laughter) The shooting was very open-ended. I think (actor/director) Peter Bogdanovich took over my part after I left.

[jaime marzol]

.............

that's what i figured happened, little had real jobs, paying jobs, and being tied in to welles was not paying his bills.

harvey, got any more on this?

[ToddBaesen]

Thanks for that post, Harvey. It's very interesting to hear Rich Little's side of working with Welles. Strange how all stories relating to Welles all seem to have several versions to them. According to Joseph McBride, Welles never bothered to call Rich Little back to complete his role, after the incident described below, taken from Mercedes McCambridge's autobiography, THE QUALITY OF MERCY, 1981.

_

One desultory day Orson choose to order Rich Little and me to stand by to position ourselves on the roof of the house at sunset. The great man explained that he wanted to capture the magic moment immediately before the desert sun slices like a giant egg yolk down the other side of the world. There IS a light in that instant that is the color of a new lemon. The light is blinding just as it disappears. That's what Orson was after. It meant an entire afternoon of elaborate planning. He wanted to shoot it with his three-camera technique which meant that the clumsy equipment had to be carried or hoisted onto precarious perches. One huge light fell onto the stone patio… great hunks of broken glass in the pool, in the iced tea, in the folds of the lounge chairs and, worse luck, we had one less piece of expensive equipment—way out in the middle of nowhere.
If I have to climb into heaven on a ladder, I shall have to decline the invitation. I cannot go anywhere on a ladder. Never could. Going up is sheer agony and going down is impossible. I cannot do it. I did it, of course, for Orson. Orson couldn't do for me, or for heaven or for anything. His girth is not ladder material. So he stayed down there on level ground in his billowing balloon of a bathrobe, shouting at me to keep going... I was almost there.
The view was terrific. I could see all the way to Milwaukee. Rich Little fairly leaped up the ladder. He's a Canadian, and Canadians are inclined to leap a lot, particularly if anyone is watching. I was married to one of them. When you've seen one leaping Canadian, you've seen then all. Rich Little wasn't about to get any "bravos" from me. I was anything but happy up on that roof because I knew the descent on the ladder would be my last mortal endeavor.
Orson directed us, inch by inch, to a spot where we would be etched against the magic lemon-green brilliance of the sky when the exact moment came. He threatened to kill us if we ruined the shot because it meant that a retake would have to wait until tomorrow at sunset, when the sky might well be overcast and the light would be all wrong.
It gave me a funny feeling. I was playing a scene with the incomprehensible universe, for heaven's sake. I had no chance to rehearse with the sun; I had no idea what its timing might be; how could I retain any spontaneity, any fresh discovery in a scene where I was at the whim of a big yellow blob of fire that would surely be upstaging me anyhow?
The three cameras and their crews were at the ready. Rich Little had smoothed his hair for the ninety-sixth time. All we needed now was the sun which, we hoped, had read the script and knew its cue to do its thing!
Orson had made it painfully clear that Rich Little and I were to stand with our backs to the sun, our shoulders barely touching. Orson growled that the shot was absolutely critical in its focus for all three cameras, and therefore, even the slightest movement from us might knock us out of frame. I gathered that what he wanted was two statues on a roof. But that wasn't what he wanted. Every time you figure you know what Orson wants, it turns out to be anything but what Orson wants. This time he wanted us not to move, BUT, he yelled as the magic moment came nearer, "I want you both up there to be still as stone. I want you to give me the feeling that you are being jostled; I need that feeling from both of you."
Rich Little mumbled, "Oh, my God."
I mumbled back, "It's simple. Think jostle, but don't move."
Rich Little hadn't worked for Orson before and was therefore not to be blamed for asking a question like, "How do we do that, Orson?" When Orson feels that a question is so stupid that it doesn't deserve an answer, he stares at the inquirer with what can only be called gentle horror! He wants so much to believe that the questioner is above the sort of thing that has just escaped his lips.
"Sweetheart," he called to Rich Little, "listen to me, my friend. I want you to keep your bodies rigid from the waist up, but I want your lower extremities to be jostled. Is that clear to you up there, my children?"
In a million years I will never know why Rich Little felt he had to pursue this meaningless quest. He asked Orson why our lower extremities were being jostled.
That did it! Orson threw his great bearded head back and confronted the heavens. I think he was addressing God directly. He shouted, "Why must I be challenged in such things? Why? Why? Why?
Rich Little stammered something civil about merely wanting to do it right.
Orson sighed to the ocean depths with him and said, "I need your shoulders to be still, your hips to sway ever so slightly, a rocking on your heels that is barely noticeable… all of this will give me the effect I need with the midgets that will be milling around your feet and between your legs."
Why did Rich Little have to ask, "What midgets, Orson?" Orson was beginning to look the way Christ must have looked when he found the money changers in the temple.
He refused to communicate further. He beckoned his assistant cameraman and relayed the message through him. It wafted up to us: "Mr. Welles says he's going to be filming them in Spain next month."
Only a certain breed of actor should ever even try to work for Orson Welles. I'm glad I'm one of that breed. Orson was one of the highest peaks in my life.

[dmolson]

Hilarious Todd. That explains Mr. Little's dumb-founded express when he's doing those darn 'Dean martin Roast' tv infomercials. He's still looking for those dwarfs.

[mteal]

That is hilarious. So are some of the WIND stories from Graver's Working With Orson Welles docu. Sometimes I wonder if Welles' true intention in making TOSOTW wasn't to simply provide cast and crew with great behind-the-scenes stories about Welles' eccentric working methods; everyone seems to have one. The film itself has become almost irrelevant.

I'll have to try and track down McCambridge's autobiography. There are several parts of her career I would be curious about, like her voicing of the demon in THE EXORCIST, her great performance as the sadistic rancher Emma in one of my favorite flics, JOHNNY GUITAR. And her work for Welles in The Mercury Summer Theatre.

Also, if anyone knows how to get ahold of THE KOPYKATS, please post it here. I'd especially like to get a copy of the show that Welles hosted, although the whole series was hilarious as I remember. Of course, it's been about 30 years since I've seen it. I wonder if Rich Little himself might have any info.

[jaime marzol]

.............

emma the evil tadpole in JOHNNY GUITAR, my god, what a great movie, what an incredible role. mercedes did not really comprehend what was going on in that movie. she is ashamed of the role. she blames joan crawford for her odious role. she didn't see the whole thing was a plan by the director, and that she is really the star of that show, not crawford.

another great moment in that film is when all the burly ranchers begin to bitch-slap the kindly old man played by john carradine. i could not stop laughing. nick ray is the man.

my friend went to NYC film school, and they were letting nick ray use their facility. nick use to shanghai the entire film class to work on his films. my friend said hanging with, and working for nick was a lot more fun than sitting in class.

i have on a disc what she wrote about acting in TOUCH OF EVIL. will try to locate it and post it here.

[Michael]

Oh! "THE KOPYKATS" I too remember the show very fondly. I especially remember thinking that Frank Gorshan was amazing. Definitely, if by some miracle someone comes across this on video, please let us know!

Thanks! Michael