Henry Jaglom recalls Orson

[RayKelly]

Credited to the LA Times, this article was posted today at http://www.fox13now.com
I am not sure if this indeed a recent piece since I have heard parts of it before.

http://www.fox13now.com/la-mag-oct052008-mybeststory,0,996761.story


My Best Story: My Last Lunch with Orson
No one's conversation spiced up a meal like Welles’
by Henry Jaglom


One afternoon in the fall of 1985, during our weekly or every-other-weekly lunch at Ma Maison, Orson Welles told me attacks were beginning to come in, in response to a slew of books that had recently been published about him, especially Barbara Leaming’s wonderfully supportive—and to his mind, largely accurate—biography. He still hadn’t read it, wasn’t going to, he said, because he knew he’d be mad, as she’d used several of his best stories.

“She really shouldn’t have; I was saving them to use myself someday. I told her that,” he scowled. But it was one of his fake scowls, and I knew the success of the book, about to go into its second printing, had cheered him up a great deal. He felt that someone had finally set the record straight on so many things. He was happy about it, even though he was used to the attacks: “I wouldn’t know who I was if the press didn’t rip me apart. You know, once they decide they’re for or against you, it never really changes. Hope and Crosby they always loved. Me and Sinatra they decided against early on, and they never let up.”

But all in all, Orson was happy that afternoon, with several new irons in the fire. He was about to perform a one-man magic show he’d been preparing. A black-and-white film version of King Lear, which we’d been trying to finance for years, seemed more likely due to the sudden interest of Gordon Getty.

Also, there was the possibility of new financing for a long-worked-on project called The Dreamers, based on an Isak Dinesen novella. I talked to him enthusiastically about that, but his face clouded over, and he cautioned me to remember the lesson of the lunch we’d had more than a year before with a producer who’d just won the Oscar for Best Picture.

At the end of that lunch, the producer smiled and said: “You’ve got yourself a deal. I’ll have the paperwork arranged by next week!” This was for a wonderful original script I’d urged out of Orson, little by little over a three-year period. Called The Big Brass Ring, it was about America at the end of the 20th century, and I felt it would be a wonderful bookend to Citizen Kane’s focus on the early part of the century—and to his career.

After the producer left our table, I excitedly suggested to Orson we open a bottle of the Cristal champagne he liked so much, but he insisted we wait. I protested that the deal looked done. I knew this producer very well, and he was definitely now in a position to deliver on his promise, so we should celebrate. “He said next week,” I reminded him. Orson smiled somewhat sadly and said, “If you knew how many ‘next weeks’ there have been over the past 20 years…”

Orson, of course, was right. We never heard from that producer. I couldn’t even get him on the phone. Like the magician Orson played in my first film, A Safe Place, he simply disappeared.

Nonetheless, things were looking up. The week before, my film Always...but Not Forever had opened to excellent reviews, and my photo was on the cover of L.A. Weekly. Orson ostentatiously held up a copy and insisted on reading the review out loud right there in the restaurant. He did it grandly, with great emphasis and flourish, and we laughed so noisily people stared.

He was very excited to hear me report that Oja Kodar—his companion in recent years—was such a strong presence in the rough cut I was putting together of Someone to Love, the film in which I’d recently directed him. I told him I was enjoying the editing process as never before and how much I loved his stuff in it, how he seemed in the movie to sum up everything he knew about life and love, men and women, theater and film—what a tour de force his performance was. He smiled and said: “Don’t forget, we can always shoot more if necessary. It will match. It just takes a bit of red cloth and putting the background well out of focus. We can shoot it at my house.” He was beaming.

Orson worried about the fact that Ma Maison would be closing in a year and a half. “What will we do then? Where will we eat? Where will we meet and scheme our schemes?” he laughed. Kiki, his little black poodle sitting in the seat next to him, growled, and he fed her a small cookie, complaining as he had so often before at our lunches that if she kept on crying, he’d never take her out again. She quieted down, and he patted her.

He told me Paul Masson wanted him back “to endorse their ghastly wine again” but only on a one-year contract and at less money than before. He would turn them down, he said, but slowly, seeing how good he could make the deal first. “Just in case,” he said. “You never know.” Meanwhile, he was hoping his one-man show—he had some wonderful new ideas for it but wanted to show them to me instead of talking about it—would help him “pay the bills.” He laughed and reminded me of our old Love Boat affair.

A couple of years earlier, Orson had been offered a guest spot on an episode of TV’s Love Boat, a common practice at the time for long-retired movie stars of a certain age. For one day’s work, they’d offered him something like $40,000.

Orson was desperate for cash just then, as he often was. To shoot some extra scenes in one of the several movies he was forever putting together at his own expense, he frequently did unappealing acting jobs. “To support my habit,” he’d jokingly say, but I felt they always took something out of him. Love Boat seemed a new low to me, though I didn’t say anything. Not having an agent or a lawyer at the time—“Everything bad that has ever happened to me has been caused by agents or lawyers,” Orson frequently insisted—he asked me to see if I could improve the deal. “Pretend you’re my manager,” he said with a twinkle.

Gamely playing the role, I got involved in a rather long series of phone negotiations in which I, surprisingly, was able to up the Love Boat deal to $75,000. Orson was delighted; I was a bit horrified, though I kept it to myself.

Several weeks later, two or three days before he was set to film it, Orson rang me around 3 a.m. “You’re going to hate me, Henry,” he said. I asked him why. “I’ve decided what I want on my tombstone, and I want you to promise me it will be done.”

“Jesus, Orson, don’t be morbid,” I said, biting at the bait.

“No, promise me, Henry. This is really important to me.”

“Oh, God, okay,” I said. “What is it?”

“Write it down,” he insisted. “Do you have a pencil?”

“Yes. For God’s sake, Orson, what is it?”

On my tombstone, I want written: ‘He never did Love Boat!’ ”

Back to our lunch at Ma Maison. Orson made me have dessert by dramatically reading the menu out loud, then allowed himself a plate full of lime sherbet—and relished it. The lunch had been a typical few hours with my friend: lots of stories, some sadness and some hopefulness, much gossip, a few schemes and many warm, knowing smiles. As always. But for some reason, I didn’t have my little tape recorder in my bag that day, the one that was forever recording our lunches. He had suggested two years earlier I hide it from him so it wouldn’t make him self-conscious but keep it on at all times. He said it would help “down the road, when I write my autobiography.”

“When will that be?” I said.

“When I’m too old to make movies.”
He asked after my mother. He knew that in a few days she was to go into the hospital in New York for an exploratory operation to discover whether she had something serious. He’d signed a copy of Leaming’s book to her: “From your honorary nephew, Orson,” and I told him how much pleasure it had given her. He liked that. But then he suddenly sighed and said, “Time is passing.” He said it lightly, sadly but lightly, and that was that. I didn’t give it a second thought.

Five days later, when I woke up, there was a message on my answering machine that had clearly been left sometime the night before. I pushed the button: “This is your friend,” said his wonderful, booming voice. “Don’t forget to call your mother first thing; find out what the results of her operation are, then call and tell me right away!” I called her. Happily, everything was fine, and just as I was about to call and tell him, the phone rang. It was Judith Wolinsky, my producer: There was a rumor that Orson was dead. The press was calling our office. There was pandemonium.

I phoned him on his private number. Freddy, his driver of many years, answered, said how sorry he was, but, yes, it was true. He had found him on the bedroom floor at 10 that morning and couldn’t rouse him. He then called the paramedics. He apologized for calling them, as if he had violated one last trust, that he still somehow felt he was expected to honor the Great Man, even now.

Orson was dead.

All day long, people went on TV and eulogized him. I kept wanting to call and tell him, “You won’t believe what that one said, how so-and-so held forth, what you-know-who came up with.”

One by one, each of those powerful and famous people who wouldn’t help him when they could now stepped forward to praise him, celebrate his genius, mourn his passing. I got furious, gave a few angry interviews of my own then drove to my office and turned on my editing machine. There was Orson, filling the screen, saying, “You are born alone, you live alone, and you die alone.” He paused for a moment, then added, “Only through love and friendship can you create the illusion that you are not entirely alone.” I suddenly realized this would be his very last appearance in front of the audience he had been wooing and battling for more than 50 years.

“You have your ending now,” his character, an older director, says to my character, a young director who has been struggling to finish his film.

“Why?” my character asks his, wanting it to continue, never wanting it to stop.

“Because,” he finishes with a smile, “this is The End.”

At that, he blew me a kiss, then shouted to the cameraman, “Cut!”

The cast and crew applauded him wildly. My cinematographer, intimidated, snapped off the camera, even though he wasn’t supposed to unless I said, “Cut.” I asked him, angrily, “What are you doing?” He replied, as if my question made no sense, “It’s Orson Welles! Orson Welles told me to cut!” His logic was unassailable.

I flipped the huge camera’s switch right back on myself, but Orson didn’t see me do it. The camera rolled as he pulled out an enormous, somehow fully lit cigar from somewhere and puffed on it. The cast and crew kept applauding him, and he burst into laughter, a beautiful, gigantic, all-embracing laugh that just roared and roared.

Right then, I knew this would now become my new ending: Orson, finally, having one terrific last laugh at it all.

And he never did Love Boat.

Henry Jaglom has written and directed 14 films. His 15th, Irene in Time, is set for release in early 2009

[Glenn Anders]

Parts of this story have been told, Ray, parts of the story even by Jaglom, but this account seems the most complete and affectionate. Here, Jaglom seems to answer others who claimed that Welles, in his last days, hated him for secretly taping their lunches, and exploited him unfairly in their last movie together.

It's good to have Jaglom's full memoir so we can see how it stands up against other versions of their relationship.

Glenn

[Alfred Willmore]

Glenn,

So you do not think that Jaglom recorded Welles without Welles's knowledge?

[Glenn Anders]

Alfred: I didn't say that. I just really have no basis, one way or another, to decide which of the accounts is correct. Jaglom's account is not so much different but more complete, filling in some of the back stories, as it were. Welles appears to have spent much of his later life having lunch. Vidal, Bogdanovich, and others have accounts of memorable afternoons at the Ma Maison table, in fact all over the World. Welles lived in a very European style, almost to a fault. Jaglom himself had other luncheon tales. Here is one from 1994:

http://www.industrycentral.net/director ... s/HJ02.HTM

Henry Jaglom's style is off the cuff, and he worked with Welles for fifteen years, collaborated with him on several pictures. I would be surprised that he would not have thought of recording some of his conversations with his old mentor. I would be even more surprised if Welles did not have strong inklings of the recordings, that he might not have encouraged them, possibly for his own future purposes.

The problem, I think, is the various camps which have now helped hold up the completion and release of THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WIND. There seems considerable dissention and bitterness under the surface among the survivors. Welles may have indeed told others, forthrightly or in a mood of depression on occasion, that Jaglom was taking advantage of him.

People do that.

In any case, to me, the important matter is how much did these relationships help or hinder the creation of his last, potentially great films.

The rest is all too human gossip and a few marvelous stories -- now and back then.

I hope the living participants will spend their energies now in getting TOSOTHW and other Wellsian pieces onto theater screens.

Glenn

[ToddBaesen]

Whether Welles knew Jaglom was taping him or not can easily be proved by Mr. Jaglom, since he claims Welles voice is on the tapes he made, clearly asking him if he got everything. If that is the case, one has to wonder why Jaglom has never let anyone else hear these recordings or done anything with them?

One thing is for sure: Jaglom had a rather bad opinion of Gary Graver, perhaps because Gary was actually much closer to Welles than Jaglom claims he was. So could it be a fit of Iago-like jealousy that prompted Jaglom to give some incredibly nasty quotes to THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER, for a story about Gary Graver's attempt to sell Welles's Oscar for CITIZEN KANE in 1998?

Ironically, Jaglom is quoted in the story as calling Graver a despicable liar, although it seems to me, he is the one making up the fake stories.

Anyone who knows anything about Welles career from 1970 onward would have to agree that Welles worked almost exclusively with Gary Graver as his cameraman. Therefore it's simply very bad lying on Jaglom's part to state that Welles would "just as soon not work with" Graver.

Here are the Henry Jaglom quotes about Gary Graver from the THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER article:


Filmmaker and longtime Welles associate Henry Jaglom, who also worked on "Other side of the Wind," said, "For years, Orson said 'Where is (the Oscar)?' It was very obvious from the beginning that it was a despicable kind of lie. (People like Graver) are sleazy people -- people with whom he'd just as soon not work with."

...Welles invited Graver to visit him, which was followed by an even more extraordinary offer: He asked Graver to shoot tests for "The Other Side of the Wind." The results inspired Welles to call his new friend "Rembrandt." Jaglom said this flattering assessment stemmed less from Graver's talents than his willingness to work cheaply and handle any task the notoriously demanding Welles threw his way. "Welles used (Graver) on projects where he didn't have money," Jaglom said.

Welles himself was not so dismissive of Graver; rather, he seemed to consider the young man his protege. According to statements submitted in court, for years Graver lived with Kodar and Welles off and on in Europe and America.

Welles even asked Graver to look after Kodar when he couldn't. "We dont (sic) have a car and cant (sic) afford limousienes (sic)," Welles wrote Graver in 1972. "Will you please, offer -- insist -- on taking Oja out to a movie ... please make it sound as though it comes from you -- and make it hard to refuse. She needs it badly."

[Glenn Anders]

Well, Todd, you provide a nearly perfect example of what I have been telling Alfred here. [Not that what I say is in any way unique; it's all been said before.] At least two camps appear to be at daggers drawn in this matter. What did HENRY say about GARY? Was ORSON being duped by HENRY? And what was THE GIRL'S part in all this intrigue? It begins to sound like that wonderful riff which Welles does on Picasso in F FOR FAKE.

What a laugh he would have over this nonsense. Sadly, it would probably bring him to tears, by the end.

My point is that these conflicts are superfluous except as to the degree they interfere with the completion of THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WIND. I have an opinion, as obviously does Todd, but without the definitive evidence he points to, we are only in the land of speculation.

Once the film is complete and in a theater, maybe the evidence will come to light, and we will not have to defend or attack slander on either side of this argument.

And we'll know if it was all worth it!

Glenn

[Alfred Willmore]

My point is that these conflicts are superfluous

Superfluous ! SUPERFLUOUS !!
Allegedly OW was so upset when he found out that he had been secretly taped that soon after he had a heart attack and Died!
and you call that superfluous ?
www.amdoc.org/projects/truelives/pressr ... jaglom.jpg

[Glenn Anders]

Okay, Alfred, I was trying politely not to take sides in this foolish dispute. But as is often the case, with the entrance of Todd Baesen, and his gossipy speculations, I see that it cannot be entirely avoided. As some colleagues here have often advised, I should not have commented in the first place.

But I did.

Since you asked me simply for my opinion, Alfred, I don't think for a moment news Henry Jaglom was planning to use those taped luncheons for his own purposes caused Orson Welles to die of a broken heart. Welles was no doubt quietly depressed, greatly overweight, the victim of a terrible diet, addicted to tobacco (even if in the form of cigars), a heavy drinker suffering from hypertension and other heart conditions, scarcely able to walk any distance unaided, a victim of what they used to call "galloping pneumonia," wheezy from lack of breath and confined much of the time to a wheel chair. And he had been that way for many years. He was in some sense a dying man for nearly a decade, only his magnificent vision, spirit and ambition keeping alive.

[Twenty years ago, in deference to my hero, I would have left much of the above out because I would have been loath to suggest that Welles could ever be anything but the young genius, who created the "Black" Macbeth, the modern dress Julius Caesar, "The War of the Worlds" and The Mercury Theater on the Air, of my childhood.]

From all I have learned about the situation, my opinion today would be that Gary Graver and Henry Jaglom were two young admirers of the great Orson Welles, both talented in an outre sense. Both sought Welles' attention, got it and basked in it, and Welles, while bringing them into the brilliant if dwindling group who remained loyal in later career, used their talents rather ruthlessly. Graver was no Gregg Toland, nor was Henry Jaglom a Robert Wise or a Peter Bodanovich, but they had a utilitarian value, and he took them into his social circle and confidence, as sincerely as he did anyone during those final artistic projects.

That's why I brought up the little fable which informs F FOR FAKE, the best film Welles made (with the potential exception of TOSOTW) in the latter part of his life. Welles, in my opinion, saw himself -- possibly quite rightly -- as the Hemingway or (to the point) Picasso of his generation, in his chosen field, the theatrical arts. That fable is about how the greatest genius can be led off the path of artistic achievement by romantic, social and or familial distractions. And sometimes, what genius produces in those situations is taken for what he would have done, had he retained his undivided artistic attention. Welles, as honestly, entertainingly, and publicly as he ever did, was rendering a final critical self-evaluation here of such geniuses: F FOR FAKE.

[THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WIND, I believe, if we can ever leave off stirring Welles' entrails, will be a bleak, ironic tragedy on the same theme.]

Henry Jaglom and then Gary Graver assisted Orson Welles on these works and others in the last fifteen years of his life. Both made sacrifices for him; both gained advantages from their association. Henry Jaglom is an interesting maverick director who makes lunceon money today by recycling old stories about his adventures with Welles. Gary Graver was, as I remember from the one time I met him, a pleasant, shy, almost querilous fellow -- and a middling camera man -- who schlepped from place to place around the world, showing bits of THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WIND and other selected footage for nearly twenty years after his mentor died.

They both kept Welles' reputation alive; they both probably took advantage of what was lying around in Welles' last days or after his death. To my mind, what's important now is surely that Welles may just possibly have shot one last GREAT MOVIE before he keeled over his typewriter in L.A., October 10, 1985. All the rest of this stuff is gossip, nice-to-know nonsense, which appears to be keeping talented people who should know better from finishing the extremely difficult task of finishing that ONE LAST GREAT MOVIE, and getting it (THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WORLD) before audiences.

And so, Alfred, since you have asked me twice what I think, the above is my gossip, my speculation, my . . . insight.

Without needlessly bringing into the saga, his living daughters, his lovers, the fine, quiet editors (Stefan Droessler, for instance) and artisans hopefully laboring in editing rooms around the world, let's forget this mean stuff -- especially, the most recent accusation, which looks to me absurd upon the face of it.

Superfluous -- yes, not necessarily because it is true or not -- but because, now, in terms of honoring Welles memory and legacy, it doesn't matter if Gary Graver indulged Welles to the point of working him to death, or if Henry Jaglom hit Welles over the head with a tape recorder after he came off the sound stage following that Merv Griffin performance. Let petty "scholars" argue about that SUPERFLUOUS business, fifty or a hundred years from now -- when when it may be relevant, and when it will no longer intrigue Todd, you or me so much.

I hope, Alfred, what I've written has satisfied your curiosity over my opinion.

The facts really are not all in yet -- may never be. If there is a smoking tape recorder, as Todd thinks there should be, let's wait for the report. Meanwhile, may we live long enough to see THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WIND.

Leave the rest to Nancy Grace!

Glenn

[Alfred Willmore]

I hope, Alfred, what I've written has satisfied your curiosity over my opinion.

Thank you, Glenn

[Alan Brody]

Welles's last known act in life was to call Jaglom and ask him how his mother was doing. It's hard to imagine he would have done this if he was angry at him.

75 Grand for one day's work on Love Boat?! If I were Welles I would have done it. If Andy Warhol could do it, Welles could have too. Would Love Boat have been any more disgraceful then a commercial for frozen peas?

[Skylark]

Maybe Fantasy Island would have been more acceptable to him. I hope he never appeared on Hollywood Squares.

[Alan Brody]

No, he did "What's My Line?" instead. BOSS! DE PLANES! DE PLANES!

[Roger Ryan]

I seem to recall that Welles was considered for the "Mr. Rourke" role on FANTASY ISLAND that eventually went to Ricardo Montalban. True?

[Skylark]

Hey, that's right, now that you mention it, I do recall reading somewhere that Welles was up for that part - a good fit, I think - but that gives me images of Akim Tamiroff as Tattoo for some reason... I recently read that Welles was apparently up for the Spencer Tracy role in John Ford's The Last Hurrah...

I saw the 'What's my line?' show on youtube - it was kind of funny that he didn't identify Greer Garson, how could he not recognize Greer Garson? maybe that's why they never asked him to do Hollywood Squares

the looovee booattt - promises something for everyone.... looove booatt... soon we'll be making another run....

[nextren]

It may be worth pointing out that Alfred Hitchcock appeared on "What's My Line?" near the top of his career - during the first release of "Rear Window."

YouTube has it here. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCu-NUMrsj0