Some of those closest to Welles say he did not know he was being recorded by Jaglom nor would he have wanted the contents made public. Allegations Jaglom has always strongly denied.
In a new interview with World Cinema Paradise, Jaglom talks about the fallout from the book, which contained jabs at stars ranging from the late Laurence Olivier to Burt Reynolds. There were also a cruel Wellesian take on pal Peter Bogdanovich’s relationship with the late Dorothy Stratten and a very unflattering portrait of producer John Landis, who worked with Welles on the aborted movie The Cradle Will Rock.
“John Landis called me up and was very upset and – needless to say – so was my old friend Peter, to put it mildly, especially after Maureen Dowd’s review in The New York Times,” Jaglom told World Cinema Paradise. “I don’t know Burt Reynolds but can’t imagine he can read.”
He says he insisted editor Peter Biskin remove personal things about Welles’ mistress Oja Kodar, as well as “most personal item about Bogdanovich and one intimate one about Spielberg, both I felt much too personal.”
Looking back, Jaglom believes some of Welles’ outrageous comments were meant to provoke him and be entertaining, though others were quite candid. “He certainly said some things for effect or mostly to get a rise out of me, like some of his silly stuff about the Irish and some other groups, but what he said about actors and directors and movies expressed his real views in every case.”
Jaglom, who has a role in the soon-to-be-completed The Other Side of the Wind, says he is out-of-the-loop on that project. “You know as much as I do. It was some of my best acting and scenes from it moved around the Internet a few years ago, which was fun and are now vanished. It was hard to tell what it would look like if somehow all put together. I am skeptical but Bogdanovich tells me that they are ‘working on it.’”
In addition to talking about My Lunches With Orson, Jaglom shared a story about an ailing John Huston visiting him in 1985 to view rushes of one of Welles’ final performances in the Jaglom-directed Someone to Love.
“Huston called and came up to my cutting room to see footage on my Kem of Orson talking about this and that in his last film, which I was cutting, Someone To Love. Huston with an oxygen mask attached to his face and a nurse/girlfriend carrying it, as he sat and watched his old friend for the last time.”
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