Henry Jaglom (1938-2025)

[RayKelly]

Henry Jaglom, an independent filmmaker and colleague of Orson Welles, has died. He was 87.
Jaglom died on September 22 at his Santa Monica home, his daughter, Sabrina Jaglom, told The Hollywood Reporter.
His legacy includes such movies as Last Summer in the Hamptons, Déjà Vu and Going Shopping.
Welles acted in two noteworthy Jaglom films – A Safe Place and Someone to Love. For about two years before Welles’ death, the two would meet for a weekly lunch at Ma Maison in Hollywood, and Jaglom recorded their lengthy exchanges as they dined. Those became the basis for Peter Biskind’s 2013 book, My Lunches With Orson.

https://wellesnet.com/henry-jaglom-dies/

[tony]

Henry Jaglom was an original filmmaker, daring to actually have his actors improvise. He was fearless, and will be missed.
He had Welles act in two of his films, and Welles had him "act" in "Wind", and Jaglom also worked hard trying to help Welles get funding for "The Big Brass Ring."
They were friends for many years until shortly before Welles's death when he accused Jaglom of secretly taping conversations with him, conversations which would be turned into Henry's book "My Lunches with Orson".
Still, we need more filmmakers like Jaglom: love or hate his work, he was uncompromising in expressing his vision.

[Le Chiffre]

RIP. Controversial for sure, but I'll admit I did enjoy the LUNCHES WITH ORSON book. We should also be grateful to him giving Welles two interesting roles, including his last onscreen appearance in SOMEONE TO LOVE.

[JMcBride]

Jaglom's book is an unreliable source for many reasons.

He had family money (enabling him to make
his indie films) and helped Orson in some ways yet
never financed a Welles film. SOMEONE TO LOVE is a fine
valedictory performance by Welles, though. I remember
when Oja ripped out after Jaglom and others at the Welles
memorial Dick Wilson and I put on at the DGA in 1985. It
seems that Jaglom recorded Welles without his approval.
Editor Peter Biskind admits in the book that parts were
hard to hear and that he added stuff from other
sources, etc.

[tonyw]

Thanks for furnishing this very important information. Most obituaries on Jaglom mention his recording of Welles in a manner akin to Charlie Kirk celebrations. It is really important that the record is set straight.

[JasonH]

I'm not an original for drawing the parallel, but My Lunches with Orson is almost like the tawdry counterpoint to This Is Orson Welles. Both books consist of "transcripts" of recorded conversations that were published posthumously, but while one had the input of Welles (including his ask to dial back on cruder comments he made) and is of great academic as well as entertainment value, the other feels more like printed gossip for a fast buck. The possibility that Welles didn't always know he was being recorded is uncomfortable, but it’s a squirrely proposition independent of that: Jaglom was candid that Welles meant the recordings to be used as an aid for an eventual autobiography, which is a far, far cry from implied consent for what those tapes actually got used for.

Damn if it’s not a fun read, though. And to give Jaglom the last word on it, here is a podcast interview in the aftermath of the publication in which he offers rationales and enjoyable anecdotes. Well, alongside this one: that it cost him his lifelong friendship with Peter Bogdanovich. I don’t think that break lasted, though, since they appeared happily together not much later at a Welles panel.

Jaglom's association with Welles is an interesting one. I've seen it portrayed that Jaglom essentially inherited the Bogdanovich role in the mentor/acolyte relationship during the last ten years of Welles's life. That seems a rather tidy way of looking at it, though Jaglom made sincere efforts to help Welles in his later years, even if you’d be hard-pressed to cite the tangible results. (Probably his big success on that score was his influence over Welles to put pen to paper on THE BIG BRASS RING, which at least became a published screenplay.) One of the wilder bits from THEY'LL LOVE ME WHEN I'M DEAD is that video footage of Welles making his case to the French judiciary for his rights to the WIND negative. The video was produced by "Wel-Jag," a company Welles and Jaglom invented for the purpose. Makes you wonder what other rare materials he was in possession of, or what became of his tapes after the book. It would also be nice if the full footage of Jaglom riffing with Paul Mazursky from the WIND rushes eventually saw the light of day, HOPPER/WELLES style.

Jaglom might be the least-discussed member of the New Hollywood cohort, but he certainly made movies his way, and I respect what they represent even if they were rarely for me. (I find the vibe veers too often into “upper-class kid indulging his vanity,” though who wouldn’t envy that freedom.) He played a crucial role cutting down Dennis Hopper's unreleasable four-and-a-half hour rough cut of EASY RIDER to the commercial smash it became, even though his credit didn't reflect the contribution (a theme of that production). Probably the first thing I'd recommend to the uninitiated is not a movie by him, but a movie about him. WHO IS HENRY JAGLOM? doesn't cast its subject in the most flattering light, and usually when that happens it's because the subject wasn’t involved or didn’t endorse it. Instead, Jaglom was pleased by the thorniness, which more or less encapsulates his spirit.

[jbrooks]

I was very sad to hear of Jaglom's passing. I met him back in 1987, when I was a teenage Welles fan. And I met him a few times after that and we exchanged a few letters. He was always extremely generous with his time. Henry's devotion to Welles was palpable. So it seems appropriate to me to defend him on this thread.

They were friends for many years until shortly before Welles's death when he accused Jaglom of secretly taping conversations with him, conversations which would be turned into Henry's book "My Lunches with Orson".

There's no evidence that Welles and Jaglom ever stopped being friends. There are reports that Welles was angry to allegedly "discover" that Jaglom had been recording him. None of these reports, however, indicate that Welles ever confronted Jaglom about this. [My theory is that Welles may have forgotten that he had asked Jaglom to record him. Thus, Welles was angry, but without justification. Certainly, there are many other examples of Welles flying off the handle, only to later concede that he was wrong. Indeed, in this same period of the mid-80s, Welles also asked Skipper Hill to record their conversations. That is strong corroboration ofJaglom's claim that the recordings were at Welles' request.] The fact that Welles and Jaglom remained friends up to Welles' death is actually demonstrated in Skipper Hill's tapes, on which Welles refers to "my friend Henry Jaglom" a day or two before Welles' death. Moreover, one of the last things Welles ever did was leave a message on Jaglom's answering machine inquiring about Jaglom's mother, who had surgery that day. Welles told Jaglom to be sure to call her and to then call him. Welles also references her in his last appearance on Merv Griffin on the afternoon before his death.


[/quote]

He had family money (enabling him to make his indie films) and helped Orson in some ways yet never financed a Welles film.

This is really unfair Joe. Jaglom's parents were quite wealthy, but they didn't finance Jaglom's films. Jaglom raised financing for his films himself, often by pre-selling overseas distribution rights. He often spoke at length about that. His trouble getting financing is why it took him years between his first and second features. And he had to keep his budgets low --under $1 million, and sometimes well under that figure. Incidentally, both of Jaglom's parents outlived Welles. It's pretty silly to suggest that Jaglom somehow failed Orson by not convincing his father (who wasn't in the film business) to bankroll Welles' films. Also, Jaglom DID offer to raise $1 million for Welles to make a film. And Welles said no. Welles said that he needed to make a bigger film as his comeback film. He could make a smaller movie as his second comeback vehicle, but Welles wanted the first comeback to be something other than a micro-budget project. So what did Jaglom do? He spent hours and hours and days and months and years acting as Welles' unpaid agent/producer trying to get funding for "The Big Brass Ring," "The Cradle Will Rock," "The Dreamers," "KIng Lear," etc. etc. Welles would never have even written "The Big Brass Ring" but for Jaglom's nagging him to do so. Jaglom was devoted -- and it was all behind the scenes and getting Jaglom no glory. He also tried like heck to get "The Other Side of the Wind" out of legal limbo in Paris. Oh, and Jaglom introduced Welles to Barbara Leaming, with whom Welles cooperated as she wrote the very positive biography that came out several months before Welles died.

I remember when Oja ripped out after Jaglom and others at the Welles memorial Dick Wilson and I put on at the DGA in 1985.

If you are referring to her public remarks, Oja did not say anything about Jaglom at the DGA Memorial. She complains about people who "stripped" Welles of "his feathers" to "stop him from defying the force of gravity." But there's no indication she's talking about Jaglom, and that would seem to be an absurd assumption. Not only is Jaglom the very next speaker at that same memorial, but there is no universe in which Jaglom was stopping Welles from defying gravity. Jaglom was working tirelessly for Welles, for free, trying to get his film projects off the ground. He had also just given Oja and Welles great parts in his movie "Someone to Love."

And to give Jaglom the last word on it, here is a podcast interview in the aftermath of the publication in which he offers rationales and enjoyable anecdotes. Well, alongside this one: that it cost him his lifelong friendship with Peter Bogdanovich. I don’t think that break lasted, though, since they appeared happily together not much later at a Welles panel.

Thanks for the podcast link. I had never heard that before. In later interviews, Jaglom stated that Bogdanovich was angry that the book included negative comments by Welles about Bogdanovich's relationship with Dorothy Stratton. As you note, it's clear that the Bogdanovich-Jaglom friendship was at least somewhat mended after that. They appeared on the panel you linked to, and they also appeared at a later DGA panel as well. https://www.dga.org/events/2015/july201 ... s100la0515 (Oddly, the video of this panel was on available on the DGA site a few days ago, but I can't find it now). There is, however, a still photo of Henry and Peter embracing.

[jbrooks]

As you note, it's clear that the Bogdanovich-Jaglom friendship was at least somewhat mended after that. They appeared on the panel you linked to, and they also appeared at a later DGA panel as well. https://www.dga.org/events/2015/july201 ... s100la0515 (Oddly, the video of this panel was on available on the DGA site a few days ago, but I can't find it now). There is, however, a still photo of Henry and Peter embracing.

The full video of the 2015 DGA panel is now available at https://www.dga.org/events/2015/july201 ... s100la0515 by clicking on the second picture at the bottom. it's well worth watching.

[RayKelly]

I share jbrooks opinion that Welles likely gave Henry permission and simply forgot about it. Peter Biskind told me there was nothing on the tapes where Welles referenced the taping.
For what it is worth, in my dealings over the years I can say with certainty there are few things that Team Beatrice and Team Oja agree on -- other than resentment over MY LUNCHES WITH ORSON.
When the book came out, Beatrice Welles told she was advised not to raise a public fuss because it would spur sales.
She had a prIckly relationship with Peter Bogdanovich stemming over ownership of THIS IS ORSON WELLES. (Peter gave a cut of the book to Oja, as well as Beatrice, because he felt that is what Orson would have wanted.)
Still, Beatrice asked me for Peter's personal email. She sent him a letter saying that while Orson may have said some truly awful things about him to Henry in those lunchtime conversations, she wanted Peter to know her father had a real affection for him.

[JasonH]

In the podcast interview, Jaglom himself tries to stress that Welles was being unfair about Bogdanovich, considering anger/bitterness at the state of his career to have colored some of his more savage comments in their chats. Also, capturing the "honesty" of intimate conversations swings both ways - casual rap sessions with a close friend can be fertile ground for embellishment and swagger, not only authenticity. The harsher comments Welles makes about Bogdanovich probably predate the quasi-reconciliation the two had, which in Bogdanovich's telling occurred very close to his death.