A Stray Cat Struts (13 page)

The film shoot had been going for a couple of weeks when I joined Britt. She was staying in a very nice condo-style hotel in the hills above Puerto Banús, one of the port villages that make up Marbella. Britt is the master of making any hotel or dressing room into a home, especially one that she's staying in for a few days—or in this case, weeks. Everything was unpacked but still ready to go. She always had a kettle with a few other handy amenities and was the first person I'd ever met who took things, besides booze, from the dressing room of a gig back to the hotel. Since then, I've lived many a day from the bananas and water I stuck in my bag after the gig.

On this job, she had an early call every day, so I would sleep in and take a shuttle down to the harbor when they took a break from filming and join her for lunch. There were many young people on the crew, and they recognized me from pop music TV shows and rock magazines that the Cats had done in Europe, and I practiced my rudimentary Spanish with them. But this was Britt's turf. She was very comfortable and professional on a movie set, and I liked watching her do her thing.

We had been together a few years at this point, and I was aware that in certain situations, it was Britt that everyone was interested in. I had had hit records at a young age, success in the music biz, and the Cats were always a band that was photographed a lot, so that part, I was used to. In the beginning of my relationship with Britt, it was strange to be photographed with anyone else but the other two guys, and the fact that anyone was interested in who you went out with or were married to was a new concept to me. In a similar way, in the beginnings of the band, the idea that anyone was interested in me for anything besides the music and the band was at first a strange idea, but I was always image aware and quickly embraced all of it. I was very familiar with having my picture taken on a stage, in a studio, or in a dressing room, so this type of attention just became part of life. Britt and I were genuinely together in every way, so it never felt like a staged thing. I liked being the tagalong guy; these were places I wouldn't have been going to, things I wouldn't be doing if I was just a drummer in the traditional sense—even a guy in a very successful rock band doesn't always experience this side of showbiz. I was young and always up for an adventure, but I was also a hotheaded New York sort, so it made for some funny times. I never really had too much of a problem with it. By that point, I was accustomed to paparazzi at the airports and understood that it's all theater, all part of the gig, and I just went along. Britt did teach me that if you're pissed off or annoyed, it just makes for a bad picture, and that's what some of them were after, anyway. So smile and take a good picture just to spite them. This I understood; it appealed to my Long Island view of the world. Now it's a good laugh to look back at all those photographs that pop up and to think that this was way before the Internet and reality TV, so if the press followed you through the airports, it was genuine celebrity. At the time, I was just going along day to day.

The film was a caper tale of intrigue and murder set in the gentrified world of the European yachting community. Britt was at ease with the director and all the lingo of moviemaking, every crew member liked her, and she hit her marks and delivered her lines every time. She looked amazing, very much the classic European, glamorous movie star and was respected for it.

Rod Taylor was a real leading man in the matinee idol mold. He had come to Hollywood from Australia in the 1950s and starred in
The Birds
and
The Time Machine,
did a great
Twilight Zone
episode, and even had a role in
Giant
. Being a vintage film and TV nerd, I knew who he was. He was that certain type of rugged, handsome, trained actor, an amateur boxer who chose acting as a career. He and I got along right away. I don't think he knew any rock-and-roll bands from the past twenty years, but we talked about a bunch of things, and he had met James Dean, so I had plenty to ask about. We also drank all day, every day. I started at lunch with a beer and took a break after a few hours to go back to the hotel and rest up a little before dinner. Britt and I had dinner with Rod and his quiet, exotic wife, Carol Kikumura, just about every night. We'd either stay on the set or go to a nearby restaurant, where the girls drank a little wine. Britt would go back to the hotel, but I'd stay out, and Rod and I boozed it up pretty good; most nights we closed the local nightclub. I was on vacation with nothing to do, was good at partying, and was still pretty young. Mr. Taylor was back at the set at 8:00
A.M.
every morning and kept going all the way through; it was impressive. He sat in his makeshift dressing room tent on the dock and drank local red wine nonstop. When it was time for his scene, he snapped to it and delivered his lines in a professional manner, and when the director called cut, he tuned out again. I've seen certain guys who could turn it on and off, but he was the best.

The whole production was a very European thing. The producer, José Frade, and his wife were hot-blooded types who were there all the time, arguing and partying along with the cast and crew. Everything was loud and slightly chaotic but functioned well. The fact that all of this was being shot in this marina and on boats added to the mild pandemonium. After about a week, the weather turned bad, and it rained for a few days. A lot of wet crew members in raincoats scurried around trying to keep the gear and themselves dry. Since it was being filmed on the docks, this was a real drag for the production; not much could be done, and everyone was still getting paid. Five or six days in a row of straight rain started to fray everyone's nerves. Britt and Rod continued to turn up, be ready, and sit in their respective dressing rooms. I had become friendly with some of the crew and would bounce around the set between the dressing rooms and hang out and drink with Rod while he told me stories about Hollywood in the 1950s and working with Hitchcock. A few times, we would just go to one of the pubs along the waterfront and someone would come to get him if there was a break in the rain. One day, the producer stood on the dock in the pouring rain with his arms raised, his face turned to the skies, and yelled for God to stop the rains and save his movie. He was in the middle of the marina, with curious tourists carrying umbrellas walking by, wearing a yellow raincoat and screaming at the heavens to turn off the tap. His wife was yelling at him to come in the tent, that he looked crazy. All of this is better and more dramatic sounding in Spanish. That should have been on film.

Sometime during the weeklong rain delay, a few of the crew and I decided that we needed some coke. We'd just been drinking for a week straight and needed a little blow to counter the effects of the nonstop boozing. A plan was concocted for me to take the train up to Madrid and meet a friend of one of the crew who would sell me some stuff, and I'd bring it back to Marbella for all to enjoy. We took up a collection, and I probably had a few thousand dollars to spend. I've never particularly been a drug person, but it was the 1980s, I did as much coke as the next guy, and being from New York, I thought I had some street smarts. I was getting a little stir-crazy and was up for the adventure. I can't remember why Britt didn't talk me out of it; she usually reined in some of my crazier behavior and stopped me from getting a motorcycle when it was so popular in LA. Rod Taylor knew nothing about this; he was old school and wouldn't have understood the whole blow thing. So one morning, I took the train into Madrid, followed the directions, met some Spanish guy, and bought a few grand worth of decent coke. The guy who met me was a friend of someone in the crew. He recognized me in a crowded street and approached. I made it back to Marbella the same night without a hitch and divvied up the goods among the investors. I'm sure I did a little on the train to make the scenery even more interesting.

On a different night, Rod invited Britt and me to dinner at a restaurant in another town miles up the coast owned by a friend of his, a former British boxer. I don't know his name, weight class, or certification; there were quite a few of these guys who moved to Spain in the '60s and '70s—he was one of them. The place had framed posters from his fights on the walls along with signed boxing gloves and pictures of him with some famous fighters and celebrities who had been to his restaurant over the years. This guy was a real Cockney pug, and you could tell he must have had dozens of pro fights—a lot of them he must've been on the wrong end of; he was pretty punchy. He more than likely had trained and sparred in a gym behind a pub somewhere in East London. He looked like he had broken his nose ten times and carried himself like a guy who had been in the ring most of his life. He had a deep tan, wore an ill-fitting tuxedo, and bossed around his staff, who probably hated him behind his back. Rod was naturally a blustery guy, and when he got together with his boxer buddy, they shadowboxed each other, roughhoused, and were really loud and animated, all the while drinking and talking about old fighters they both knew. The difference was that Rod Taylor was a world-traveled gentleman and movie star who boxed a little and liked the sport and liked to drink; the restaurant owner was a bully type who fought for a living and retired with a little dough to open this place in Spain. He enjoyed socializing and sharing cocktails with his patrons—he regaled them with tales of the colorful world of European boxing in the 1950s and 1960s. Many of the loyal customers were also flat-nosed, tough characters who retired to Spain in the 1970s after working for various firms around London.

We had a fantastic dinner. The proprietor ordered everything, barking at his waiters and busboys the whole night. He sat with us and ate and drank the same things every step of the way. He would get up every few minutes to sit at other tables, talking very loudly, everything punctuated with air punching and boisterous, drunken laughter. Local seafood delicacies and meat and poultry dishes came and went, as did many bottles of expensive-looking wine that he ordered. Each time, he did the whole drill of sniffing the cork, telling a story of where the wine came from, and sipping a small amount before telling the waiter to bring new glasses and pour for everyone. This went on for a few hours. He barely spoke to me but tried to engage Britt and Carol in witty conversation. We all smiled and went along; it was his place. I could tell Rod was growing weary of this guy's act. After the final cakes and coffee, a special bottle of ancient brandy was brought out, and our pugilist host went on and on in his East End brogue about the rarity and pedigree of this brandy
más fina
.

Our host must have left the table again. The waiter brought the bill and hovered over the table. At some point Rod asked the waiter where his boss had gone; the waiter didn't quite understand and brought over the maître d', who spoke English. Rod was trying to explain that the owner was his friend and had invited us all to have dinner at his restaurant as his guests—there shouldn't be a bill. The maître d' was trying to tell us that his boss had left for the evening and he had been told to bring the bill after he had gone. This was getting uncomfortable, as it was becoming clear what had just happened. This old boxer pal of Rod's had invited him to his restaurant, told him to invite Britt, too, and after eating and drinking the best, most expensive stuff on his own menu and taking the photo op, skipped out on his own tab, sticking us with the check. Rod was a cool customer, but I could totally feel his embarrassment. Being a class act, he insisted on paying the bill himself. It had to have been a couple of thousand dollars at least with all that wine. Amex saves the day. He cursed the guy the whole time we waited for a taxi back to the hotel, the whole time we were in the taxi, and the whole next day. I agreed with him that the guy was a total jerk and no friend, but it was a fantastic dinner.

The weather had finally cleared up, and the filming carried on. The whole thing was behind schedule, and everyone worked pretty hard to get it all back on track. I continued goofing off around the set and hotel, going to the beach on my own, drinking with Rod, and generally having a great time while Britt worked. She had a day off, so the night before, we decided to do something fun. We got all dressed up in rockabilly-style tuxedo and evening gown, and after a good dinner, we went to a casino along the coast highway. This was a place right out of a James Bond movie, reminiscent of a Monte Carlo casino where the men wore tuxedos and gold jewelry and the women wore Dior gowns and diamonds. The whole place smelled of perfume, cologne, smoke, and liquor but, in this setting, not in a bad way; it was exactly what it was supposed to be. I think many of the patrons were the owners of the big luxury yachts moored in the marina. Now, we were never wealthy, but we always managed to have a good time, and we could hang in any circumstance from a punk rock club to this. This whole stay hadn't really been costing me much; we had an Amex card that we could get cash advances on, so that afternoon I went into the main town to the Amex office, and I signed for a $1,000 cash advance. I'm not a true gambler, but I loosely know the rules and how to play most of the games and used to enjoy it once in a while. I have a good memory of Brian and me wearing ten-gallon cowboy hats and shooting craps on a spontaneous trip to Vegas. Roulette is the most fun to play with someone else and also is the easiest game to play while partying. Not so much strategy is involved, and you can last a long time with a little money by making small bets and spreading the chips around the table. If you're there to have the experience and social part of gambling, it's the best game. We were there for a while, gambling a little, drinking, soaking up the atmosphere, and I had an “I can't believe I'm from Massapequa and now I'm here” moment, which is always a good shot.

We had been playing the number seventeen all night. The Cats had had a big hit song with “She's Sexy & 17,” and it seemed like a lucky number to bet on. All of a sudden it came up. We had a stack of chips right on the number and a few surrounding it, so it paid off pretty well. We kept playing seventeen and it hit again and then again. I don't know the odds, but it came up three times in a row. There was much hooting and hollering and congratulations in a few languages; a few people had bet with us on the third time, so some good champagne appeared. I tipped the croupier and waiters—I had a bunch of new friends. I excused myself to the gents' a few times to top up my buzz. I was in my rockabilly tux. Jim … Slim Jim … it was all fine.