Crane (45 page)

The company shot several scenes at the long-shuttered Ambassador Hotel in the mid-Wilshire district. The Ambassador was where Robert Kennedy was assassinated, and it housed the most popular nightclub of its day, the Cocoanut Grove. Leslie and I walked through the once-luxurious showplace, imagining Barbra Streisand, Nat King Cole, or Sammy Davis Jr. on the darkened stage performing for Los Angeles’s elite. My mom and dad had attended many glamorous openings at the renowned venue during his radio days. Now, it felt like Leslie and I were Shelley Duvall and Jack Nicholson at the Overlook Hotel on the set of
The Shining.

One morning during a casting call for some of the minor roles in the upcoming scenes, Schrader peered out of his office with a devilish grin. “Hey, Bob,” he yelled, motioning me into his office.

I had no hint of what was coming my way.

“There’s this interviewer in the film from a Christian magazine who’s going to interview your dad about what makes his life and career successful.” Schrader paused. “I want you to play it.”

I immediately flashed on Barry Van Dyke. I wasn’t sure I could give Schrader what he wanted, but I thought it would be a great experience. And how could I possibly fuck it up? I was going to play a magazine writer interviewing my dad. A little surreal but fun, I thought. Besides, in the postproduction phase, the film editor, Kristina Boden, would obviously edit the scene in favor of Greg Kinnear. I had nothing to lose. “Sure,” I said.

Recalling my endless repeats of Kevin Costner’s dialogue helping John Candy rehearse his
JFK
scene, I ran my five lines over and over in my head until I couldn’t remember them at all, but hell, I was a veteran. After all, I’d held my own with Chevy Chase ad-libbing on the radio, with John Candy in
Delirious
(Candy: “Hi, Bob.” Crane: “Hi, Jack.”), and with Dave Thomas on
SCTV
(no dialogue). I’d faced John Carpenter in court, Nicholson and Beatty backstage at the Academy Awards, and Koko the signing gorilla in front of her jealous four-hundred-pound mate, Michael. This would be a piece of cake. In casting me, Schrader showed his confidence in me, and I was damn sure I wasn’t going to let him or Kinnear down.

So on a beautiful Southern California Sunday morning in January, the
hair department removed my beard and shortened my locks to create an extremely conservative 1960s look. The wardrobe department kitted me out in a baggy dark suit, white shirt, and diagonally patterned tie with metal clasp. The makeup department coated my face with foundation and powder, deciding to remove my eyeglasses because they were from the wrong decade and would reflect the lights and camera. I felt exhilarated and completely naked. Plus, because I’d worn glasses since I was five years old, my visual inadequacy enhanced the intense irrationality of what I was experiencing. It certainly brought new meaning to the film’s title.

I walked to the hotel swimming pool set, shook hands with Schrader and Kinnear, and exchanged a few words with a
Premiere
magazine writer covering the shoot. I was pretty nervous until I sat down in a poolside chair facing Kinnear. Then I said to myself, “Fuck it,” and entered my version of a method acting state where I was just going to be in the moment. I told myself, “Listen. Don’t think about your dialogue. Just listen to what the other person is saying and play off of that.”

It seemed to me the crew perked up a bit at this next setup. All involved in the production worked their asses off fifteen hours a day, and as far as I was concerned, the talent level made up for the relatively small budget. The picture looked terrific so far. But now a living, breathing genetic remnant of the number one character name on the daily call sheet was in their midst. Kinnear and I ran the lines once with the camera pointed at me. Schrader would get my shot out of the way first and work with his star next. The set grew quiet. There were some final lighting adjustments. The assistant cameraman again measured the distance between the camera lens and my pancaked punim.

“Everyone settle,” the assistant director yelled. “Quiet, please. No movement.”

My heart was racing.

Disconnected voices chimed in. “Roll sound.”

My heart skipped a beat. Concentrate, De Niro, concentrate.

“Speed.”

A clapboard displaying the scene number and take snapped inches from my face. “Action!” Schrader barked.

I was playing a journalist attending a
Hogan’s Heroes
press junket at a hotel. Crane (Kinnear) and the interviewer (me) sat poolside, Crane periodically checking out the female sunbathers. I fiddled with my reel-to-reel tape recorder as I held a microphone toward Kinnear. The interviewer
wanted details from the
Hogan’s Heroes
star about balancing career and family life.

Interviewer: “What’s your secret?”

Crane: “Three simple words: don’t make waves.”

Interviewer: “You’re a fortunate man.”

Crane: “Yes, I am.”

“Cut,” Schrader yelled. “We’re going again.”

I had contributed the “don’t make waves” line to the script, referring to my dad’s philosophy of life, a clueless but affable world where everyone said yes and stood aside. I looked Kinnear in the eye and listened to his words as if it were the first time I’d ever heard them. Schrader knew of my years of interviewing celebrities for magazines and books and knew I was perfect for the small role. More important, the producers would now be able to list “Bob Crane Jr.” as the interviewer in the credit roll and maybe get a nibble or two from some more attentive members of the press. Sorry, Scotty, but I had nothing to do with the credit.

Schrader didn’t give me any direction. I couldn’t be directed. I’m not an actor. A couple more takes and the camera turned around on Greg Kinnear. Since I was now off camera I decided to take my jacket off. Big mistake. The glare on Kinnear from my white shirt was like a klieg light. Nice going, Bobby. I could hear John Candy laughing somewhere in the firmament. With the pressure off me I could relax and just enjoy Kinnear’s transformation into my dad—the smile, the wiseass wit, the good looks, the seeming self-assurance. Kinnear was perfect.

Thus I faced “my dad” armed with the tools of my trade, a tape deck and mike. I had spent three years putting together the
Jack Nicholson: Face to Face
book and had written for
Oui
magazine before my dad’s death, but unfortunately he had missed my work for
Playboy
and my later books. He had missed my career. Now, I hoped he was witness to the ultimate Fellini Excursion—his real-life son interviewing him, via Greg Kinnear, saying his real words (“Don’t make waves”) from my script notes in front of a director (Schrader) whose script (
Taxi Driver
) had amazed us one evening in a Westwood theater long, long ago. Even Fellini himself would have been impressed by the magnitude of this Fellini Excursion.

The film wrapped after a few more weeks of shooting. The actors and crew were spent. Patti, Scotty, and their attorneys were now throwing stun grenades at the Sony Pictures legal department in an attempt to keep
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permanently in the can. To show his appreciation for my contributions,
which I had been giving gratis, Paul Schrader paid me $20,000 out of his own pocket. Tom Bernard, the principal of Sony Pictures Classics, the distributor of
Auto Focus,
invited me to tag along on part of the movie’s publicity tour. The fact that I had written for several first-tier publications as well as having spent years as John Candy’s publicist weighed heavily in their decision to utilize “Bob Crane Jr.”

Leslie and I attended press screenings in Los Angeles. One of them was crashed by Scotty and his model-wannabe wife, Michelle. It was the first time we had seen each other since Dad’s funeral, twenty-four years earlier. He appealed to me to intercede so they could get into the screening, but I refused. They were ushered out by security. This exact scenario would repeat itself like a bad acid flashback a couple of weeks later at a screening in New York.

I was in no frame of mind to offer Scotty an olive branch. It would be too hypocritical. There had been too much artillery launched between the two families, and the situation would only escalate over the coming months.
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didn’t reflect Patti’s vision of her life with my dad, and she and Scotty would tell as many people as would listen the “real story.” No producer would touch their script. It had always been
Generalissima Patti’s way or the firing squad. In this case, Sony Pictures disarmed them. The studio had a film to sell to the public, but Patti and Scotty were about to ignite their counterpress offensive from their West Coast trench.

I had been impressed with Paul Schrader’s filmmaking.
Auto Focus
was edgy; it was devoid of humor but a decently told tale chronicling the era when the sexual revolution started to roll. The performances, the look, the soundtrack, all worked cohesively. In the days of double features
Auto Focus
and
Carnal Knowledge
with Jack Nicholson would have made the perfect double bill, serving up the American sexual awakening from the 1950s through the 1970s with a sizable side of dysfunctional male ego. I was able to put aside any arguments or quibbles I’d had regarding story points or liberties taken by the film’s artists and stand back and praise the film on a purely cinematic level.
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was a film my dad and I would have gone to see in Westwood in the ’70s. It and
Hogan’s Heroes
represented the most important creative projects my dad was ever affiliated with. Leslie and I saw
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four times, including at the Toronto Film Festival, where I appeared on a panel with Schrader, Kinnear, and Dafoe. I also made the rounds in New York, appearing on ABC’s
The View
(with other guests director Michael Moore, Sean Hannity, and O. J. Simpson’s attorney Johnny Cochran). Judging by their comments and questions, it seemed the
View
’s cast members already had their views made up.

Joy Behar: “What we didn’t know was offscreen Bob Crane indulged in a reckless hobby of filming himself engaged in various sex acts and orgies, all of which is now the subject of a new movie,
Auto Focus.
”

Lisa Ling: “So your father actually showed you X-rated pictures when you were young. How old were you and what was your reaction?”

Meredith Vieira: “How would you describe his sexuality? You’re an adult now looking back. Was it a healthy sex drive, overly sexed, sexaholic, pervert?”

Star Jones: “I saw the movie and I found it depressing and pathetic. That someone would look for that kind of acceptance in sex constantly.”

Leslie had warned me. Sex sells. Or was it, I wondered, that the hosts were really fans and admirers of my dad who felt they had been let down by their hero and were hostile as a result? Why was it that Pam Anderson, Colin Farrell, Paris Hilton, and many other young actresses and actors could build their careers by “leaking” self-produced sex tapes? It was de
rigueur for a certain kind of star-making machinery in Hollywood, but my dad was being tarred and feathered for it, even though he never intended his films for public consumption.

Joy Behar: “He was a sex addict before his time. Nowadays, we realize there is a sexual addiction. People go into rehab for this … the movie is really sick to watch. Very entertaining, however. … You’re a consultant on this movie, Robert. Why do you want to get yourself involved with this, expose your father for a pervert or some kind of sex addict?”

That was the best pitch they’d thrown me. I took my best cut.

“Because already the second family brought out a website that I’m opposed to. I think it’s awful. … Paul Schrader was doing this film, and you either join or you don’t. It was going to be made. … I gave him my two cents’ worth on behalf of the first family. … I think my dad would have been really happy with Greg Kinnear. Greg nails the essence of my dad. … My dad would be proud to be in a Paul Schrader film … after I saw
Taxi Driver
with my dad … he looked at me and said, ‘God, those are the kinds of movies I’d love to be in.’ … The movie [
Auto Focus
] is an hour and forty-five minutes long. My dad’s life was a little longer than that. He had a great first marriage to my mom … it ran out of gas after twenty years … it was a Donna Reed family life.”

Joy Behar concluded the segment by hitting the ball out of the park herself. “Except for one little, tiny thing he was perfect. He was also very funny.”

My armpits were damp. Backstage, Leslie looked into my eyes and kissed me. She didn’t say, “I told you so.” She knew the importance of the trip to New York—I was speaking on behalf of my family—playing Red Adair, fighting fire with fire, standing up for my dad when it seemed like he had become an easy target for the press and Patti’s scandal sheet. My next stop was Fox News’
The O’Reilly Factor.
O’Reilly didn’t waste any time on pleasantries.

Bill O’Reilly: “This is not for children. … Let’s face it, your father wasn’t the perfect husband. He’s running around, jumping on anything that moves, photographing it, and … reveling in his debauchery. … He has a mental illness, don’t you think? … Your father was basically a pervert. … The basic theme of the movie is these two guys [my dad and Carpenter] are out of control and your father gets murdered. … I don’t think your father was real popular in a lot of circles for what he did. Do you respect your father?”