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This feature was written solely by Dirk Benedict. The views and opinions expressed in it do not necessarily reflect those of Blockbuster.co.uk. We would be interested to hear what you think, please click here to send us feedback.
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I am sometimes asked for advice as to how to have a career in Hollywood, be it as an actor, director, writer, producer or, alas, as an agent. My answer is always the same: "Just remember, the first 25 years of waiting are always the toughest." Now certainly 25 years is a long time, and there still is the chance of finding success over night, depending on whom you spend the "over night" with, but my advice makes the point that it is a long hard slog to "make it" in Show biz, and sometimes 25 years is not an exaggeration but a really good story.
Long before there were Television shows called Battlestar Galactica or The A-Team, there was still the actor Dirk Benedict and he was alive and well, though not as well as he thought as cancer would soon come into his life, the survival of which would become the focus of his life...but this, like the fame of Television (also carcinogenic), was yet to come. The year was 1973. He had just finished starring opposite Gloria Swanson on Broadway in Butterflies Are Free and was only recently living in Los Angeles, starring in his first Hollywood film, SSSSS, with Strother Martin. How this all came to be was a bit of a miracle in itself and a tale for another day, but there he was, in Hollywood, going to work every day at Universal Studio playing a hapless young assistant to a mad scientist (Strother Martin) who was, unbeknownst to him (very 'hapless'), turning him into a snake. (The inspiration for Snakes on a Plane? Hmmmm? I wonder.) As fate would have it, as it often has in the life of Dirk Benedict...there was another film in pre-production at Universal. ('Pre-production' is the period prior to actual filming.) The Sting, it was called. Perhaps you've heard of it? How many Academy Awards? Five? Eight? Well, more than SSSSS anyway. But I digress, as is my wont.
In SSSSS, Strother played a mad scientist using me as his guinea pig, but in 'real life' he is a great guy, who takes me under his wing, trying to help me get comfortable (I never do) with the glitz and glamour of Hollywood after my years in gritty, in-your-face New York. I can see it is going to be a tough segue. But never mind, I'm co-starring, with Strother in my first Hollywood. Strother invites me to his home, (Where I meet Robert Blake. Another story for another time), invites me to his favorite restaurants and eventually invites me to come with him one Sunday afternoon to the Beverly Hills home of George Roy Hill. I know who George Roy Hill is. In fact, just a year or so prior, I had auditioned for him in New York for a film called, Slaughter House Five. It came down to a choice between Perry King and myself. Rent the film. I don't think that's me. Strother's invite brings back this memory. Never mind. I'm nervous, but this could be fun. George Roy has been on quite a roll lately. Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid; Slaughter House Five; Slapshot. Fun indeed. Lord knows I haven't made many friends in Los Angeles in the months I've been here. I'm shy by nature. Hate making plans, which you must do in Los Angeles if you want to meet anyone anywhere to do anything. Which involves hours of driving and looking for a place to park. Quite different from New York City, which is all public transported spontaneity. Further, my social life in LA is not being helped by the fact it is a city in which you are judged by what you drive. I drive a 1963, oxidized (puke) green, Nash Rambler. Cost me $500. Which is all I can afford, but in truth, I love the car. It has personality. Character. I sell it a year later for $600. Should have kept it. (Which is my wont.)
Anyway, the day of the Soiree', I am a little nervous as the wrought iron gates swing open, and I pull into George Roy Hill's palatial Beverly Hills Mansion in my puke green 1963 Nash Rambler and park it amongst a gaggle of Mercedes', BMW's, Jaguar's, Bentley's, Rolls Royce's...Aston Martin! Were it not for Strother, I'd probably be shown the servant's entrance. It isn't only my car that is in over its head. Never mind. I'm with Strother and Strother is one of George's favorite character actors who's appeared in several Paul Newman Films; Cool Hand Luke, Butch and Sundance, Slap Shot. Oh yeah. Paul Newman. Did I mention him? Neither did Strother. Seems, this palace, is not really George Roy's, but Newman's. George is just renting.
"Is Newman going to be here?" I ask.
"Yup." Holy cow, I think.
"Redford?" Cuz I know Newman and Redford go together like, Hope and Crosby, Fred and Ginger, Brando and Indian Causes....
"Don't know. He's finishing The Way We Were with Barbra. Might not be here."
Redford does come to the soiree. We hit it off, Bob and I. (Love of skiing, outdoors, horses...we skip politics.) He invites me to come visit him at his newly purchased place in Utah. Which I never do. Too shy. And Newman... well, I get to play pool with The Hustler himself. Funny thing. Everyone wants to shoot a little pool with him, for the obvious reason. And he's damn good too. Well, I hang back, as is my nature, just watching. And anyway I don't play pool. Then I hear,
"Hey kid, you wanna play?" Newman to me. Being nice? Sensing my shyness? Looking for an easy mark?
"Me? Oh. Ah...ah, uh...well, actually, I don't play. Pool." Can you believe? Like saying no to Fred when he asks you to dance cuz you "don't dance." (I did dance with Fred by the way, but that would be some years later and I DO dance!) Newman persists and I cave. We play. Naturally, I can't miss. The first four or five balls I stroke, smack. Right in. Newman leaning against the wall, sipping beer (always sipping beer in those days) stick in hand, "You hustling me kid?" Which got a big laugh. And broke the spell. I never made another ball. But I was part of the gang now.
During the winter we filmed SSSSS ('73) up until '75 and the beginning of my Kamikaze Cowboy years riding The Big C....I had carte blanche so far as visiting George Roy's (Newman's) house in Beverly Hills. I used to go in the afternoons, no one there (but maids, cooks, gardeners, pool men) and play the beautiful grand piano. I remember, many times, sitting playing, having forgotten time...and George Roy would walk in from the studio, from the chore of directing Newman/Redford all day. Exhausted. Worried that it wasn't going well. That he wouldn't be able to "keep the ball in the air."; that the film wouldn't "hold it's audience." Sometimes he would invite me to stay for dinner. Just the two of us. And I'd hear the stories of what was transpiring on the set. Redford complaining that he wasn't acting, just running all the time. (He does do a lot of running in the film.) George's advice, "If you can't be good, be fast." Cynical George. Irish, with a mean streak. I can handle it. And do. Oh the stories. Too many for here. For now. I once met a Hollywood starlet at one of these soiree's, Blondie I'll call her, and she thought me quite the cutie. Hanging with the likes of Redford, Newman. We make a date for the following Friday night. I pick her up at her swank Westwood penthouse apartment. In my 1963 Nash Rambler. Still puke green. Still stopping traffic, for all the wrong reasons. We walk out of the foyer, to where the car is waiting, door held open by The Doorman (also holding his nose, or am I imagining?).
Blondie stops in her tracks. Turns to me,
"You've got to be kidding."
"What? Oh. Yeah. That's my car. Got character, eh?"
"I wouldn't be caught dead in that car."
And she never was. We went to dinner in her brand new, Mercedes 280 SL convertible. Didn't bother me. I wasn't about to let a dispute over "wheels" come between me and my chance with Blondie. We did have our "romance". I fell in love of course, as is my wont. She fell out. I drove into the sunset in my...puke green, 1963 Nash Rambler. She would come back into my life when I became "famous" doing Battlestar Galactica¸ but then so did almost every other woman that I'd ever known. Intimately or otherwise. There's no aphrodisiac like the smell of fresh celebrity.
Late in '74, late in my time hanging out, a' la The Great Gatsby, at George Roy's rented Newman mansion, I am sitting around Paul's pool, as was my wont, chatting with George Roy. George has become a friend. (By Hollywood standards anyway.) I feel comfortable around him. Have gone flying with him in his bi-plane...he is now prepping for the film The Great Waldo Pepper, and will soon begin filming.
"Someday, someone should make a film about the real Butch and Sundance." I say.
"What the f*** does that mean?" Says George. He's pissed, but I've definitely caught his interest.
"George. Butch and Sundance is a fairy tale. A romance. Nothing to do with real life. The way two guys like that really are."
"That a fact? And just how are 'two guys like that'? Really?"
I can tell he's irritated. I screw my courage to its sticking point. Explain that I think there's a war against "masculinity"; that the whole feminist movement is part of this marginalization of men in our society; making fun of guys, "guy things", male behavior in general." Boys being boys" begins to mean "men being stupid". Some day all male characters in TV commercials and on TV shows will be clowns, buffoons, idiots who can't manage to brush their teeth without a woman to assist them. I tell him I think this feminization of America is well under way and his film fed into it by making these "bad guys", exactly the opposite...loveable and cute. (The bicycle riding montage with Newman.) I think Butch and Sundance are completely feminized and the film is really a love story between two...
George, waved me silent. He got the gist.
"Write it down and show it to me. This "real" Butch and Sundance."
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