1979 Robert Altman was shooting a film at the Don Cesar Resort Hotel in St. Pete Beach, Florida. To my surprise, he hired me to be the Assistant to the Director. Worked Jan 8 to Feb 19 1979,
I met Dick Cavett, Paul Dooley, Glenda Jackson, and Carol Burnett.
But the job ended when I spent two weeks in the hospital with a skull fracture.
In 1978, I was cast in three shows in a row at the St. Peterburg Little Theater: Camelot, You Can't Take It with You, and Rain.
Cast as Sadie Thompson, the lead in Rain, Rhonda Rhoades was beautiful, and an excellent actress. I fell in love with Rhonda and she for me, and at first, I didn't realize the depth of her drinking.
After Rain closed, we g0t married on January 1st, at midnight, so we'd make the papers. We did.
“Former WSUN Radio Public Affairs
Director, Lary Crews, married stylist, Rhonda Rhoades, just after midnight in a
Clearwater ceremony. Lary starts preproduction work on January 8 on the Robert
Altman film, Health, which will be shot at the Don CeSar Resort Hotel in St.
Petersburg Beach.”
So, the evening before Lauren Bacall was due to arrive for filming, Rhonda and I sat in a screening room with two dozen of Altman’s friends watching a film, A Perfect Couple, which starred Paul Dooley.
Glenda Jackson, Carol Burnett, and Dooley were on the other side of the room.
By this time, I had realized that Rhonda was an alcoholic. At the screening, marijuana had been passed around, and Rhonda already had gotten drunk at dinner.
After a while, Rhonda loudly made some negative comments about the film, and Altman whispered to a guy who came over and said, “Bob thinks you should take her home.”
As those in the room watched, I got her out of there as quickly as I could.
We walked into the humid night and crossed the street that separated the hotel from the parking lot. “C'mon, baby, let’s get you home,” I said.
Our car was parked in the first row of the lot, and she trotted across the street, digging in her purse. When I reached the car, she’d opened the door and was in the driver’s seat. I was standing outside the driver’s side door.
“I'm driving myself,” she said. She threw the door open; I suppose so she could slam it shut. The door hit me square in the stomach. I tumbled backward, my head hit something hard, and the moon went out.
I spent the next two weeks in the hospital with a skull fracture sustained when my head hit the red warning bar in the lot.
A few weeks later I divorced Rhonda Crews.
And I never got to meet Lauren Bacall.
Actor Paul Dooley, with whom I worked on 1979's Health, filmed by Robert Altman, was sharp and creative.
He gave me a script one day and said, "Read this. Tell me what you think."
Jules Feiffer had written a script, called Popeye.
"'Bob wants to film it in Malta. He wants Robin Williams for Popeye."
I'd met Shelley Duval in Houston in 1971 when she had her first acting role in Brewster McCloud.
I said to Paul. "He should get Shelley for Olive Oyl. She was born to play her."
Sadly, Shelley died at 75 in July 2024.
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In 1979, neither of us could have guessed that Bud would become world famous by inventing televisions Home Shopping Network.
In 1972, I spent two years at WJIM Radio in Lansing, Michigan as an evening news director.
In 1974-1979 I became the Pinellas County Bureau Chief at WSUN in St. Petersburg, Florida.
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Altman, Frank Barhydt, and Paul Dooley wrote the script during lunches with Monte Cristo sandwiches and wine in one of the two Don CeSar's penthouses.
I turned and a short woman with a kind smile shook my hand and said, “Hi. I’m Carol.”
Yes. It was. Carol Burnett, comedian, and actress.
We talked for a half-hour, and she was as nice as a neighbor.
Cavett's instructions to me:
"If a mob of teenage girls starts to surround me," he said, with impeccable timing, "Let them.”
He was a cool guy.
I had met him in 1970 in Houston and I was happy when he called me to be Assistant to the Director on preproduction of the film called Health.
Opened in the heyday of the Gatsby Era in 1928, Don CeSar Beach Hotel in St Pete Beach, Florida celebrated its 95th Anniversary on January 16th, 2023.
But for three months in 1979, Robert Altman's movie Health was shot at the Don CeSar, and I worked pre production From January 8th to February 20th.
Director Robert Altman, my boss on Health in 1979 said, “Someone I want you to meet.”
I turned and a woman with a kind smile shook my hand and said, “Hi. I’m Carol.”
Yes. It was. Carol Burnett, comedian, and actress.
We talked for a half-hour, and she was as nice as a neighbor.
The Pajama Game tells the story of a labor furor over a seven-and-a-half-cent pay raise at a pajama plant that complicates the course of true love for Sid Sorokin, the new factory superintendent, and Babe Williams, the feisty firebrand heading the Union Grievance Committee.
We had a great cast and to promote the show the whole cast showed up at the Gateway Mall and pretended to rehearse so we could sing a few songs.
1979 One of my tasks in Robert Altman's movie Health was to provide security for Dick Cavett as he ran on the beach.
His instructions to me: "If a mob of teenage girls starts to surround me," he said, with impeccable timing, "Let them.”
It was founded in 1926 by James Earl "Doc" Webb.
Dancing chickens, talking mermaids and ridiculous low prices made Webb’s City a beloved tourist attraction.
Finally on August 18, 1979, the main Webb’s City store in downtown St. Pete closed its doors to shoppers for the last time.
At its peak Webb's City had seventy-seven departments and covered about ten city blocks.
1979 at night. I stood outside the driver’s door.
Rhonda said, 'I'm driving myself.'
She threw the door open, to slam it shut.
It hit me square in the stomach.
I tumbled into the parking lot, hit something hard with my head and the moon went out.
I spent two weeks in the hospital with a skull fracture.
Bus Stop is a 1955 play by American playwright William Inge. Produced on Broadway, it was nominated for four Tony awards in 1956.
The play is set in a diner about twenty-five miles west of Kansas City. A freak snowstorm has halted the bus, and the eight characters (five from the bus) have a weather-enforced layover in the diner from about 1 am to 5 am.
Among the quasi-romantic relationships are Professor Lyman and Elma.
Elma Duckworth is intelligent, but naive and impressionable girl working as a waitress at the diner.
Dr. Gerald Lyman is a college philosophy professor who is articulate and charming but cannot hold a position, partially due to his resistance to any kind of authority, and partially due to his taste for young women. He also has a drinking problem.
I don't drink but I have played several alcoholic characters in plays (Bus Stop, Rain, and Anything Goes) and in one student film, The Grandfather Paradox.
