Digressing: I was in Portugal, at one of Jerry Mason’s famous library shoots. Jerry was a good friend, a talented no-nonsense advertising and sports photographer who would have been a lot more visible and successful had he thrown the temperament and indulged in the bullshit of so many celebrity photographers of that time. Every year, at least once, Jerry assembled a team of models and took them to an exotic or interesting location where he shot stock pictures which photo libraries sold for ads and promotions.
This year he chose a beautiful castelo with terraces, patios and a huge pool. I lazed around while Jerry, his assistants and the models went to work. An aside: Jerry was a funny, charming personality, not excessively educated academically but worldly wise and dialled in. He had served his National Service in the navy and, I believe, came to photography by accident. He wore cowboy boots, a Western-buckled belt, had a slight overbite and an almost spectacular nose. Nothing in his appearance hinted at the extraordinary charisma that charmed us all and bewitched so many beautiful women. He was a gentleman, great company, generous and always optimistic. I miss him.
Jerry and the models were somewhere on the property quick-changing an astonishing range of costumes, some classic and some provocative, and I was lounging by the pool with a drink. The phone rang in the house. I ignored it. I had joined the party at the last minute and no on knew I was here. Actually, divorced and between relationships, I was renting the small apartment above Jerry’s London studio, which we nicknamed The Transit Lounge because so many of us passed through it from one life to another. I only mention this because very few people knew where I was parked. The ringing phone, therefore, would not have been for me.
But it was, one of Jerry’s harried assistant telling me that Jules Bass was on the line.
My first thought was how the hell did he know where I was – and how did he get the castelo’s number (a mystery I never solved and for some reason I never asked Jules); my second thought was what could he possibly want?
I had met Jules a couple of years earlier when I was contracted for seven days to rewrite a Movie Of The Week Rankin Bass had sold – a take on The Sins Of Doran Gray where Dorian was a female model and the picture was her showreel.
Jules had hired a friend of mine to direct. He had wanted to modify the screenplay and recommended that I do the work. I too was not impressed by the script but had no idea what I could do with it in seven days. However, Jules and the director weren’t really looking for my ideas. Jules and my friend descended on each page as it emerged from the typewriter and as often as not would have notes scribbled all over it before I had finished the next page. I’ve never seen the movie but if it’s any good, none of it is my responsibility. That’s how I met Jules, who was very hospitable and introduced me to sushi, for which I am almost as grateful as I am for ThunderCats. And the director introduced me to Gregory Peck, for whom I wrote a Capra-eque monologue. What an amazing experience for a neophyte.
Jules called: “We’ve sold an animated show and I need some scripts.” Me: “Jules, I don’t know anything about animation.” It was true. The only animation I had ever written was for a Firestone tire instructional, funnily enough directed by the same friend who brought me into Dorian. “Just get over here.” “I can’t ‘just get over’ there. I have stuff I have to do here.” “What stuff?” And, come to think of it, what did I have that I couldn’t put aside? “Come over and see how it goes.” Put like that, it seemed like a trip of a couple of weeks and who would pass up a free two weeks in New York? But one last question: “How much are you paying?”
“Two thousand dollars for 30 minutes. 20-23 on the page.”
I turned him down.
More next week…