I'll Have Some Hammer With My Fill-up Please: A Letter From Hollywood by Steve Latshaw

Guest Post from Hollywood
by Steve Latshaw

Fred "the Hammer" Williamson, in a recent photo.

Robin writes: Steve Latshaw has been working in the film business since I knew him at WESH-TV in Orlando. It didn't take him long to see that his fortunes could be found out Hollywood way, and off he zoomed to California, where he, in very short order, became a successful screenwriter. One of the interesting things about living where he does, surrounded by the stuff that dreams are made of, is that you see the most interesting people, even when you're just runnin' around ... )

Only in Hollywood
by
Steve Latshaw

I had a weird celebrity sighting the other day. This happens a lot in Hollywood, particularly in Toluca Lake, which is my part of the woods.

I live near Warner Brothers Studios, the Original Bob’s Big Boy (the one the Beatles visited in 1965) and the Lakeside Country Club, a golf course where Hollywood types like Bob Hope, Forrest Tucker, Mickey Rooney and famed Los Angeles KMPC-AM disc jockey Dick Whittinghill used to hang. It’s all very old Hollywood, even though it is technically on the Valley side of the hill, in Burbank ( mostly) and even though they call it Toluca Lake. The lake in Toluca is actually also the lake in Lakeside Country Club. In the old W.C. Fields short The Dentist (1932), you can see Fields, in a fit of rage, toss his caddy right into it.

W.C. Fields having a quiet chat with his caddy in The Dentist, on the shores of lovely Toluca Lake.

So, I was filling up the gas tank at my neighborhood Chevron in Toluca Lake... ooh ... here’s another place to digress. In the Jerry Lewis movie The Errand Boy (1961) you can see Jerry himself, in a convertible, on Riverside, drive character actress Kathleen Freeman right in front of that Chevron, before turning into the Lakeside Car Wash, wherein much comedy ensues. The car wash still looks the same. The Chevron does not: in 1961 it looked like it would fit on the set of Mayberry RFD. Had a fruit stand in front. Today it’s all steel and glass and convenience store with ultra modern pumps and giant iced buckets of Red Bull energy drink.

So anyway, here we are, some forty-eight years after Jerry and Kathleen drive past that Chevron on Riverside and I’m there, pumping the fuel into my trusty Toyota Tundra pickup. And who should be fueling at the pump next to me? Why, Fred “The Hammer” Williamson, it was.

Fred "the Hammer" Williamson in the eponymous movie Hammer.

This man is one of the greatest and longest-running action heroes in movie history. Starting as a football player; then a football player in the 1970 movie M.A.S.H. (he also directed the football sequences); then star of lots of TV shows including "Julia" (1969-71) where he played Diahann Carroll’s boyfriend. Shortly thereafter, he became an international action star in such classic Blaxploitation films as Hammer (1972), Black Caesar (1973), That Man Bolt (1973), Hell Up In Harlem (1973), Three The Hard Way (1974), and all-star epics like Take A Hard Ride (1975) and the Italian World War II classic, Inglorious Bastards (1978)--Quentin Tarantino’s remake of that one is about to hit theaters.

The big guy in Robert Altman's M.A.S.H.

Fred Williamson continues to ride at the top of the star list and today, is the closest thing to John Wayne we have in movies. More recent viewers may remember his recent turns in From Dusk Till Dawn (1996) (as the cigar-chomping Vietnam vet turned vampire) and the 2004 film version of Starsky & Hutch. By the way, he got that “Hammer” nickname because he came down on his opponents like one.

Promo photo From Dusk Till Dawn.

So there he is next to me, filling up his red Hummer. For a moment, I think about calling him Fred “The Hummer” Williamson but sense that he might just kick my ass for that crack. But then I remember I still have a connection to this movie icon. Thanks to my pal and mentor, director Fred Olen Ray, I once had the opportunity to write a couple of Fred Williamson movies. One was called Submerged (2000), and involved the intentional crash-landing of a private plane in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. The movie was filled with intrigue and spies and (as you can imagine) lots of water. Fred played the driving U.S. Navy Commander who leads the effort to rescue the downed plane.

The other movie was a pure action-fest--a shoot-‘em-up filled with every war movie cliché I could think of. It was called Active Stealth (1999) and starred Fred as an Army Ranger Colonel opposite Daniel Baldwin.

Williamson with Daniel Baldwin in Active Stealth.

And so my mind wanders … back to 1999 and a day on the set of that film. I got to enjoy lunch with Mr. Fred Williamson and Mr. Fred Ray out at the old Van Nuys airport (it was doing military duty as an Army Ranger base). Fred Williamson has also been the director of many of his films—so it made for a memorable meal, just listening to The Two Freds top each other with stories about how they had “stolen shots” (getting film scenes without the proper permits) and pulled off amazing cinematic tricks for no money and in very little time.

Fred in his Blaxploitation period, a very successful one it was, too.

So back to the other day, and Fred Williamson and me buying gas at the Chevron. I paid for mine inside, then came out looking for him, feeling compelled to just say “Hi!” Unfortunately, he was back in his Hummer and gone before I had a chance. Oh, well.

So, not fifteen minutes later, I drove down the street to the Toluca Ralph's shopping center and went to Starbucks for coffee-to-go-with the cigars I was planning on smoking during the morning's road trip up the Coast.

Great minds think alike. I'll be darned if Fred "the Hammer" wasn't in Starbucks too, sitting down, relaxing with a coffee. An associate was with him, going over details on an upcoming film project.

I ordered my Venti-whatever-the-hell-you’ve-got-in-the-pot-for-under-$2.00, then hovered near Fred and his companion. I was waiting for a lull in their conversation so I could say something clever and cool.

So here comes the lull: Fred turns and sips his coffee, then sees me. He's got to be in his late sixties (editor’s note: he was born in 1938) but easily looks ten to fifteen years younger, in person.

An awkward silence ensues, so I speak.

STEVE: Mr. Williamson?

(This is how old school polite the guy is... he's in a tan suit, no tie—and I'm in road trip shorts and a black t-shirt. But HE stands right up, respectful to ME, if you can believe it, and shakes my hand).

FRED: Why, yes. What can I do for you?
(I go on.)

STEVE: My name is Steve Latshaw. A few years back I wrote a couple of your films.

FRED: Really? Which ones?

STEVE: Well, one of them was called Active Stealth.

He grinned at the recollection. Obviously he was fond of the film. He had a damned good part. Or maybe he was pretending to remember it. Nice of him, either way.

FRED: Yes... I remember. Good movie. I played an army officer. Captain Reynolds.

I pause for a minute, suddenly not remembering what the hell I was going to say. I’m taken aback by the guy’s graciousness. I’m still a punk movie geek from the Midwest corn fields. He doesn’t have to be nice to me, let alone stand up to hear me chatter. But he has. And he does. So I better say something.

So I went on to talk about how he, Fred Williamson, had taught me an important writing lesson earlier in my career. Back in April of 1999, the first day on the Active Stealth set, I had been introduced as the writer to Mr. Williamson by producer Andrew Stevens. Andrew, son of Stella (she’s in the original Nutty Professor (1963) with Jerry Lewis and Girls! Girls! Girls! (1962), with Elvis). Andrew himself is a former actor (The Bastard (1978)) and had now become a successful producer. On this picture, he was doing double duty as producer/actor, as a favor to the unit. And everyone liked to have him around because it was always a bet to see how fast Andrew could get through his lines. Nearly always in one take.

Anyway, we were standing outside the 20th Century stages, off Highway 170 in the Valley, where there was a standing submarine set. That set, crowded as it was, was being used as both the bridge of Captain Stevens' aircraft carrier (you can also enjoy this set and this footage in the recent Wesley Snipes feature The Marksman (2005)) and as Williamson's communications room. Anyway, Andrew introduces me to Fred “the Hammer” as the movie’s writer. Fred raises an eyebrow. Andrew grins and walks away.

Fred eyes me for a minute. Then he says: “You’re the writer, eh? I want to talk to you.” He quickly pulls me aside.

“Mr. Latshaw, have you read this script?”

I try to make a joke. “I’m hoping to get around to that…”

Fred hands me his “sides”—a miniature printout of his scenes and lines for that day. He points to a particularly wordy paragraph I’d written. “Read that. Out loud. All at once, without taking a breath. Like a cold reading.”

Cold readings are auditions where the auditioning actor has never seen the script. Ever.

So I clear my throat and read the dialog. Wow. It was like a never-ending compound sentence, a paragraph long. And it felt like I’d never read it before. What part of my ass had I pulled this from? Cold reading, Latshaw. Camera… speed… ACTION!

So I read this:

"You stop interfering with the progress of the insertion phase and provide the requested air support for my ground team or I will run this up the chain to central command so fast it will make your stars and bars spin and you lose your breakfast on a regular and most annoying basis."

You get the idea. Anyway, I stumble through it, gasping for breath, looking and sounding nothing like a hard-as-nails military officer. And sounding everything like the novice writer I was.

I nodded. “Um,” (I cleared my burning throat). “ Too many words.”

He nodded back. "You screwed it up. Me, I’m up there on the set, camera in my face. I can’t afford to screw it up. I have to say that line, perfectly, while the crew is waiting and we are burning film."

He went on to good-naturedly recommend I read all of my dialog out loud to myself, first, last and always, before locking the script.

“Read every line out loud. It may read OK in the script but saying the words gives you a sense of how they feel, where the actor has to breathe, etc. Just read them out. And if you still like them, then leave them in.”

I nodded, listening carefully, wishing I’d been taking notes. And then, surprisingly, he said some nice things about the script and his character. He liked the twists and turns and thought I had a lot of talent. And then Andrew returned. Fred patted me on the back and they headed back to set, as Andrew began chattering away about something, as usual, a mile-a-minute.

So back to the future. Back to Present Day, Starbucks, Toluca Lake, Pass Avenue. Saturday. I’m still standing there with Fred Williamson. I tell him this story and he laughs, remembering the encounter, remembering those heavyweight lines.

I told him I'd promised myself I'd thank him if I ever ran into him again. He laughed again and said, "It worked for you, then? You learned something?"

I nodded. "Yes. I learned something. And thanks. A great pleasure meeting you again."

He smiled. "Me, too. Take care."

A nice and unexpected little moment. Only in Hollywood.



Steve Latshaw on IMDB

Fred "the Hammer" Williamson on IMDB
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Uncle Bob, My Favorite Vampire

A Tribute by Steve Latshaw



Robert Quarry, the tall, charismatic actor with a velvet voice known for his iconic horror roles as Count Yorga and the Deathmaster, died Friday in Woodland Hills. He was 83.

I knew him, thanks to the generosity of my friend, Fred Olen Ray, who, apart from directing some of Quarry’s memorable films, made Uncle Bob part of his family. Quarry was always a wonderful, delightful, funny presence, whether on set or sitting across the table over drinks and dinner.

An intellectual with an IQ of 168 and a Lifemaster at Bridge, Quarry also found time to author a well-received cookbook. A gourmet chef who studied at the Cordon Blue in Manhattan, his Wonderfully Simple Recipes for Simply Wonderful Food sold over 60,000 copies after its debut in 1988.

He was born in Santa Rosa, California, on November 3, 1925. Brainy enough to have finished high school by the age of fourteen, he was already speeding into the world of theater. By the early forties he was getting steady radio work on series like Dr. Christian. And being a Santa Rosa resident, he made his un-credited screen debut in the classic 1943 thriller Shadow of a Doubt when director Alfred Hitchcock brought his production unit to town for location shooting. A stint in the Army Corps of Engineers followed, with Quarry maintaining his ties to show biz by producing The Hasty Heart with a G.I. cast.

After the war and well into the 1950s, traveling between New York and Hollywood, Quarry maintained his radio and Broadway schedule in between appearances on such TV shows as The Lone Ranger, Philco Television Playhouse, Mike Hammer, and the Hallmark Hall of Fame. He broke into feature films in 1955, appearing opposite Clark Gable and Susan Hayward in Soldier of Fortune. He then played opposite Robert Stack and Robert Ryan in Sam Fuller’s House of Bamboo and had a small but showy role in A Kiss Before Dying, with Robert Wagner. After appearing in two films opposite Paul Newman, W.U.S.A and Winning, Quarry found himself on the threshold of stardom.

Low budget, tongue-in-cheek horror films had caught a wave in the hip seventies. Robert Quarry was hot. His character: Count Yorga, Vampire. His unique take on the implausible—he played the Count with all the menace of Christopher Lee, the charm of Bela Lugosi and with a certain wink and a nod to the audience—made Count Yorga a big hit. It spawned a sequel and put Quarry on his way.



But, after the string of hits ended with Madhouse, Quarry suffered a car accident that damaged his health and career. By the early eighties, work was hard to find until Quarry met a young filmmaker named Fred Olen Ray. Ray had grown up on a healthy diet of Quarry’s kind of horror and was determined to bring him back to star status.

And that he did. After supporting roles in two of Ray’s features (Cyclone and Commando Squad) Quarry returned to star status in Ray’s Sci Fi serial send-up Phantom Empire, opposite Jeffrey Combs and Sybil Danning. The surprise video hit featured Quarry returning in his adventurer costume from Dr. Phibes Rises Again (in which he starred opposite Vincent Price) and parodying himself to the limit in what has become a cult classic. He made the productions enjoyable, preparing gourmet meals for cast and crew. Much work followed, as a younger generation of filmmakers sought out Quarry’s services to lend a dash of class, elegance and humor to their films.

I have some personal memories of him. I consider myself very lucky to have been invited into the circle of director Fred Olen Ray 's extended family of friends. I always called him Mr. Quarry—out of respect. And here's another reason why:

Some years ago, the summer of 1990, I think, I was preparing to come out to California from Florida for a meeting with Fred. Accompanying me was a mutual friend, we’ll call Russ, also from Florida, and a partner on the project we were doing. Russ had been out the year before and had spent time on the Alienator set, hanging around with the drive-in movie actor and actress team Ross and Claire Hagen and also with Robert Quarry. We were all star-struck at Russ’ good fortune. But Russ had a warning. "Don't," he said. "Don't ever call him Uncle Bob!"

I looked at my friend, a little concerned. I could still see fear in his face from some horrific incident that must have happened on that Alienator set. I nodded. "Go on, what happened?"

Russ shook his head. "I called him Uncle Bob. Bad mistake."

Apparently, actress Dawn Wildsmith (Ray's wife at the time) had been the first to call him Uncle. It spread to the immediate family. Mr. Quarry sometimes lived with the Rays and would babysit Chris, one of Ray's sons.

Russ had visited the Rays at home that summer, parking his camper trailer outside the Ray residence (even running a power line off the Ray house—as well as using the showers, food, booze, and whatever was on the shelves). Apparently Russ had heard Uncle Bob this and Uncle Bob that and had assumed it was the preferred way of addressing Quarry.

So while visiting the set of Alienator, Russ noticed Quarry was working that day. It was a meal break. Everyone was exhausted. No one was really in the mood for chats with fans. Nonplussed, Russ grabbed a paper plate and, in true fan-boy style, approached Mr. Quarry, who was standing in the lunch line.

"Hey, Uncle Bob. Sign this for me, will ya?"

Quarry whirled around, took a long, hard look at him and said, "I am not your G-- damned Uncle!"

What my friend couldn't know was this wasn't cruelty: this was Mr. Quarry getting a laugh. And laughs he got. He had that hair trigger temper that was mostly show combined with a brilliant and very quick wit.

My friend, nevertheless, a sometimes overly enthusiastic autograph hound, slunk away.

It seems Quarry was very particular about who called him Uncle Bob. Only family was allowed that privilege. And Fred Olen Ray and his family were in that very select group. As the years went by, folks wore him down with the Uncle Bob thing and he eventually stopped objecting. But I stuck with calling him Mr. Quarry whenever we met. It felt right to me.

My fondest memory was a Christmas night at Fred’s. We’d all gathered for dinner. Mr. Quarry had struggled with heart problems in the last years, and was limited to his two beloved cigarettes per night. So, we were all out on the back porch, in the cold and wet, enduring misty rain, drinking our drinks and smoking our cigars as Uncle Bob puffed away for two hours, telling tall tales and true about Hollywood and his pals Howard Hughes, the Barrymores, Errol Flynn, Susan Hayward and especially catty stories about Vincent Price, his rival as a horror icon.

I came away from that evening with a bad case of bronchitis; but, every single cough was worth it. Here’s the wonderful thing and the key to this delightful man: whatever you called him, he always treated you as if he was your Uncle Bob. And, beyond the delightful films he left for us to enjoy, that is a treasure for the ages.

Steve Latshaw
Hollywood, California

Robert Quarry in his most popular dinner clothes.
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