I was fortunate to escape the fate of the many young American men who were killed, injured, or, like my American Graffiti castmate Paul Le Mat, traumatized by their time serving overseas. I took that folded-up notice out of my pocket and tore it into pieces.
At USC, I hedged my bets about my future. I enjoyed taking classes, in particular one that was devoted to reading classic books, plays, and stories, and then watching and analyzing their film adaptations: The Grapes of Wrath, Summer and Smoke, An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge. The last is an Ambrose Bierce story that the French director Robert Enrico turned into an Oscar-winning film short. It inspired me to adapt another Bierce story, “A Horseman in the Sky,” about a Union soldier who kills a Confederate spy—who turns out to be the soldier’s own father.
Cheryl’s dad was a gifted amateur photographer and documentarist who owned an early 16 mm Bolex, a Swiss camera that he carried with him when he climbed Mount Fuji in 1947. After a tutorial, he lent me the Bolex, which came with three Zeiss lenses that were perfect for capturing the period look I was going for. We shot the film in Malibu Canyon. Dennis Weaver’s son Robby played the Union soldier and Dad played the Confederate.
But after the positive experience of American Graffiti, I decided to keep on acting, lest my trail go cold like it had when I turned down those Bonanza and Mod Squad jobs in the late ’60s. It’s not like any prime parts were coming my way, though. One of the few decent ones I got was in a forgettable exploitation thriller theatrically released as Happy Mother’s Day, Love George and later retitled Run Stranger, Run. No matter what it was called, those titles alone are red flags, should you wish to hunt down the movie and watch it.
The actor Darren McGavin directed the movie, which was set in a sleepy New England fishing village. I played a drifter named Johnny who returns to this town in search of the father he never knew—a different kind of role for me. I barely remember the plot, except that my character got blamed for a series of gory murders that had actually been committed by his teenage cousin, played by Tessa Dahl, the daughter of Patricia Neal and Roald Dahl.
For such a tawdry movie, we had a surprisingly strong cast. Darren used his charm and charisma to bring his actor friends on board and will the movie into existence, setting an example that I would emulate a few years later, when I began trying to launch my own passion projects. Neal herself was in it alongside Tessa, as was the singer Bobby Darin, and, just a year removed from winning an Oscar for her astonishing performance as a lonely Texas housewife in The Last Picture Show, the great Cloris Leachman.
Cloris was to play my mother, a diner owner who had long ago given up Johnny for adoption. Before I was awarded the role, I was told by my agent that Cloris wanted to meet with me for a read-through, just to make sure that the chemistry was there. I was given her address and a time to report for the meeting.
On the designated day, I left my dorm room and drove to Cloris’s house. I arrived at the front door to find a note taped on it. It read: MEETING WILL BE IN THE BACKYARD. COME ON IN.
As I entered, I expected to hear voices: Darren McGavin, Cloris, maybe some other people involved in the production. But all I encountered was silence and empty rooms. Finally, through the back door, I caught a glimpse of Cloris, completing some laps in her pool and then pulling herself out of the water. She saw me and waved me over.
Cloris was, at the time, forty-seven years old. She had an amazingly taut, athletic body. I know this because she was wearing nothing but an extremely skimpy black bikini and was dripping wet, and in no hurry to dry off or get dressed. “Ron, hello!” she said, flashing that broad, luminous grin for which she was known. “Can I get you an iced tea?”
I accepted her offer. But first, she told me that she had just wanted to meet with me one-on-one, to make sure that we would hit it off. I was starting to feel nervous and uncomfortable. Then Cloris asked me to follow her into the kitchen, sashaying in her bikini bottom while I stared but tried not to really stare. It occurred to me in this moment that she had won an Academy Award for playing a middle-aged woman who had an affair with a teenager.