So, rather than toss the script for Eat My Dust! in the garbage, I called my agent, Bill Schuller, and told him that I wanted to meet with Mr. Corman. This pleased Bill, because the offer was a firm one, for good money: $75,000 for a four-week shoot, Corman’s top rate. He generally used no-name actors, so, by his standards, I was a good get.
On the day of the appointment, as I stood outside the building on the Sunset Strip where Corman kept his office, I was surprised to see Bill show up. He had been my agent since my childhood, a dashing man with a pencil mustache who now appeared small and diminished. “I’m coming in with you,” he said.
“No, Bill—I really want to do this alone,” I said. His face fell. I can’t blame him. Imagine having some twenty-one-year-old client basically tell you on the sidewalk, “Get the hell out of here, go home!” I knew the play I was going to make, and I feared that Bill would have been freaked out by my plans to go off-script and negotiate with Corman. Had he been present, he might have interrupted me and undercut my strategy.
Roger was a tall man of surprisingly patrician bearing. We shook hands and I very quickly got down to business. “I’m well aware of what you’ve done for young filmmakers and also of the films you have made. I loved The Pit and the Pendulum,” I said, going on to heap praise on more of his movies: Boxcar Bertha with Scorsese, Targets with Bogdanovich, Dementia 13 with Coppola.
Then, in the most grown-up voice I could muster, I said, “As for Eat My Dust!, I didn’t care for it very much. It’s not the kind of work that I’m looking to do as an actor. But I have a script. It’s called ’Tis the Season, and I believe I have half the money for it out of Australia. If you’ll read my script, put up the other half, and distribute my film, I’ll do Eat My Dust!”
Roger arched his eyebrows. “You’re a filmmaker?” he said.
“Uh, I’ve just made some short films and I used to go to film school at USC,” I said. “But I’m also on Happy Days, and—”
He cut me off. “I’ll read the script,” he said. “And send over any film work of your own that you can show me.”
We shook hands again, and as I was leaving, Roger said, “You know, I like to think that I turn out directors for Hollywood the way USC turns out running backs for the NFL.”
“I’d very much like to be one of those running backs,” I said.
A FEW DAYS later, Roger called me. “You and your father have written a very good script,” he said. “But it’s a character piece. An arthouse film. That’s not the kind of film that I make. But look, I watched your shorts and I can see that you can direct. So I have a counterproposal for you.”
On paper, what Roger suggested looked like one of those comically lopsided trades in baseball, with him the savvy GM and me the sucker. There were a ridiculous number of hoops for me to jump through. If and only if I agreed to be in Eat My Dust!, Roger would pay me a whopping $2,500 to write an outline for a new film. I could write it by myself, with Dad, however I wanted—I just couldn’t resubmit ’Tis the Season or anything like it. Then, if Roger liked the outline, I could turn it into a screenplay for $12,500. Then, if Roger liked the screenplay, I could direct the movie—but only if I also starred in it.
And here was the kicker: failing all that, if he didn’t green-light a feature for me to make, the consolation prize was that he would assign me to direct the second unit on one of the many low-budget action flicks he churned out each year.
This was hardly a situation where some beneficent financier was saying, “Yes! I shall back your movie and it shall premiere at next year’s Cannes Film Festival!” But it was as close as I was going to get to a real chance.
22
Rance to the Rescue
RON
Eat My Dust! turned out well for a film called Eat My Dust! It was a quick, zany car-chase flick written and directed by Chuck Griffith, who had also done the screenplay for Roger’s The Little Shop of Horrors. I played the renegade son of a sheriff who steals a race-car driver’s jacked-up ’68 Ford Fairlane. My love interest was played by Christopher Norris, a blond beauty who had been one of the stars of Summer of ’42. She was outfitted for the occasion in an exploitation-flick-ready ensemble of white micro-shorts and go-go boots. I wore a blue windbreaker and a Union Army–style kepi cap.