2seaoat wrote:You have to tell us more of those stories.....that is what I love reading on the forums. How did they handle meals? Did stars have their own trailers?
**********************************************************
I didn't want to expound too much SO for fear it would seem I was jijacking your very good thread but let me share some stories.
Bob asked how I got the job . . . . my Mother's cousin married a guy who was a big wheel with one of the construction firms in the country at that time, Merrit, Chapman & Scott. They were building the Glen Canyon Dam on the CO River and he was Superintendent of the piping installations for one thing. I went to work for him on the dam but he mentioned to me one day that there was going to be movie company shooting in southern Utah . . . . would I prefer to work on that? All I could see was Hollywood stars and all that stuff so I said yes. He told me where to go and when which I did . . . . I was the first name called on the hire list. A skeleton crew of perhaps 20 guys were told to report and for the first three weeks we did the surveying to lay out the complex . . . . over the 2 1/2 months we built 275 2 BR 1 BA bungalows (all pre fab), a mess hall to feed an enormous amount of people, a huge wardrobe facility to handle high volume scenes, film processing and technical support metal office, a production office (where I would later work), a sewage treatment facility, and three luxurious trailers for . . . . . . . George Stevens (Director), Mr. Heston (John the Baptist) and Max von Sydow (Jesus).
Once all the construction was completed I was rapidly working myself out of a job but by this point the movie complement began arriving on a daily basis and I was speechless as a kid from the sticks with no college (at that point). I observed one man who seemed to be very important as everywhere he went he was shadowed by a brunette with a notepad writing down instructions furiously. This man was the Production Manager, Lee Lukather. I was dirty and shirtless but something gave me the courage to approach him and he turned to me and said "Hello Kid, what do you need?" I looked him in the eye and "A job", he asked what could I do and I brazenly replied that I could pretty much do anything that needed to be done. He asked if I could operate a radio and I said of course I even have my license! What about a teletype? I said No Sir but I can learn . . . . he turned and knocked on a window of the Operation office and asked this big guy (a retired Bird Colonel) if he had hired anyone to assist him in the office . . . he said no he had not . . . . . Mr. Lukather said simply "Put this kid on" and he said Yes Sir. He looked at me and said he would pay me $2.50 per hour and I thought before accepting and told him that I was making $2.68 per hour currently . . . . . . he said Three Bucks an hour? I extended my hand and said that's a deal. He looked me over and said "Go home, take a bath, put on some clean clothes and be back out at the office at 6:00 PM for a staff meeting" . . . . . I was in!!!
Within a month I was basically running the office . . . . . we had three land lines and if someone in the company was called I would summon them on the PA system . . . . kinda like a MASH unit. Of course, Mr. Stevens, Mr. Heston and Mr. von Sydow had private lines. My principal responsibility was to acquire from each Department head a list of their needs for the following day. Mr. Stevens and his assistants made the decisions of course which scenes would be shot and the department heads would analyze the demands of their specific craft and provide that information me. From these forms showing our needs I would compose a summary called a "CALL SHEET" and every day every member of the cast and crew would come by pick up a call sheet. If you were a member of the cast, for example, it would identify the scenes (by number from the script) so they could be prepared with their lines and so forth. We had a wide range of animals (camels, burros, cattle) and about 10 employees called Wranglers to handle, feed, mange them. We would determine how many people would have to be fed and I regularly would include the number of meals and where/when they would be delivered. For example, 450 box lunches at Lazarus's Tomb 12:30 PM, 15 stretch limousines, 22 buses, one helicopter, etc. every single thing that was necessary to complete those identified scenes was spelled out on the Call Sheet.
I'll stop here as dinner is waiting but if you have other questions or comments, it's something that I enjoy telling.
Home
