Mike Figgis

A WALK DOWN SUNSET BOULEVARD

This is something I wrote for a Dutch magazine. It is about my 1st experiences in LA, mainly about the culture of cars and films. It was reprinted in PROJECTIONS – HOLLYWOOD CONVERSATIONS.

A WALK DOWN SUNSET BOULEVARD.

After THE HOUSE (My first tv film) was seen on British TV I got a call from David Putnam and all seemed rosy as he commissioned STORMY MONDAY. There followed a year in which he never managed to read the treatment and I never saw him again until quite recently when I bumped into him at some film function.

I went back into the world of part time teaching and theatre and one day, while retrieving discarded sound tape from a skip in Soho I bumped into Nigel Stafford Clarke, the producer of THE HOUSE and after a chat he suggested I take the script to him. He gave me notes and we went ahead with a script and he got funding from C4 and Brit Screen. This came to about half of the budget and we needed about $750,000 from an American distributor. Which is what took me to LA for the first time in my life….

Hemdale, flushed with their success on films like ‘PLATOON’ were picking up cheap British product and Stormy Monday was one of the many that they announced at Cannes in the spring of 87. Nigel and I set off for NY and LA (my 1st visit) to begin casting for the two American parts. We got through New York OK but Los Angeles was tense because we still didn’t have anything in writing and it was Nigel’s thankless job to get a contract out of HEMDALE. On arrival in LA we went straight to the Beverly Hills Hotel for a meeting with Kate Capshaw (later to become Mrs. Steven Spielberg) They wouldn’t let me in without a jacket and so I went back to the car to get one. It was green with yellow lining. A nice enough jacket. As I came back in to the lobby, three men who had witnessed the initial refusal of entry laughed and said (in a friendly enough manner) “Is that the best they could do for you?”. They thought I’d been given some reject by the staff. Kate was charming and healthy and pretty and talked about the script, as they all talk about any script, and then got into her huge Jeep and drove off. We checked into the Holiday Inn in Santa Monica and the next morning I experienced my first earthquake. At breakfast I wrote in my note book and a very chatty waitress pumped me for information about what I did in the entertainment business. When I said director she shrieked very loudly, “Dolores, come here, this man’s a DIRECTOR!”. Dolores, a pretty Hispanic girl appeared, blushing from the kitchen and was made to parade for me.

I met Melanie Griffiths the next day and was shocked by how  depressed she seemed. I liked her though but to this day she thinks that I did not like her from this meeting and was later pressured to put her in the film after the success of her film with Jonathan Demme (SOMETHING WILD). I also met many other actors and actresses on this trip. Being with Nigel was like being with an older brother, although in fact he was younger. But he held the money and we ate together and he rented the car and drove so we went out in the car together. We went to the beach on Sunday. Two English boys, very white and overdressed. Every day he tried to have a meeting with John Daly and every day he was fobbed off with another excuse. Daly never even came to the phone. After many days of this humiliation we admitted defeat and got on the plane and went home. The film died for the moment and I went back to teaching.

Some time later…not sure exactly how long, about one year I think, there was a small bite on the line. Bill Gavin was at that time one of the movers and shakers in the new British film industry. It was he who had set up the Hemdale fiasco and he persevered and got some interest from a small indie Co called Atlantic releasing. Now at this time I was on holiday with the family in N. Devon. I would ring up every couple of days to see if Nigel had any news. Usually the answer was no but this one time the answer was a cautious yes. I then spoke to Bill and he gave me a number to call in LA and said it was very important that I introduce myself and insinuate myself into their awareness in a subtle kind of way.

Now, because of the eight hour time difference the best time to call was early evening UK time. Our holiday cottage had no electricity, no phone, no real access. So I went to the local B’n’B and asked if I could use their phone in the evening. They were reluctant but said yes and that evening I set off down the hill and arrived at the guest house just as they were serving supper. And the phone was in the dining room. And the guests that week were all deaf and dumb and all shouting weird shit at each other the way they do. And outside all the goats and sheep and animals were making a lot of noise. So I phoned Atlantic and eventually got through to the VP in charge of acquisitions, Bobby Rock. Bobby sounded pretty blasé and underwhelmed by my self introduction. I walked back up the hill and pondered the complex meaning of life.

Things moved slowly on and about three months later, just before Christmas I set off again for LA.

A WALK DOWN SUNSET BOULEVARD.

Nigel, the producer of STORMY MONDAY agrees that it is a good idea that I go to LA. There is some real interest from a company called ATLANTIC RELEASING. They want to meet and talk. Nigel’s secretary asks me where I’d like to stay in LA. I have never been to LA on my own before. I tell her to book me into a hotel on SUNSET BOULEVARD, yeah, Sunset. Atlantic Releasing’s office is on Sunset also. So…armed with a coach class ticket and three hundred pounds for expenses I set off for LA. It is December 1986.

I wake at 4.30 in the morning and turn on the TV. What seems to be a soft porn film is just finishing and is followed by a serious American play. You can tell it’s a play because it’s filmed in a theatre. Nice Girl from a Thornton Wilderish town is going out with a Rich Boy but she doesn’t love him. He loves Her but his parents think she is white trash. Enter Bad Boy. He’s the kind of character that is described in the script as exuding animal sexuality. He doesn’t but everyone acts as if he does. Particularly the Nice Girl. She offers her cherry and he takes it and then bunks off leaving everyone in tatters.

I have breakfast in my room and read the LA papers. Adrenaline is starting to flow in anticipation of my 10am meeting with the film Co. The phone rings and the meeting is shifted to 2.30 in the afternoon. “Here we go again” flashes through my mind but I sweep away all negative thoughts and try to be constructive as I work on a new script.

But it’s hard to concentrate and I think about walking. Everyone has always said “don’t think about walking in LA” but I know better. I love walking in New York. I love American architecture. The sun is shining. I have three hours to kill. Why not walk slowly to the meeting?

I look at myself in the mirror, swap the jumper for a jacket, check the address of the film Company for the tenth time – 9000 Sunset bvd – and step out of my room.

The Philippino doorman is vague. Sure he knows the direction of the 9000 but can’t understand why I don’t take my car. He cannot absorb the fact that I don’t have one. I set off but it takes a while to cross the freeway that the hotel is surrounded by. So many cars.

This first part is interesting. I’m wearing a bright green jacket and playing the part of the affable Englishman in love with the culture. From time to time I stop and take a photograph of a house. After a while I realize that I have not seen a single pedestrian but it doesn’t worry me. Sunset blvd at this point has lots of bends and little hills. There are huge, ostentatious houses with private roads; notices state that there is armed response security and closed circuit TV. I see a few Mexicans tending gardens, their pick-up trucks loaded with garden machinery.

Suddenly the sidewalk stops and is replaced with grass, which is…quite nice, like being in the country and yet not. The grass becomes a discreet footpath and I notice quite a lot of rubbish, mainly beer bottles thrown from cars. A fantasy flashes through my mind that I will find a partially clothed, partially de-composed body that has been dumped from a car but then I realize that cars are not allowed to stop.

I’ve done a couple of miles by now and it hits me that it is a long way to go yet but still I have a couple of hours so no problem. At a traffic light a lost woman in a car winds down her window and with a look of relief asks me where….The traffic starts to move and over the noise I shout “no” and then smile as charmingly as possible because shouting seems so rude and I know how she feels.

I pass UCLA and suddenly there are lots of young healthy joggers with Walkmans who don’t smile back.

The sidewalk stops and so do I. Immediately ahead is a sharp bend. The hillside rises sheer from the road and there is no possible route there. On the other side of the road is a small turning and a small group of kids are selling maps of star’s houses. I realize that my best chance is to cross the street and bum a ride with them or at least get to a phone. It takes me another ten minutes to come to terms with the fact that I cannot get across the street. Six lanes of fast moving traffic have defeated me. Once I get half way across. The kids watch me in a detached manner as I look at my watch and panic makes itself known to me. There is a lull in the traffic and the road ahead curves out of sight. I run for it. Behind me I hear the roar of approaching traffic. It’s been a while since I’ve run as fast as this. Cars hoot furiously at me for being in the inside lane and the handle of a garden implement, leaning over the side of a pick-up, misses my head by inches. I dive into the side of the road amidst the thorns and the dirty Ivy and it occurs to me that I could die here, on my first visit as a potential film maker.

A lone taxi approaches and at the last moment I see that it is empty and I jump into the road, waving my arms and it stops, which strikes me as amazing. As I flop onto the back seat I notice two things; my knees are knocking and my clothes are wet with sweat.

The taxi driver is a woman, very cool and friendly and, after quite a long ride she drop me outside 9000 Sunset blvd. The fare is six dollars and fifty cents and with trembling hands I give her what I think is a ten dollar bill. “Keep the rest” I say, trying to be grown up. She gives me a look of immense pity and counts out $93:50 in change.

I now have over an hour to kill so I go into a Sushi bar to clean up and calm down. I drink a beer then, with ten minutes to spare I stroll into the lobby of the 9000 building. this is a big building with a big lobby and a big notice board with all the names of the companies and where to find them. The name of my film company is not on the board. the lobby receptionist guy is busy with a roll of paper issuing from a print out machine. I give him the name of the film company, Atlantic Releasing, and without looking at me he says “Ninth Floor, room 25”.

In the lift I look at my distorted image in a brass plate and try to get my self together. I walk down the 9th floor corridor towards suite 25. the door doesn’t have a handle, only a hole where the handle should be. I knock and the door swings open. Suite 25 is completely empty. Not a stick of furniture, marks on the walls where the Art used to be. It is now precisely 2:30 PM.

Back in the lobby the man is unmoved by my rage. “Yeah, that’s right, they moved to…let me see…” and he consults a piece of paper “…Washington Boulevard”. I ask if it is far and he gives me a withering look of contempt and we go into one of those “depends what you mean by far” routines. He won’t let me use his phone so I cross the street and get a cab driven by a Russian, new to LA and he’s pissed off that I don’t know the way because he certainly doesn’t. It takes a while for him to look it up in the Thomas guide but finally we hit the freeway system. Yes the freeway system.

About twenty five minutes later, with $30 showing on the meter, we pull up beside a derelict car lot at the address given to me by the psycho from the 9000 building. I feel like crying and killing at the same time but I borrow a quarter from the Russian and dial the film Co’s number. It rings and then the operators voice asks me to deposit my 25 cents. “I have” I tell her. She tells me again to deposit my 25 cents. “I have” I repeat. Now we plumb the depths of insanity as she explains that my 25 cents has not registered and that I should deposit another 25 cents and give her my name and address so that the telephone company refund the first 25 cents. She is not at all phased that they would have to send it to England. I borrow another quarter from the Russian and eventually I do get through to the Film Co and I do get through to my contact whose name is Bobby Rock and at that moment I understood why Patti Hearst married her body guard. I tell him where I am and he chuckles. He then explains that yes, they have moved, but heck, only a couple of blocks down from the 9000 building, still on Sunset. I calculate that by the time I make it back to Sunset I will be $60 lighter and 60 minutes late.

“Don’t rush”, says Bobby, “the meeting’s been postponed until tomorrow”

Tomorrow turned into a series of tomorrow’s that would have made a Mexican blush. I moved hotels to a place called the HYAT on SUNSET which was almost next door to the offices of Atlantic. The hotel was pink and was much favoured by Rock’n’Roll bands that had yet to succeed or were already failing. But one day I did meet LITTLE RICHARD in the lift and he said hello in a very cheerful manner. I had no car of course and during the day I would go and sit in Bobby Rock’s office…waiting for a meeting that never came. On that first afternoon after finally making it to the office I did meet Jonathan Dana and Bill Tennent. BT seemed interesting but gruff and Dana seemed aloof and wore suits. The boss was a guy named Tom Coleman who clearly was shady. Rock kind of included me in aspects of his social life but his then girlfriend was not so crazy about me coming on their jaunts and I felt very awkward about the whole thing. A week went by and I got my first taste of Christmas in LA. It is weird and without any European resonance.

I got a second taste of Bill Tennant through the wall of Rock’s office as he screamed at four other men about a film they were making in the Philippines. He said, “I speak three languages, fuck you, fuck me and fuck them”. It became clear from the way people spoke about BT that everyone was frightened of him. Rock told me stories of his fall from grace and his drug addiction and his alcoholism. Still no meeting. In the evenings I pounded away on a portable typewriter on a second draft of LIEBESTRAUM, which I started after the first failure of SM. Much of it is about being a stranger in an American town staying in a strange hotel. I had no money at all to spend and no car and I knew no-one. One day at the office I heard from Bobby that there had been a discussion about the film in which, for reasons I never fathomed, the start date had been shifted. I was angry that this had been done without any kind of consultation with me. So I rang up Tennant and complained and he was furious that I would have the nerve to even question him. He told me rudely that this conversation was going nowhere and I should get off the phone. I cannot remember the dialogue but I carried on talking and he said words to the effect of either shut up of fuck off and I said fuck you and hung up. Rock was shocked and I realized that I had probably screwed up everything. But at the same time as being frightened by what I had just done I was also pleased and felt better inside. Then the phone rang and it was Tennant’s secretary and she asked that I step into his office. I remember that it was a Friday and I was thinking about how soon I could get onto a plane. I also remember that my knees were a little weak as I arrived at his office and was shown in. I remember that he had a miniature basketball court in his office, all executives find it necessary to have a shrunken sport thing going for them. I walked in and he got up and said he was sorry. I was not expecting this. He hugged me and said that he realized I had been treated without respect and that I was absolutely right to complain. He went on to say that although it was no excuse, he was having personal problems himself. He said that they loved the script and me and would be making the film and that from now on everything would be fine…which it was…more or less.

post script – the film got made, was more or less trashed by the British film critics but got great reviews in the NYTIMES and the LA Times, became a small hit, which in turn got me an agent in LA and then,after a struggle or two, got me my first US film INTERNAL AFFAIRS. Bill Tennant became a kind of mentor for me, later he moved to London and we saw each other regularly. But then he vanished off the face of the earth and I have not been able to trace him. Rumours that he died have not been substantiated. I miss him.