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Welcome to my blog, which is intended as an informal forum for my thoughts, subject to corrections and updates, on a variety of topics and with links to other points of interest.

21 February 2012

Movie Review: Tomorrow, When the War Began

Based on the first installment in the 1990s novel series by John Marsden, Tomorrow, When the War Began may superficially bear a resemblance to Red Dawn. But it owes more in its thematic underpinnings to Nevil Shute’s classic post-nuclear Australian novel, On the Beach, which is sadly more relevant every day. This small, low-budget Australian film is being simultaneously released on Facebook, video-on-demand (VOD) and in a handful of movie theaters (e.g., San Diego, New Haven, Miami, Buffalo Grove, Illinois, and Seattle) on the same day (this Friday, Feb. 24). I watched the movie on an iMac. I enjoyed every minute.

Written and directed by Stuart Beattie (Australia, the forthhcoming I, Frankenstein), the R-rated coming-of-age war movie features several young actors as a band of people who go camping in Australia’s bush country – which is beautifully photographed – and come back to an invasion, apparently by foreigners, of their coastal town and country. At 103 minutes, Tomorrow gets down to business fairly briskly, with the farm-girl/tomboy heroine Ellie (perfectly cast Caitlin Stasey) coordinating an adventurous camping trip with her best friend (Rachel Hurd-Wood, Wendy in P.J. Hogan’s excellent Peter Pan) to take in her dad’s Land Rover further out than usual because her girlfriend is getting more experience and says she wants to live life to the fullest.

Do they ever. Though the plot is somewhat predictable, certain lines are stale and character types are clearly drawn from young adult literary fiction, everyone is tested, everyone makes clear choices and – here’s what is not like Red Dawn – each character holds on to and fights for his and her values, which are at stake at every turn, whether a searchlight, an enemy ambush or an air-to-air missile is upon them. Besides its leading young ladies, Tomorrow‘s unsuspecting campers include a rebellious hunk named Homer, a popular dude named Kevin – it seems as though there’s always a Kevin – a voluptuous rich kid who fits the blonde stereotype, a Christian, an Asian and a hippie. Deniz Akdeniz as Greek-Aussie Homer, Phoebe Tonkin as the bathing beauty and Chris Pang as Lee are especially good – Stasey as Ellie and Hurd-Wood as Corrie are best – and the battle and action scenes are tense and exciting. While it’s not overtly political, the invaders seem to demand that Australia “be made to share” its wealth with those “less fortunate,” which makes Tomorrow, When the War Began ring true in today’s West, which is at war with itself and being looted from the inside and outside. The unique title caught my interest. The self-made young characters held it. The plot-theme – that freedom must be earned and countries must be restarted – sealed it with an old-fashioned blasting worthy of the best war movies. Watch the trailer here.

Permalink | Posted in Books, Home Entertainment, Movies, Paramount

18 February 2012

What’s Up

Here’s a progress report about some of my work, which I generally don’t like to discuss before it’s finished. Much of what I am writing takes time to develop, and one of my projects – a war story intended for movies – is gaining feedback. As with much of what I’m writing, it is taking longer than anticipated, though I have a patient and understanding partner. Another story is in the early stage. I have a development meeting tomorrow to further advance what at its core is an inspiring tale of a self-made man. Other projects are making progress, too, including my goal to make more archival material available in new formats and create new commentary and content about foreign affairs, health care, music, film and history. This week, I helped a couple of Canadians market their start-up business and I made a breakthrough on a project about an exceptional person whom I’ve been asked to write about.

Some projects do not work out as planned due to factors beyond my control. I had been asked to write memoirs for someone of some renown and I was unable to do so as anticipated because, unfortunately, it turned out that the person was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease and we were unable to develop the manuscript. It is frustrating when that happens. That’s partly why I’m glad I was able to interview and write about actor Peter Breck before he died, and I am planning to produce a series about his late Big Valley co-star, the legendary Barbara Stanwyck, including reviewing a new biography about the movie star.

I know that good writing requires an ongoing commitment to excellence, so I am taking writing and communications classes while finishing the fourth and final year of my studies at the Objectivist Academic Center (OAC) and I am still working on an idea for objective communication, as I mentioned here. It has been over three years since I sold Box Office Mojo with my partners to one of the world’s largest companies and it’s been exactly six years since I wrote this review of an unforgettable winter movie about dogs, which was part of the reason I said Yes to one of my current works in progress. Much has happened (and not happened) in those years and I am positively excited about what I’m working on – including uncredited work for others – so I wanted to share some of what I’m doing, some of what’s up, with my faithful readers. That means you. Thank you for your support.

Permalink | Posted in Announcements

14 February 2012

Music Review: Let it Be by Roberta Flack

Roberta Flack, classically trained on the piano, sent on a college music scholarship at age 15, and top pop vocalist with 1970s’ hits including “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face”, “Where Is the Love” (with Donny Hathaway), “Killing Me Softly With His Song” and one of the most romantic tunes, “The Closer I Get to You”, playfully turns to the Beatles with Let It Be Roberta: Roberta Flack Sings the Beatles, her new, interpretive album of Beatles’ classics. It’s not for everyone – some will say, with merit, that it’s overproduced – but I like it. Beatles’ fans may find Flack’s upbeat, rhythm and blues takes on classic tunes off-putting or different. Roberta Flack fans may prefer she had taken a more restrained, acoustic approach. Easy Beatles and Roberta Flack fans like me, who appreciate their music but don’t own every recording, will probably find that bringing a touch of techno-pop to Let It Be hits the sweet spot. Among the 12 songs, sung flawlessly and with respect are an easygoing “If I Fell”, a jazzed-up “In My Life”, soulful title tune, infectiously danceable “I Should Have Known Better” and an old recording of Flack singing “Here, There and Everywhere” at Carnegie Hall in 1972. The best thing about Let It Be, created with the consent of Yoko Ono Lennon, who pens an endorsement in the liner notes, is that there’s not a downer in the bunch, she takes a sad song and makes it happier, sometimes even better – depending on your mood. Let It Be lets Roberta Flack have some overdue fun with rock and roll. Let it loose and enjoy. Happy Valentine’s Day.

Permalink | Posted in Music

13 February 2012

Peter Breck, Nick on ‘Big Valley’, Dies at 82

Peter Breck, the actor who played Nick Barkley on ABC’s one-hour Western starring Barbara Stanwyck, The Big Valley (1965-1969), died in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada last Monday. He was 82. His death was announced by his wife, Diane, on the Big Valley fan forum Web site The Big Valley Writing Desk.

I had the pleasure of interviewing Mr. Breck, who appeared in movies such as I Want to Live! with Susan Hayward and as the father in Benji, for my online column in 2006. I found him to be nothing like his hot-tempered rancher character. He was kind and generous, talking about a range of issues for the short interview, which I conducted for Fox’s release of Big Valley‘s first season on DVD. He was also a regular on the TV Western Maverick starring James Garner. He ran an acting school in Canada with his wife after the couple moved there.

From my 2006 column and interview with Mr. Breck:

“For cinematic, larger-than-life television, The Big Valley cannot be topped. Starring five first-rate actors as a wealthy ranching family, the sweeping, colorful outdoors series depicts an idealized American West. Respect is earned, ranching is business, and cowboys are heroes. It’s rugged individualism in one rich, powerful family.

“The Barkleys own half the San Joaquin Valley in the 1870s. Widow Victoria is played by the indomitable movie star Barbara Stanwyck, eldest Jarrod, a San Francisco lawyer, by the late Richard Long, angelic Audra by Linda Evans (Dynasty) and half-brother Heath by a young Lee Majors (The Six Million Dollar Man). Despite Heath being fathered by her late husband and another woman, Victoria welcomes him into the family with her head held high, in defiance of the community, which refuses to accept Heath as a Barkley.

“The Big Valley also features Heath’s rough, intemperate brother Nick, played by actor Peter Breck, who recalls the fistfights, the shootouts and the demanding stunts. In one episode, Nick drives a Mexican cattleman, played by Martin Landau, off Barkley land when he won’t remove an anthrax-infected herd. But Breck’s horse was spooked.

“I was dragged,” Breck remembered, speaking from his home in Canada. “Martin Landau was shooting over a rock and as I rode up, an explosion went off. I was over my mark, and Boom! The horse went on the wildest eleven seconds I ever had. At one point, I looked up and got it right in the bottom of my chin.” Another time, Nick and Heath encounter a rabid beast ready to pounce on the livestock. “It was a timber wolf,” Breck said. “They threw him off a rock and on to me and doubled the close-up with a German shepherd. We would rehearse it and the gaffers would get up there with him and throw him at me. The paws were going every which way.”

“That episode was “Night of the Wolf,” which memorably features director Ron Howard, already playing Opie in The Andy Griffith Show, as a boy who looks up to Nick. Other first season guest stars include Katharine Ross (The Graduate) as the beautiful Mexican aristocrat who is Heath’s first love, Charles Bronson as an alcoholic trapped in a collapsed church with Victoria following an earthquake and Beah Richards (Sidney Poitier’s mother in Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?) as a woman who helped raise bastard Heath.

“Like Gunsmoke, The Big Valley dramatized serious conflicts on principle—involving property rights, justice, racism—and, like the similarly structured Bonanza, the action centered on a family. There the parallels end.

“From its rousing opening score, the show conveys an epic feel, with gorgeous photography in southern California’s Santa Clarita Valley and Ventura County that lingers on wide vistas that give the moral dilemmas a broader canvass. The cast is easy on the eyes, too, whether Audra gallops across the landscape in her form-fitting Western wear to watch the wild Mustangs or the virile Barkley boys are on screen.

“The Barkleys’ idealism, evident in nearly every episode, is anchored in realism threaded with ironic humor. Each member of the family is unique—Jarrod is consistently rational, Nick is passionate, Heath is introspective, Audra is kind—and they are united by common values.

“Holding them together, insisting that each be treated as an individual, is Miss Stanwyck as their mother, an unwavering voice of reason and integrity and always with love. 77-year-old Breck, whose stage work spans Shakespeare, Ibsen’s A Doll’s House and his personal favorite, Cyrano de Bergerac, said working with one of the screen’s brightest stars was a constant reward.

“I’d get chills,” Breck explained. “She would look at me with those eyes and our characters had a bond. Barbara was a tiger.” Breck, who lost his only child to leukemia when his son was 28, lives with his wife of 46 years in British Columbia, far from Hollywood in more ways than geography. “I do miss the old Hollywood,” he told this columnist, “I’m not too happy with what’s there now. I did Jiminy Glick in La La Wood—they gave me the role of the head of the studio—and it was just a rush job. Everything’s too fast now and you can’t go bang-bang-bang and get a performance.” As an afterthought, he added: “They don’t make good movies anymore.”

“They do, however, make DVDs of good television shows—and Breck, whose horseback riding in the majestic show still rustles up the Old West, ought to be proud to know that The Big Valley is one of them.”

Permalink | Posted in Interviews, Obituaries, Television

13 February 2012

The 2012 Grammys

I haven’t watched the Grammys in years. But, this year, moved by an increase in album sales and the death of Whitney Houston on the eve of the recording industry’s annual awards show, I figured what the heck. I had loads of laundry to fold and coupons to clip so I thought watching the Grammys might alleviate the drudgery. Instead, it aggravated the culture shock.

Not severely, and I am glad that singer Adele – getting scads of awards and ovations and appearing in an early Sixties glamor get-up, looking like something out of Hairspray – is apparently admired for her vocal ability and for overcoming illness, though I can’t help wondering if the unbridled enthusiasm is for her foul-mouthed, lower class ways. She sings about pain, and to me she always sounds like she’s in pain. I like some of her songs and arrangements better than I like her voice.

At least she’s not on another booty call. That task was left quite pathetically to a blonde-haired woman mocking Catholic costumes and rituals on stage named Nicki Minaj. Katy Perry tried too hard with her blue-haired number, which felt cruel and awkward following her divorce. Rihanna was unimpressive, though upon reflection, her performances may have been affected because she had to share the stage with the man who had beaten her on the eve of this annual event two years ago, a thug named Chris Brown.

Brown’s appearances were a jarring reminder that the recording industry explicitly sanctions the degradation of women. To grant Brown permission to take the stage – after he beat his girlfriend – in the wake of the death of a music legend whose downward spiral began when she married a man she said used to beat her, was tactless at best.

Speaking of Whitney Houston, Jennifer Hudson delivered a tribute to her, which was not surprising; she’s represented by the man who shaped Houston’s career, producer Clive Davis, who appeared with Hudson on CNN to promote Hudson on the Grammys. Of course, this sort of thing was busting out all over, without disclosure, as CNN’s Anderson Cooper interviewed (if that’s the word) Adele for CBS’ 60 Minutes, which aired before CBS’ Grammys, which were hosted by CBS’ LL Cool J – this from an industry dominated by those who deride what they call crony capitalism and claim to oppose capitalists on the grounds that they get money through nefarious means.

For his part, LL Cool J – a rapper who opened the show with a prayer for Whitney Houston – was barely the master of ceremonies, popping up between live performances, most of which were lackluster. Adele fared best, singing another of her sad tunes, without apparent recorded accompaniment. Middling country singer Taylor Swift went for a Depression-era look – a rich woman singing as though she was starving in the Appalachians – singing an arguably mean-spirited song about how mean it is to be mean-spirited to…Taylor Swift.

Bruce Springsteen performed a catchy pop song. Paul McCartney played in a rock guitar segment. An electronic dance portion featured Chris Brown in sunglasses stomping around a DJ, someone with dreadlocks and a bunch of people wearing giant mouse heads that light up. It was worse than Minaj’s godawful church exorcism which featured dancing monks (with all the flames, gyrations and Catholic priests, late night comedians should have enough material for the next few weeks). Geriatric Glen Campbell’s “Rhinestone Cowboy” performance was just sad and he deserved a better sendoff.

Where were the jazz, classical and melodic artists, performances and awards? Other than pleading Adele in her gigantic false eyelashes, the show supposedly created for awarding records came up short on rewarding recorded music that moves the soul. Certainly, there are artists making good music: James Blunt, Christina Aguilera, Alanis Morrisette, Donna Summer, Susan Boyle, Coldplay, Elton John, Neil Diamond, Stevie Nicks, Sade, Five for Fighting, Olivia Newton-John. But where are the artists comparable to Rodgers and Hammerstein, Sarah Vaughan, Duke Ellington, Doris Day, Diana Ross, Elvis Presley, Glenn Miller, Burt Bacharach, Fred Astaire, Sammy Davis, Jr., the Rolling Stones, the Beatles, Stan Getz, Ella Fitzgerald or Whitney Houston, let alone other greats in musical performance and composition? Grammys host LL Cool J got it right when, citing Steve Jobs and the Wright Brothers, he said on CNN (watch clip here) that what makes America great is that, here, we are free to create. If only more Americans would defend that freedom, create something good, possibly great – and assert their right to keep what they create, now that would be worthy of an award.

Permalink | Posted in Culture, Music, Television

11 February 2012

On Whitney Houston, Dead at 48

The shocking news that singer Whitney Houston has died at the age of 48 is just breaking. I may have more to say about her death as more becomes known, though I found this excerpt from an especially thoughtful Associated Press article by Nekesa Mumbi Moody particularly interesting:

“Her decision not to follow the more soulful inflections of singers like Franklin drew criticism by some who saw her as playing down her black roots to go pop and reach white audiences. The criticism would become a constant refrain through much of her career. She was even booed during the “Soul Train Awards” in 1989. Sometimes it gets down to that, you know?” she told Katie Couric in 1996. “You’re not black enough for them. I don’t know. You’re not R&B enough. You’re very pop. The white audience has taken you away from them.”

Though I never had the pleasure of meeting her, I met one of her producers at a club in New York and heard wonderful things about her talent. I remember the thrill of hearing her fresh new music when it debuted with her self-titled album, pictured above. As her troubled career spiraled, I found myself wishing she would be her own “Greatest Love of All,” as she sang the song from The Greatest, and truly love herself. This is sad news. I last wrote about Whitney Houston – whose work was phenomenal and deserving of the highest praise – in a review of her last album, which is posted here.

Permalink | Posted in Music, News, Obituaries

10 February 2012

Clint Eastwood, American

For a long time, I’ve been uncomfortable with the notion of Clint Eastwood as an icon of individualism or American heroism, though I have enormous respect for him as an artist and I like much of his work. His latest controversy, an ad during the Super Bowl in which he sanctions the government’s takeover of Chrysler, is the impetus for me to say something about Mr. Eastwood.

As far as his onscreen image is concerned, I never saw him as a proper projection of a strong, intelligent heroic type. I enjoyed most of his early movies, including the Dirty Harry pictures and even one of his first forays into his own filmmaking, The Gauntlet. Even then I sensed that there was something missing from his characterizations and plots. He always seemed too repressed, tortured and miserable to be a bold American avenger for justice. Like the actor whom I consider Clint Eastwood’s onscreen heir, Harrison Ford, there’s a superficially jaunty quality consistent with one who pursues his values, and I know this is to some extent a matter of personal taste, but there’s something dark, sinister and deeply disturbed about his characters. Their view of life is fundamentally negative, not positive, at least in the overall sum of their actions (same with Harrison Ford, whom I can barely tolerate), and he generally plays the cynic and skeptic. Not the idealist. In other words, Clint Eastwood as a type is very 20th century, a follower reacting to the facts of reality – with sneers and biting remarks – not a creator acting to shape and bring himself into alignment with the facts of reality.

An example of this is his popular assassination-themed movie, In the Line of Fire (1993), in which Mr. Eastwood plays an ineffectual Secret Service agent dogged by his failure to protect the President when JFK was assassinated. As in many of his movies, including the excellent Heartbreak Ridge (1986), his character is nearly defective as a functional human being, unable to connect with people and interact in society, let alone fall in love, commit and cash in on the rewards of a lasting romantic relationship. His presidential bodyguard is always one step behind the assassin (John Malkovich) until the end and even then he never does put the puzzle pieces together. All this time, pursued in potential romance by an agent played by Rene Russo, he is befuddled, dazed and confused. He is perpetually “in the line of fire” and clueless and, invested in his agent as a protagonist, so are we.

Whether intentionally or not, and again I enjoy many of his films and think his record as an artist is mixed with touches of greatness, I think that cluelessness is part of Mr. Eastwood’s point. Besides his iconic Dirty Harry character – once invoked by the similarly overromanticized Ronald Reagan – being truly anti-heroic, Clint Eastwood’s movies tell us that nobody’s perfect (A Perfect World, 1993), life is unknowable (Hereafter, 2010) and ethics are situational (Unforgiven, 1992). His Flags of Our Fathers (followed by a film from the enemy’s perspective, Letters from Iwo Jima, both in 2006) laid this grayness over a world war, depicting America’s defense against a barbaric assault as an argument for moral relativism on a grand scale.

As a director and as an actor, Clint Eastwood is often better on a bad day than Hollywood’s mediocre legions are at their best, and examples include the incisive Gran Torino (2008) and what I regard as 2009′s best picture, Invictus, named for the poem by William Ernest Henley. Invictus, starring Morgan Freeman as Nelson Mandela, is brilliant as a movie, though it interestingly ignores or takes liberties with Mandela’s malicious rise to power. So, the theme of his work is that ignorance is bliss, which is the opposite of the truth. Ultimately, the formerly sneering cowboy with the blank, squinty stare who essentially communicated during the Super Bowl that he approves of the government’s seizure of a failed American car business, effectively nationalizing the automotive industry and taking us toward total government control of the economy, is prototypical of, to use his word, the “average” American. In this sense, Clint Eastwood embodies the man who refuses to think. It is not halftime for America, as he claims in his ad for Chrysler. It is well past the two-minute warning with the clock counting down. Someone of Mr. Eastwood’s caliber should know better, which sadly makes him like most Americans. Not exactly an individualist, let alone a leader for the rebellion, and in a certain sense, an anti-hero.

Permalink | Posted in Culture, Movies

8 February 2012

Interview with Richard Hatch

Once upon a time, there was a handsome prince of an actor named Richard Hatch. The year was 1970 and he was cast in a new ABC soap opera called All My Children. He went on to co-star in two other distinctive ABC series (The Streets of San Francisco and Battlestar Galactica) which would define his career and shape his views on art and life.

During a recent interview in which we discussed his performances in plays, television programs and motion pictures, he talked at great length about his journey from an abusive childhood to publishing Battlestar Galactica stories and delivering self-improvement seminars. I had watched Richard Hatch on television – apprehending criminals as a policeman and saving the human race as Captain Apollo – in my youth, and I recall thinking that he was both handsome and heroic. With a passion for science fiction, as well as for teaching self-help for the damaged, I found that he still is.

Though best known for work that appeared in short bursts, like Farrah Fawcett in her single season on Charlie’s Angels (as Farrah Fawcett-Majors), Richard Hatch made a strong and lasting impression. After talking with him about New York, Hollywood and what it means to be true to oneself, it isn’t difficult to see why.

Scott Holleran: Where have you done your best acting?

Richard Hatch: It’s not in a single role. There are individual scenes in various projects. I did some great work in a movie called InAlienable, a science fiction movie written by Walter Koenig [Chekov in the original NBC series Star Trek] with some dramatic scenes that I’m proud of but there’s never been one whole project. My best work is in scenes. I did a [1978] television movie called Deadman’s Curve about the singers Jan and Dean and there are scenes with Bruce Davison that I’m proud of. I haven’t done a movie that, from beginning to end, is definitive as my best.

Scott Holleran: You have co-starred in soap opera, crime and science fiction. Which is your favorite genre?

Richard Hatch: I don’t look at it like that. I like great drama and profound stories with complex, multilayered characters where I connect with the core of the character. I played a young retarded man on Medical Center. Most sci-fi isn’t even sci-fi to me—people think it’s all weird noses and eyes—it’s about exploring themes and what’s possible. In Battlestar Galactica, we never [consciously] thought of it as science fiction. We thought of it as dealing with life.

All My Children and The Streets of San Francisco

Scott Holleran: Your early career is defined by two fictional characters leaving popular television series on ABC. Your All My Children character Philip Brent was drafted into the Vietnam War and your Streets of San Francisco character Dan Robbins replaced Inspector Steve Keller when Michael Douglas left the series in the fifth and final season. Did the transition strengthen your resolve in the revolving door business of television—did it toughen you up for TV?

Richard Hatch: All My Children was an amazing experience. We created this world of Pine Valley and I got to relive my youth. That was one of my favorite experiences. New York was an incredible shift and change from the California surfer lifestyle. I went from wanting to be an architect and studying classical piano and wanting to play the guitar to being in New York on the original cast of All My Children. The whole experience of auditioning and getting parts on TV shows like The Waltons and Barnaby Jones was such an exciting, fun adventure—like going to [Las] Vegas and putting your coins in the slot machines and not knowing what would happen. So, in New York, the whole artistic journey became more interesting to me than being a star. When I got the part of Dan Robbins, I was terrified going into a primetime show [ABC’s Streets of San Francisco] with Karl Malden and I felt this intense pressure—it was terrifying—and I was struggling to remember my lines. [Executive Producer] Quinn Martin eventually came and complimented me and said ‘I think you’re going to do really well’. And I did. But in the beginning I was shaky. By the seventh episode, he encouraged me and even Karl Malden was positive, so I felt more relaxed. It was hard because Michael Douglas was like a second son to Karl Malden, who was respectful to me, but never warm and welcoming like Lorne Greene on Battlestar Galactica. Even my girlfriend at the time liked Michael Douglas and missed the Steve Keller character. I loved living in San Francisco and the experience taught me a lot about myself. I went to new roles after that and learned that I was always a character actor at heart. So, it did toughen me up.

Scott Holleran: You’ve described your character’s storyline on All My Children as an old-fashioned romance with poetry and holding hands. Was romanticism central to All My Children’s early success?

Richard Hatch: Yes. Pine Valley was a kind of bastion of an earlier time when love was more innocent. I loved that old-fashioned romanticism of the original show. Obviously, they had to go with the times. But there was something very sweet to All My Children in the beginning. It was shot in black and white when we started. It was an early time in television.

Scott Holleran: Did you watch All My Children?

Richard Hatch: Not after I left [the show]. It was hard to watch. The only reason I left was that I had lots of family in L.A. and I wanted to see what I could do in Hollywood. I felt that I had challenged myself in All My Children. I had also been in an off-Broadway rock musical. I almost wish I had stayed in New York. I was one of the original cast members and I felt an embrace on All My Children, like it was home. I have very fond memories. Part of me knew it was a great place to start – a warm, loving environment.

Scott Holleran: Your character, Philip Brent, was drafted into the Vietnam War. Did you hear from parents of war veterans or vets themselves?

Richard Hatch: At the time, I was getting thousands of fan letters and I don’t remember much of that happening. Me and [the character] Tara were married in a church alone before I left for Vietnam. I don’t remember soldiers’ parents or vets coming up to me. It was a very confusing time in the country.

Scott Holleran: What was the final outcome of your Philip Brent character on All My Children?

Richard Hatch: I don’t know what happened to him.

Scott Holleran: When asked during an appearance with you on a reunion show why she hired you as one of the original children, All My Children creator Agnes Nixon turned to you and answered: “I saw your face.” Is physical beauty—in particular male physical beauty—less a factor in casting than it was in 1970?

Richard Hatch: Yes. The so-called good-looking leading man was more in demand back then. Now, they look for more quirky characteristics in leading men.

Scott Holleran: Did good looks hurt you in Hollywood?

Richard Hatch: [Pauses] I think so. I had to prove myself over and over. There was always a doubt because I was being labeled and put in a compartment. These days, it’s easier because actors go from TV to the Internet, so there’s not much of a stigma. Most of my guest roles were [more] interesting. I remember when they were casting for the lead in The Graduate and I was one of many actors to read for the role. When Dustin Hoffman was cast we were all like, ‘that’s what they were looking for’? When you’re good-looking, you struggle to prove that you can act. It’s as though they dirty you up to take you seriously.

Battlestar Galactica

Scott Holleran: You appeared with Star Wars’ Mark Hamill on Streets of San Francisco in an episode that aired on February 24, 1977. Did he encourage you to go into science fiction—and give you tips on waging dogfights in outer space?

Richard Hatch: [Laughs] No, because he wasn’t in science fiction. Star Wars wasn’t a big movie—it was a little movie. I had asked him about Star Wars—we had met numerous times during our television work and we would talk—and he told me it was ‘this little film’, which is what he called it. Until the special effects and music were put in, that’s what it was. I know he was a huge comics fan.

Scott Holleran: Will you be seeing Star Wars’ Phantom Menace in its 3D theatrical release this month?

Richard Hatch: I love the original movies. I’m not a fan of the newer ones. George Lucas had an opportunity to do something extraordinary. He could have brought people in to create something wonderful – it’s his story – but I just read that he says he’s never making another Star Wars because of the critics. Why not listen to the criticism? It doesn’t mean you can’t do it your way, or that critics are right about everything, but why not get some feedback? We all need to be objective. He’s an amazing producer and I just hope he doesn’t stop—I hope he brings outside creative people together. Fans are not stupid and they do have important things to say. Take it in, listen and take what’s a value. Weave that into the work.

Scott Holleran: You’ve been getting fan feedback—not all of it positive—for years about your work on various Battlestar Galactica incarnations and, since co-starring on the original series, you have written seven Battlestar Galactica novels. Do you have any more Battlestar Galactica books planned for publication?

Richard Hatch: Our publisher died, so they lost the license. Universal has been sort of confused about licensing. Then apparently you have [director] Bryan Singer creating a feature film. I don’t know if Universal has a problem [with the novels]. Paramount never did [with Star Trek] so hopefully we’ll get new life and continue the Battlestar books. For plot continuation, there needs to be an eighth book.

Scott Holleran: How do you approach writing as a process?

Richard Hatch: I essentially get an idea for a story and start writing. I let the characters lead me—I write a mini-novel, 50 or 60 pages and that becomes my outline. Then, I go back through the arcs, the throughline and B stories. It has to illuminate some aspect of the Battlestar universe. I like to put characters in life and death circumstances. Then we have to find a creative way to organically get them out with no gimmicks. I let the characters deal with the circumstances, which leads me to a conclusion. I have a general idea before I sit down to write. You have a race of humans mandated to be chased across the universe by a race of Cylons. We are following the 13th tribe and looking for remnants of that human civilization and we’re always searching for resources and looking at the logistics of [outer] space. So we don’t know where the journey is going to go. Each step illuminates the journey and what makes us who we are. My quest as a writer is to enrich. When I start writing, I love to get into the work—work is my passion—I just write, write, write. It’s no different than anything else you get immersed in. It’s the world we want to live in—when you connect on the deepest level—I drink from the well. It’s a nourishing foundation for life.

Scott Holleran: Please explain the origins of how Captain Apollo, your character in Battlestar Galactica (1978), got his name.

Richard Hatch: I honestly have no clue. In the original script, my character’s name was Skyler. When [20th Century] Fox sued [those who made Battlestar Galactica], it was changed to Apollo to avoid confusion with Luke Skywalker from [Fox’s] Star Wars. I liked the name Skyler. Apollo was not my favorite name. We did use mythical names like Athena and Apollo.

Scott Holleran: Do you see your Battlestar Galactica co-star Dirk Benedict, who portrayed Starbuck?

Richard Hatch: I run into him every once in a while. I see his kids. He still lives in Montana, but he comes back to L.A.

Scott Holleran: The pilot episode of Battlestar Galactica was interrupted by ABC News for an hour to cover the so-called Camp David peace agreement between Egypt and Israel. Did the lengthy interruption stunt its start and hurt the show?

Richard Hatch: What hurt the show was that they had to rush it into production, so they were behind schedule and cost overruns were exorbitant—it was a hugely expensive show—though it was in the top 20 or top 10. Had we been on any other network than ABC—which already had so many successful shows—we might have survived. ABC replaced us with Mork and Mindy, which didn’t do as well in the ratings. Even with the news interruption, we had 65 million people watching. Today, if a show gets 29 million viewers, it’s in the top five.

Scott Holleran: Should Battlestar Galactica have been a miniseries, not a series?

Richard Hatch: It was a miniseries when we did it. Then, ABC changed it to a series. They didn’t have scripts written. We suffered because we weren’t ready to go with a show on that scale for a weekly series. To go from enormous success to having the budget pulled back just goes to show that they didn’t understand the value of the show in merchandising and moneymaking possibilities. They didn’t see the larger picture. They didn’t get it. Paramount did. They put together a mega-franchise with Star Trek. But ABC wasn’t alone—look at Fox, which I think gave all the merchandising rights for Star Wars to George Lucas.

Scott Holleran: Did Battlestar Galactica’s time slot—against 60 Minutes—hurt?

Richard Hatch: Again, we were rushed. Our shots became redundant and we had some weak mid-season stories—most shows don’t hit their stride until the second or third season. It’s very hard to get through that gauntlet of too many cooks in the kitchen. Star Trek would never have come back had it not been in syndication in an era when syndication was not yet saturated. They were able to relaunch a show that had never been successful in its first run.

Scott Holleran: Were there also content restrictions against violence?

Richard Hatch: That’s one of the reasons Streets of San Francisco went off the air. There were these [Puritanical pressure] groups and they scored points for violence. The same people that want to tell us what we should all watch—and mandate what we should see—are the same people who claim they don’t want government intervention in our lives. If you don’t want to watch, don’t watch. But, if one person complains about something happening on TV, [network executives] are more apt to change it. That amazes me. So, yes, there was a particular type of crackdown in the 1970s and 1980s.

Scott Holleran: You turned down the opportunity to co-star in Galactica 1980. Why?

Richard Hatch: Battlestar was about the journey—Galactica 1980 was about coming to Earth. I had also turned down auditions for the original Battlestar Galactica. I was very idealistic and I had read sci-fi since I was eight, though I thought that most of what was on TV was cheesy. [Creator] Glen Larson took me to dinner and, after I read the script with the Ralph McQuarrie artwork in it, I was still reticent. I turned it down. What ultimately sold me was McQuarrie’s artwork – the little boy in me was absolutely enthralled – because I’ve always been visual.

Scott Holleran: Tell me about your own Battlestar Galactica mock trailer?

Richard Hatch: We got amazing reviews. I set out to make a presentation to Universal. That was the whole thing. Ultimately, I found several production companies that were ready but Universal couldn’t quite believe there were enough fans out there. We showed statistics of how many people watched the show and—even then there were several companies making toys and merchandise—for a show that had been on the air for one year. I ultimately spent too much money. I ended up having to remortgage my home.

Scott Holleran: Were you asked to appear in the pilot for Battlestar Galactica: Blood and Chrome?

Richard Hatch: No. I heard that they filmed the pilot but it has yet to air. The Syfy Channel [formerly Sci Fi Channel] is a business. Blood and Chrome was shot with a lot of green screen but I hear it’s good. I’m hoping to see it soon. I love the Battlestar universe. For whatever reason, Battlestar has never found a home with a studio that really supports it—and we don’t really see space shows anymore. They like sci-fi shows where people look like they’re grounded in today because it doesn’t cost as much in costumes, etc.

Scott Holleran: What in your opinion lies at the core of Battlestar Galactica’s sustained interest—the post-apocalyptic search for safety, characters’ friendships, familial ties, or is it rooted in pure sci-fi escapism?

Richard Hatch: No. Like Lord of the Rings, it’s a journey, and there’s something metaphorical about it—because we’re all on a journey and it’s got a story that people can identify with. Battlestar Galactica is like life on a larger scale: we grow up, leave home, wander and try to find our way, we meet someone, create a homeland, we find the challenge of space and under those conditions we bond – as we did after 9/11, when we all bonded – and Battlestar taps into all those areas. We see the best and worst of humanity and, again, the insights of the human condition are profound, so those that love substance are drawn to it. The greatest light lies within the greatest darkness and it gives us hope and insight but in a realistic way. There are real epiphanies and breakthroughs and the worst in us sometimes becomes the best of us. The struggle to find a home is heroic and all those things touch us and nourish us. So you feel like you have to come back next week. I have to say that Ron Moore and company [in making the 21st century TV series] were brilliant in making you want more.

Scott Holleran: Regarding your Tom Zarek role in Moore’s remade Battlestar Galactica (2004), you said in an interview that you “liked that he was an idealist that turns darker because of the change in the world and government around him”. Explain what you mean.

Richard Hatch: If you read history, and watch the movie Braveheart, there are those who challenge the powers that be and start out looking at the world with rose-colored glasses but discover that there’s injustice and their innocence is destroyed and violated. While most accept the injustice, some rebel and challenge it and stand up against it. That’s what Tom Zarek did—he realized that the world lost its way and he stood for human rights. In the past, men were burned at the stake and thrown in dungeons. Tom went to prison for 25 years.

Scott Holleran: You’ve talked about learning to be objective about new versions of Battlestar Galactica. How do you approach being objective about a work?

Richard Hatch: I’ve lived long enough to know myself. We all have certain biases and levels of what I call programming. We buy into all these ideas. I’m more aware of myself and how we limit our objectivity. I’m more forgiving of flaws and imperfections. We either grow towards being more open or towards being more closed. For me, life has always been more of a spiritual journey. So, I’m able to be more objective. I could see that Ron Moore had an original vision—he wasn’t just copying—he understood the elements of the original Battlestar Galactica.

Scott Holleran: Are you more like Tom Zarek or Captain Apollo?

Richard Hatch: Tom Zarek. I love Apollo—he’s amazing—but they weren’t challenging him enough. He’s the true blue hero and the good guy never gets his due. So again, with Tom Zarek, he was courageous and he was punished. He lost faith and trust in government and I just found him to be a wounded, damaged idealist. Tom Zarek’s closer to the real me. I see people refusing to see the big picture. That’s why I teach. I love to empower people to stop being abused and claim their rights.

Creators, Partners and Castmates

Scott Holleran: I want to get your impressions of artists with whom you’ve worked during your 50-year career. Did you meet Waltons creator Earl Hamner when you played Wade Walton?

Richard Hatch: Yes and he’s a wonderful man. I love the world of The Waltons. It was like being in Pine Valley, where life is about family. I love that old-fashioned world. Earl Hamner embodies that—as a creator, producer and writer. I love the world he created. He was very gracious to me, open to feedback. I felt honored to be part of that show.

Scott Holleran: Jack Lord, with whom you appeared on Hawaii Five-O?

Richard Hatch: He was kind and supportive. I’d met him on the set of his cowboy series, Stoney Brook (1962). I know people say they had their differences with him but, with me, when I was on Hawaii Five-O, he came out and sat down next to me and he just talked with me when I was a nobody. He was kind and he was mentoring and I came on every season. He brought me to Hawaii and put me up in these nice hotels and I got to feel like a human being.

Scott Holleran: Michael Douglas, whom you replaced on Streets of San Francisco?

Richard Hatch: He had a lovely way about him. He took me to lunch while we were working on Streets of San Francisco and he made me feel much better.

Scott Holleran: Arnold Schwarzenegger, who guest starred on Streets of San Francisco?

Richard Hatch: He was this big little boy—he had a childlike quality of openness—like this big kid. He was happy to be on the set. I remember that we had a great conversation.

Scott Holleran: Quinn Martin, who produced Streets of San Francisco?

Richard Hatch: The quintessential producer [Cannon, The Fugitive, Barnaby Jones, The Untouchables, Twelve O’Clock High, Most Wanted, The FBI]. Gracious and always kind. The pressure got to me because I was terrified of replacing Michael Douglas and terrified of being replaced and [Quinn Martin] brought me down from San Francisco and made me feel like it was going to be OK. He was kind, never critical. He was businesslike, generous. And intelligent.

Scott Holleran: Patty Duke?

Richard Hatch: With her, it’s all about the work. I worked with her on a [1989] film adaptation of a Eudora Welty short story—The Hitch-Hiker—and she was a very smart woman, very direct, no nonsense.

Scott Holleran: Aaron Spelling?

Richard Hatch: I did get to know Aaron Spelling because he was always calling me. He was relentless. I said No to way too many things for all the wrong reasons, because I was an idealistic actor. But he was always very nice and he kept calling and asking. He treated his guest stars like stars, he was amazing in terms of his appreciation for actors.

Scott Holleran: You have talked about being shy and withdrawn before you became an actor. How did JFK’s assassination move you and draw you out?

Richard Hatch: I felt a kind of cosmic connection because our president had tapped into this spirit and we all needed that; he called out and touched us and exemplified idealism. It was the loss of innocence in America. I was a student and what I had read about his assassination made me cry. When I started to read it in class, I forgot myself—I forgot my shyness and insecurities and I felt this connection to something deeper. It took me out of being frightened and scared.

Scott Holleran: You played against type when you portrayed a frustrated writer who turns the tables on a criminal in an Obie award-winning, two-man stage play, P.S. Your Cat is Dead—

Richard Hatch: —My character is a down and out playwright and he takes out all his frustrations and anger when he catches this bisexual burglar named Vito. Then, he opens my mind and challenges me to step out of the box and stop being uptight. I could totally identify with the part, though the Vito character gets all the funny lines. Vito is the provocateur. The comedy comes out of the repartee.

Scott Holleran: Did you enjoy doing Dynasty?

Richard Hatch: Yes and no. That’s not really my kind of thing—I was playing another handsome art dealer type—but I loved working with Pamela Bellwood [as Claudia] again [she had previously appeared with Hatch in Deadman’s Curve].

Success and Self-Improvement

Scott Holleran: As a former gymnast and pole-vaulter who surfed, worked as a lifeguard and still plays basketball, how important is physical fitness to your artistic success?

Richard Hatch: I had studied ballet for three years in Beverly Hills, sleeping in the ballet studio’s back room—I was gifted in gymnastics, so they gave me a scholarship—and while I was always athletic, I always had a love for ballet, admiring [Mikhail] Baryshnikov and [Rudolph] Nureyev, amazed at how they could leap across the stage. During that time, I only dated ballet girls. Later, I studied the biology of the body and its proper nutrition, and I realized that everything in life is about building energy and vitality. So, I knew that if I wanted to maximize my life, I had to nourish myself. It’s like a plant; if you don’t take care of it, it dies. While I’m here for this time on the planet, I want to maximize my life. As for it being part of my success, my self-valuing was low when I started becoming successful, so I had to start with mental health. Having the house in Beverly Hills didn’t feel authentic. I felt like a fraud. I crashed and burned after Battlestar Galactica. People I’d been working with had drained my bank account. I had to go back into a deep journey into my soul and I knew I was feeling depressed. When your life as an actor gets magnified into stardom, with all the adulation, it’s so beyond reality that, when it goes away, you feel withdrawal. All the people taking your calls and meetings and everyone saying they love you is like a drug. Being famous is like being high all the time. You lose that and it taps into your abandonment issues—it pours acid on old wounds. I’m still learning to love myself unconditionally—overcoming guilt and shame from childhood has been a struggle for me—and I’m dealing with my issues. That’s why I do these seminars. I get joy from teaching.

Scott Holleran: Are you left-handed?

Richard Hatch: I’m ambidextrous; I write, play tennis and eat with my left hand. I bat, golf and play guitar with my right hand.

Scott Holleran: You talk openly during your self-help work about struggling with your issues. How did you pull through?

Richard Hatch: I’ve been through every form of therapy—Gestalt, Freudian, you name it. I grew up with abusive stepfathers who hated me, so I was basically medicating myself with food and carbohydrates. I was never into drugs and, though I like an occasional shot of Tequila, I never could drink very much. I would feel a deep sadness and disconnection, feeling rejected and not belonging and through studying philosophy and religions, reading the Bible, studying Buddhism and reading Tony Robbins or Marianne Williamson, I learned that there’s a deeper truth—that each one of us is supposed to connect with life. For me, acting is like a religion.

Scott Holleran: What are you working on now?

Richard Hatch: I just directed an episode for a series of shorts called Silicon Assassins, a quirky sci-fi series for the Web with a sort of libertarian political bent in which I also star and I just filmed a pilot called Mindbenders. It’s similar to The Twilight Zone. I play a Catholic priest in a film called Dead by Friday and a park ranger in a movie called The Pod—I think that’s supposed to be coming out soon. I am also preparing a new social media site for Battlestar Galactica fans. And I do my seminars and a Web-based reality series called Who the Frak. We’re taking the series on an excursion to Mexico in May.

Scott Holleran: Do you consider yourself a nerd, a geek—or an individualist?

Richard Hatch: I was a nerd. I was an athlete but I liked hanging out with kids studying physics. I was interested in science fiction and philosophy and understanding the world on a deeper level—I have a very inquisitive mind. It’s hard for me to understand that there are people who don’t. Am I an individualist? It depends on what you mean. I think we are all interconnected on a deeper level, part of something greater. I don’t think being an individualist and being interconnected are mutually exclusive.

Scott Holleran: In your motivational seminars, you talk about not basing self-esteem on the opinions of others and you tell audiences that people should love themselves. Are you advocating self-interest?

Richard Hatch: Yes. The biggest problem in the world is that most of us are trying to deal with a fractured self. What a child needs is the sense that he’s worth something—that he’s valuable. You have to really love yourself and people who are egotistical don’t really love themselves. Real self-worth comes from loving yourself.

Permalink | Posted in Books, Culture, Home Entertainment, Interviews, Lucasfilm, Movies, Paramount, Television, Twentieth Century Fox, Universal, Visual Arts

8 February 2012

Santorum’s Sweep is a Pivot Point

Yesterday, a former United States senator who was roundly rejected by his Pennsylvanian constituents and who seeks government based on religion, including procreation as the purpose of sex, swept three caucuses and primaries in the 2012 Republican presidential campaign. Conservative Rick Santorum won in Missouri, Minnesota and Colorado, throwing the Republican race into a tailspin. In topping 50 percent and winning by wide margins in states with low turnout and high concentrations of Christians seeking more religion in government, he trounced the GOP’s frontrunner and flip-flopper Mitt Romney, originator of ObamaCare, nasty Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul. The Catholic conservative is the most explicitly religious major presidential candidate.

Though he sounds reasonable on Iran, and Islamism, former Sen. Santorum – elected in a backlash in the 1990s against the dead on arrival Clinton health care plan and master of nothing but an abysmal record on capitalism and individual rights including total submission to faith-based President Bush – opposes the moral foundation of the United States: man’s rights. Cashing in on the accurate perception that Romney is unprincipled, Gingrich is unseemly and Ron Paul is a kook, the folksy former senator is waging an open and, thus far, straightforward campaign of telling Republican voters exactly what he will do as president: impose faith, family and tradition in government, which precludes him as a serious opponent of Islamism or the welfare state and fundamentally disqualifies him from the presidency. He seeks to annihilate any trace of a secular republic, from contraceptives and abortion to sodomy and homosexuality and he aims to replace it with bigger, religious government. Rick Santorum – congenial, conservative and loaded with “gee whiz” appeal – ought to offend every decent American.

But with Romney failing to make the case for the morality of capitalism – and Romney’s been partly right on private equity and the decimated middle class – Santorum’s triple victory tells us three things: 1) this historic presidential election may go all the way to the convention with a floor fight in Tampa, Florida, with a brawl among religiously pragmatic welfare statists Gingrich, Romney and Santorum (Paul is an anarchist) with Santorum as the most consistently principled unless you count Ron Paul as consistently incoherent; 2) bundled up, Romney must assert an at least partially moral case for capitalism and freedom to differentiate himself, which he’s unable to do, it’s not too late for a new candidate to emerge and reelection of the atrocious President Obama just became more plausible and 3) because Obama is atrocious and Americans are coming apart and looking to believe instead of to think, the prospect of theocracy in America is rising.

Permalink | Posted in Culture, Politics

5 February 2012

The Truth About President Kennedy

“I’d rather my children red than dead,” President Kennedy told a young White House virgin whom he had summoned for sex, during the so-called Cuban missile crisis, according to the New York Post‘s account of a new book, Once Upon a Secret: My Affair with President John F. Kennedy and Its Aftermath by Mimi Alford. Ms. Alford claims that she was a teen-aged intern who was invited to swim and expected to have sex with the President, Democrat John Kennedy, which she did, and that over the years of their affair she was also subjected to various forms of humiliation including being forced to consume what was probably amyl nitrate and asked to have sex with a Kennedy aide and a Kennedy relative (Ted). The book goes on sale this month.

None of this is surprising. As I recently observed, in posts about Richard Nixon and the Berlin Wall, President Kennedy, who has been sold as a great statesman, especially by MSNBC’s Chris Matthews, was a shifty character and seriously deficient president who was an advocate of government control of economics and communications. If Ms. Alford’s charges are true – and I suspect they are – they add to the evidence that Kennedy was a flawed American president.

According to a piece on Slate, Ms. Alford’s identity was first revealed in 2003 in Robert Dallek’s published portions of a 1964 oral history in which the liaisons were described. Slate – hardly part of a vast, right-wing conspiracy – reports that the New York Daily News then found someone who confirmed JFK’s affair with the teen-aged subordinate. Slate notes that Time magazine’s late White House columnist, Hugh Sidey, who covered the Kennedy administration, wrote in Time that “there was a Mimi,” adding that “there was also a Pam, a Priscilla, a Jill (actually, two of them), a Janet, a Kim, a Mary and a Diana I can think of offhand.”

Given what we know of the sordid history of the Kennedys – their backroom deals, crimes and affinity for fascism – not to mention countless indiscretions, it is long past time the press and their puppet-masters in politics and government stop ignoring and distorting the truth. They should drop the pretense that JFK was a great president and start accounting for his actions. Ultimately, historians will judge the Kennedy family’s legacy on the merits of their ideals in action: trying to force Hollywood moguls to remove Jewish names from film credits to placate Nazis, allowing Soviet construction of the Berlin Wall, refusing to enforce the law on behalf of Americans who are black, creating military disasters including bringing the U.S. to the brink of nuclear war, and creating socialized medicine and HMOs.

The record speaks for itself without new disclosures which confirm what the press already knew: that they also used power to take advantage of those without power. Better red than dead – the opposite of Patrick Henry’s Give me liberty or give me death! – was more or less the Kennedy presidency motto; that it apparently was confirmed by a 19-year-old who lost her innocence to a power-lusting president (who indiscriminately used his power for lust) ought not to shock anyone, least of all the media. Let’s not hear anymore of this Camelot nonsense, except as a warning against media complicity in propagating the government’s lies.