INT: Hi my name is Jeremy Kagan, it's September 5th, 2018. I'm about to conduct an interview with the remarkable Randal Kleiser, and we're at the Directors Guild of America in Los Angeles.

Hi, I'm John Randal Kleiser, I was born in Lebanon, Pennsylvania on July 20th, 1946.

INT: My first question, which is weird and I thought about this as I was coming in actually, was what's your relationship to the ocean?

RK: What a great question. When I was a kid my grandfather had a house on the, in Seaside Park, New Jersey. It was a four-story Victorian house. And every summer we would go there and it was magical because to the left was the boardwalk, to the right was a park, like a nature park. In the front was the ocean to swim in, and in the back was Barnegat Bay where we could go crabbing. So that world was just so amazing, a water world around me and going bodysurfing with my grandfather, it was just a great time in the summertime. [INT: Was your grandfather a doctor?] He was. How'd you know? [INT: I saw the movie [PORTRAIT OF GRANDPA DOC].] Oh. Okay. Well that was in that movie was, we shot that movie in the house where it took place, and I got Diane Baker produced it and she got Melvyn Douglas to play my grandfather, so I was staging scenes that happened to me with my grandfather in the same spot with Melvyn Douglas, which was just spectacular.

INT: The thing that I wondered about is because in a number of your movies, they are on water and a number of them are in water. Even fantasies in certain movies are in water. [RK: True.] And you know, to grow up with that and to know that, I mean I don't know if you've sort of stepped back and been able to say, you know, "I have a relationship with the ocean," which most people don't, but clearly you do.

RK: Well, the house that my grandfather had never changed. The furniture and everything on the walls never changed. So as we went back and grew up it was this timeless place like the ocean's timeless. And so when I went to Hawaii the first time, my parents took me after graduation. And I jumped off the rock at Waimea Bay, and I thought to myself, "Someday I want to have a house here." And so after a while I finally got one. And so I've done the same thing; I've kept the house exactly the same; every year you go back to the house and it doesn't change. And it feels like my grandfather's house. [INT: And when you are in the water, and I assume maybe you learned to scuba as well? I don't know if you did because of the filming.] Yeah. [INT: But when you're in the water, what happens consciously or unconsciously that you might be aware of?] Well, it's funny because when I was a kid, the first movie I saw, which I'm sure is one of the questions, was THE TEN COMMANDMENTS, and the opening of the Red Sea was what made me want to be a Director. So when I'm in the water and I'm fighting waves, I always think of that scene where the ocean opened and came down. And I fight the waves, like, you know, I love to go up against them and it's all part of this childhood thing, you know? [INT: Good. Wow. And when you're deeper, below the wave, what's your experience?] Well, I'm not so high on scuba diving and underwater stuff. I had amazing people do that for me. Ron and Valerie Taylor were Australian divers who did all THE BLUE LAGOON stuff. I just drew storyboards and gave it to them and they went down and got it. I'm not so happy underwater, but I love the surface. [INT: Got it.]

INT: Why did you decide or your process of deciding I'm gonna become either quote a filmmaker, 'cause that's a phrase that certainly some people have grown up with or specifically a Director, how did that happen for you?

RK: Well, when I was 10, my dad took me to see THE TEN COMMANDMENTS. And at the beginning of that movie, as you probably remember, there's a curtain and Cecil B. DeMille comes out behind the curtains and addresses the audience and says, "The movie you're about to see is lah-dah-dah," from the scriptures and all that stuff. And I was thinking, "Who is this guy? He looks like my grandfather." He did, he looked like my grandfather. And so I figured, "Okay, that's the guy who put this movie together." And then I saw the movie. And as a 10-year-old watching that with all the color and the pageantry and the music and the bad acting, but at the time I didn't know it was bad acting, it was very overwhelming. And the special effects and the production design, the costumes, wow. It really made an impression on me, and so I thought, "I want to do that when I grow up." [INT: So you didn't want to be Moses, you wanted to be the guy who came...] Oh yeah, the guy came through the curtain, yes. 'Cause it reminded me of my grandfather who was important to me and he's a role model and so I kinda put the two things together. [INT: Which now obviously you've made a movie about your granddad…]

INT: But what were some of the qualities when you're here as a 10-year-old and role model and here's Cecil B. DeMille coming out, what were some of the qualities that you would say your grandad had that you would say is a role model for you or other role models?

RK: Well Walt Disney was another one. I mean it was an older man who seemed to have it together and had qualities of leadership and you know, reaching out to kind of... I don't know, I just think that my grandfather was the one who first spotted that I had some talent in drawing and sent me to art school. And so that nurturing feeling that I got from him I think was part of it. [INT: And what art school did he send you? What kind of school?] It was the Philadelphia Museum College of Art. It was a Saturday course 'cause I was still in high school. But he... and then gave me a job designing a hat for his golf thing, that was my first job, so... [INT: As is in the movie [PORTRAIT OF GRANDPA DOC].] Yeah, yeah, and it was all staged the way it happened on the same place. [INT: Well there are two things that happen in the movie: Your character in that film gets picked on for his art interest.] Yes, right. [INT: But he also of course has art interest.] Yes. [INT: And gets encouraged for his art interest.] Right, right, that's true. [INT: Both of those happened, is that true for you?] Yes. Well as a kid, you know, when you're not athletic and you're interested in art people pick on you. And that did happen to me, so that movie was just touching on all that stuff.

INT: Do you remember what you learned in that art school? 'Cause it's actually a famous art school.

RK: I learned, the biggest thing I learned was contour drawing. Blind contour drawing. [INT: Meaning? If I...] Well, it's where you take a pen and you put it on the paper and you trace with your eye and you match your eye to the pen and you move your eye and the pen at the same time. And it gives kind of like a somewhat surreal drawing, but it captures certain things that you would not normally capture if you're doing this up and down, up and down. 'Cause it's really going from the eye right to the pen. [INT: It's fascinating in one way because it means that the eye, that the creative process is focus as distinguished from changing focus.] And I've been doing that for years now with other Directors. I've been drawing Directors. Did you see any of my... yeah. [INT: I think you did one of me, but I'll--] I did a couple of you. [INT: I don't know if you've given me one, that's the difference.] I have several of you, 'cause I do it a lot.

INT: The shift here toward film, 'cause now initially this is graphic art that you're being encouraged to do and doing and learning. When and how did the shift happen?

RK: Well, I used to watch the Walt Disney show every Sunday, and they showed how to make an animated film with the ink and paint department where they had, you know, the ink on one side and paint on the other. So I went to the local store and got those plastic sheets that had the three ring [binder] that you used to... and I cut them in half and I painted, I made a board, animation board. And I shot a cartoon. First I did it in pencil with flipping it and then I put the things on. And then I got an eight millimeter camera and shot down and took one picture at a time and got it, took it the drugstore, brought it back and it was all, 'cause the reflection was hitting it, so it didn't work very well. But I was trying, and I kept doing it and I finally got one that looked pretty good. And I wanted to take it and show it to Walt Disney. And my parents were taking a trip across the country in our tropical turquoise station wagon, Chevy station wagon. We got to the Disney gate and I had the little box of 8-millimeter film and I said, "I want to show this to Walt Disney." And the guard who had a Mickey Mouse patch said, "Do you have an appointment?" "No." "Get lost," so… And when I went back home, I decided to give up cartoons and become live, do live action. [INT: How did that happen in your head?] Well, in my head 'cause I was rejected by Walt Disney, so I gave up animation and wanted to start doing live action. [INT: So you went into live action having gotten your first major rejection from a studio as it were.] Rejection, yes. Yes. When I say go into live action I mean I was doing little animated films in the--I mean, live action films in the basement and building sets downstairs, you know, and my parents were going, "What are you doing down there?" But you know, as long as I didn't burn the house down, they didn't mind. And I made a whole bunch of live action movies. Yeah. [INT: And parents, interesting issue. What are you doing? You did these things, obviously you were doing them. Did you get the encouragement to say... and particularly at this time when, who does this?] No one. [INT: What kind of encouragement did you get? Or did you?] Well my dad's a psychologist and my mother's a teacher. So they were sort of supportive, but except that they could never do anything in the basement, 'cause there was always like things down there, sets being built. They were encouraging to me and it was amazing because when I went to a high school guidance counselor to tell them I wanted to be a Director, they were discouraging me. They said, "That's unrealistic." And my father went in and yelled at her because he said, "Don't trounce my son's hopes and dreams," so he was really supportive. And then to send me to USC, you know, that was a big expense 'cause we were in Philadelphia, and to fly me out here, and USC's not known to be cheap, so it was a big commitment and they-- [INT: Did you go as an undergraduate to master.] I went through six years.

INT: Now I want to ask one more question, 'cause I want to sort of know what you learned at USC that you feel you still learn, but before I go there, just the question I've got is the knowledge that you had of DeMille [Cecil B. DeMille] as, "Here's the person that made this." Were there other Directors over these years from 10 on that you actually were aware of besides that guy and Disney [Walt Disney]?

RK: I think just Disney and Cecil B. DeMille were the only ones I knew of. [INT: And yet you knew of the--] Hitchcock, Hitchcock, yeah. Yeah. [INT: Because?] Well because he was very, he was self-promoted I guess, I mean he was... you saw him in the beginning of all his movies and it was clear that he was the Director. You know? He made it known.

INT: What did you think a Director did before you got to USC? And since you'd been making movies you kinda knew, but what did you think they did or--

RK: Well, I kind of thought that he did everything I was doing except better and had better help. I mean I wasn't sure exactly how you set up a shot and the way I learned about, you know, how a scene is shot is by being an Actor in commercials. When I was at USC I did commercials and you know, the whole idea of, you know, like we're sitting here now and I'm talking and you're off-camera, the whole idea of that, I didn't know about. You know, I didn't know how you did that, but… Or exactly the eye lines and all that, I had no idea about. But that's the stuff I learned from being an Actor. [INT: Interesting because of that, learning as an Actor you also were at this film school.] Yeah.

INT: Who were your mentors?

RK: Well, Nina Foch was my major mentor and she was in THE TEN COMMANDMENTS, so it was... When I got to USC and I arrived as an 18-year-old freshman and saw on the curriculum that she was teaching, I was, "I gotta get in this class." And freshmen weren't allowed in the class, but I just whizzled my way in somehow and I just learned so much from her. And as you know, I spent years and years with her being her friend and she was my mentor and then I did a four-hour DVD of her class and I just... [INT: Talk about some of the things that... because here's a real teacher. She had a absolutely strong point of view about how acting and performance worked.] Yes, right. [INT: She also from my perspective was extremely tough.] Oh yeah. Oh very, very tough. Very scary too. When she would get you on stage and she would be so critical and it was a terrifying class and when she would call on you to get up there, it was like… you know? And that I think was good, you know, a challenge to have to perform in front of a class when you had this teacher who's almost, you know, vicious in her analysis. You know, nothing was pulled. [INT: And this is a class in acting--?] In the drama department, yeah. She wasn't in the film department at the time. George Lucas and I were in the class together, and I remember doing one scene on stage with George and she just ripped into us both and it was so scary.

INT: And so what are some of the principles that you were learning then from her [Nina Foch] that you've certainly restudied when you worked with her making the educational film about her and her method. What are some of the principles that you can articulate now that you still carry?

RK: Right. Well, sure. The first thing was being specific in pantomime or when having a private moment. I remember that one of the exercises was to do a private moment. And I was doing shaving. And you know, I would do the thing and put it on—she’d, "Wait. How far away is that shaving cream from your face?" And you know and, "Is the razor really touching you?" and things like--and she'd talk through that and I start to go, "Oh, okay, I'm being vague." And then being more and more specific in how to pick up a glass and stuff like that. All that basic stuff about being specific was a real eye-opener. [INT: Now translate that specificity if you can from the mime exercise to a performance where you actually have the shaving cream and you have the cup and you know, you're...] Well, then the next thing is to find a partner and a action and a obstacle. So those are the three things that--[INT: Let's talk about all three.] Yeah, well-- [INT: The first one is find a partner, what does that mean?] A partner, well someone that you play off of or something that you play off of. Usually it's a person. And finding a way to connect with that person is partnering. And having a action to play, to get something from a scene. And the obstacle is what prevents you from getting there. [INT: Let's go on the action a little bit more. Because that's such a powerful teaching tool.] Yeah. [INT: In terms of what that actually means. Can you articulate more about what that means?] Well, there's... she had lists and lists and lists of actions that gave us an example of it: To tell the truth, to let you know that I'm hiding something, to... I mean I'm drawing a blank on the thousands of them, but each one when I would break down a script, I would under her guidance write the action beside each line. And I know that you teach a different way where it's more of a whole scene, but she taught specifically each line. Which I found helpful because even if I didn't use it, it was there. And sometimes that would come, it would happen. Like I'd be in a tough situation with an Actor, and they'd ask me a question and I could just look at my script and see the action and give it to them, so... [INT: So would it be, 'cause I remember conversations with Nina about this. Would it be, because I absolutely agree with the concept of, I use the word active verbs.] Right. [INT: Our intentions.] Right. [INT: But would it be that she would go speech by speech, or even would it be line within a speech?] Line by line. Yes. [INT: So the beginning of that sentence and the end of that sentence.] Well, each line it would be... and sometimes they were repetitive, but what was interesting is that sometimes within the speech, the actions would change. And even if they didn't, if you tried to figure out what it was, it just was helpful. I mean, it was a lot of work, but I found it to be helpful in times of stress. [INT: Got it. Now know that you're partnering, in other words, you were in relationship with somebody else, that was the partnering. The action you've defined in terms of doing something. The third category that she was talking about?] Obstacle. [INT: And how would that get defined?] Well, it's what's keeping you from getting your action accomplished. I mean, one of the exercises that demonstrated the obstacle real clearly was walking through a room full of jello. You know, when beginning Actors are trying to figure out what an obstacle is, that's a good one, because they have to push against it, and feel it against their face and where it would go through their fingers and stuff. So by doing that very specifically you start to go, "Oh, okay." And you want to get there in a certain amount of time because of something that's been given to you, like some time thing. And then you have the obstacle of pushing through the jello. So that's kind of a clear way. [INT: Did she teach a distinction between sort of what you were thinking about or wanting mentally and the body that you're in? Do you remember 'cause this illustration that you just gave is very, very physical.] Yeah. [INT: And you know, in many of your movies physicality is in fact a theme and that's why I'm wondering if you--] I don't recall anything like that, no, I think it just, one came out of the other, I think.

INT: In the USC experience you made a number of movies. [RK: Yeah.] What was the process of learning, you know, "Okay I've made this now, oh I've just learned this, and now I've made this one, and I just learned this." And by the way, one of your earlier pieces, the one with the shoes is hysterical and timeless.

RK: That was stop-motion, so it was back to my animation days, yeah, right. So what were you...? [INT: What were you learning through USC?] Oh. [INT: Particularly when you were making the films, not necessarily like with Nina [Nina Foch].] Well, working with a Crew was something that I had not done before 'cause I'd done it all myself and finding the right people to work with. I was so lucky to have like Basil Poledouris do my score, who later became a very wonderful Composer and worked on many of my films. John Milius was helping me write scripts. George Lucas, I was an Actor in his first movie. So we were all helping each other. In those days there was no competition really because nobody had ever gotten out of film school and into the industry really. It was a time when we were told when we went to USC that we would never get into the industry unless we had a relative or contacts; we would end up doing industrial films or educational films. And there was no hope, so if you wanted to be a theatrical film Director, forget it. That was what we were all told because at that point no one had. And I think it was John Milius who broke the ground the first time. He wrote a script that was picked up by American International [American International Pictures] and we all went, "Oh my god, John Milius' name is in The Hollywood Reporter." And we were just celebrating and going, "Wow, wow." Because of that, there was a spirit of camaraderie there that having taught at USC years later, I didn't see. You know? I felt there's much more competition now and there has to be because then, if you wanted to direct a movie you did. And now, you have to pitch it and you're up against other Directors and you don't get to do what you want to do. Right? [INT: Yeah, yeah, it is absolutely right.] Yeah.

INT: You made a number of movies at USC. I mean, shorter and longer. [RK: Yeah.] I guess was the innocent one is—[RK: Oh HANDS IN INNOCENCE, right, yeah.] So and in many ways these are, I'll use this word, more experimental. I mean, obviously something like PEEGE is a, you know, more and in quotes accessible. [RK: Right.] And the filmmaking style is more, you know, understandable. [RK: Sure. Yeah.] But these earlier pictures were not. They're far more experimental, you're playing with ideas and images. [RK: Right.] And I'm curious where you were headed in your own mind at that time? And who you were admiring?

RK: Well, I was trying to take events that happened like the one I did called HANDS IN INNOCENCE was, I used to work at a school for emotionally disturbed children, 'cause my dad was a psychologist who ran the school. And I was working, there was one particular girl who was schizophrenic and she was taken out of the school by her parents. And she came back the next day a real mess. And I read about her background and that's... I wrote that story of what happened when she went home based on the characterization of the parents. The father was... thought she was fine, the mother, you know, didn't want to have anything to do with her. And so I wrote that story and from her point of view, so you know, the idea that the father was a little bit too touchy and the mother was very standoffish and so. And what schizophrenics sometimes do is focus on shiny objects, so the mother's thing, you know, I was just trying to put myself in her head and try to make a movie about it. So that was kind of fun. I mean that was that one. And then the other one that I did at USC was called SUMMER DAYS DON'T LAST, and that was based on an Actor friend of mine that was in the BEACH PARTY movies. And he was stuck in that and it was about the hippie movement coming and how he's trying to hang on to the old days of the surfing and dancing on the beach and everything and everyone else had turned into pot-smoking hippies. And so I found that to be sort of an interesting sociological change going from in the '60s [1960s] going from one thing to the other.

INT: Let's talk about writing. Because you know, you wrote a lot of your movies. You wrote then. And the process for you of writing and I'm gonna jump ahead. But there are other movies obviously that you have written in the process, but like IT'S MY PARTY being a specific one. What's your personal process as a Writer? How does that work?

RK: Well I like to base the writing on real people and real events and dramatize them a bit, but pretty much with IT'S MY PARTY, it's based on a real event. [INT: And PEEGE and--] And PEEGE was too, yeah, yeah. And SUMMER LOVERS in a way was too. So yeah, all based on real people, real events. And then I just try to bring it to life. [INT: And let's get real specific if you can do it. Are you sitting down with a piece of paper? Are you alone? Are you... how do you work it out? Are you writing first a larger outline and then going into specific scenes? How do you do it? Or does it depend on the piece?] Yeah. Just writing paragraphs about the subject and zeroing in on the key moments and then slowly shaping it I think is the way I work. Lot of research, photographs. Photographs. A lot of photographs. When I'm doing like PEEGE was when I visited my grandmother in a nursing home, and I had a camera and took pictures, and I looked at the pictures and the story just came to life that way. Same thing with IT'S MY PARTY. At the actual party, my friend Joel Thurm who's a Producer and a casting guy, was there and took a lot of pictures and he brought them and showed them to me. And that triggered it. So mostly it's from photos I guess. [INT: Do you... in the process of this, will you write many drafts? Will you write one?] Yeah. [INT: And will you run it by other people before you're saying, "Okay, this is my story," or, "This is my screenplay?"] I work on it quite a bit and I'm usually, because of the subject matter I've been doing with, reticent about showing it to people 'cause it's kinda raw, you know? And the things that I've written about most cases have been very emotional experiences, and so it's scary to show it to people at first. And so I wait until I have it exactly the way I want it and then show it close friends and see what they think. [INT: Got it, got it.]

INT: You know, in IT'S MY PARTY there's a... I know you have a sense of humor. But there's a lot of witty lines in that one. From a number of characters. Were these all out of you? Were they things others said? I mean, literally 'cause I was thinking as I was watching I was saying, “There's really some very, very funny, you know...," I mean it comes out of a certain culture as well but I mean still, it was...

RK: Sure, yes, the gay culture, yeah. Well, I mean a lot of that was on the set, some of it was stuff I looked up or heard about or I researched funny lines, you know… some of it happened on the day. So yeah, I was trying to... because it's such a downer, the whole movie is about a man about to kill himself, so I wanted to lift it up with some jokes. And actually in the actual event, Harry Stein who it was about was trying to keep the party very lively, and it was supposed to be like a birthday party kind of a atmosphere and joking and everything. And he would keep it all going and then the moment he walked away everyone would just fall into this sullen horrible thing. But it was, I think that we really captured that day pretty much. Yeah. [INT: There's no question about it.] Yeah. [INT: And we'll get to the specifics of making that one because there's so much in there. But let's stick with the issue of you dealing with the words on the page.]

INT: Writing your own material and directing material written by others. The distinction for you? I mean obviously it depends on each one of those others and who those people are. But how, is there a generality for you that you learned in terms of how you work with another human being who has written something?

RK: Well, I guess I just try to get into the head of the Writer in a bit. And a good example is James Poe, who wrote THE GATHERING. That was based on his life. It was about a man dying of cancer and bringing his family together who hated him for one last Christmas. And at the time, you know, on the page was all the material, but it wasn't 'til after the movie was made that I realized that it was about him, you know? But even the writing you could tell that it was something very specific 'cause it wasn't, there was nothing general about it. [INT: Do you in the process, how do you if rarely a script is coming in that's like, "Oh this is perfect."] Yes. [Let's just do all the work that the Director has to do.]

INT: Scripts need attention, sometimes call for attention and changes. [RK: Yeah. Yes, yes.] What's your... is there a process for you that you've learned that you would say, "This is the way I go about doing this." Or...

RK: Well each one's different but I'll, for example on GREASE, we had the play of GREASE and then Allan Carr, the Producer, brought in Bronte Woodard, a playwright. And they did their own version of GREASE and. So it was filled with a lot of campy lines, all the way through. And so it wasn't, I didn't feel it was gonna work and when we were reading, having our table read it was not working. And Joel Thurm, the casting guy, said, "Hey, why don't you give each member of the cast the play and we'll compare each scene that way." And so that's how we did it. So we would take the scene in the script and the scene in the play and read them both, and then we would piece together what, if there was anything that worked from the new version, and so it was a pastiche of the two. [INT: And how did you make that happen? Was that at table reads?] Yes. [INT: Would you do a number of them?] Yes, table reads during rehearsal. And we would then play the scene with the Actors for the two Writers. And as long as they heard a few of their lines, they thought it was all theirs.

INT: Have you had experiences where you've, I mean needed... where there's been resistance? Where the Writer has said, "Oh don't change this." [RK: Oh. Yes.] And how do you deal with that?

RK: Well, yeah. Often times the Writer is replaced. And that's something that you can do in movies, but not in plays too much. But Writers are not treated well in studio system. I mean the Executives say, "Well he's written out," or, "He's tapped out," or something. We had to get a new guy to come in and do the woman's part or something like that you know? So they're really treated badly by the movie business. But I've had some good luck working with Writers like Douglas Day Stewart, who wrote AN OFFICER AND A GENTLEMAN, but he also for me wrote BOY IN THE PLASTIC BUBBLE and THE BLUE LAGOON. And we had a really good working relationship and he took a look at IT'S MY PARTY and gave me some suggestions for that. And you know, so I have good relationships with him.

INT: Looking at him in relationship to something like, not something, in relationship to BLUE LAGOON, which is in many, many ways an extremely visual experience. Was some of that on the page? I mean obviously there's the novel and what he wrote, but I mean literally they'll be scenes in that movie that are two, three minutes long, not a word is spoken.

RK: Néstor Almendros. He was the best artist of any kind that I ever worked with and when I was about to, when I was trying... taking BLUE LAGOON around trying to get it financed and I couldn't get it financed, I was about to give up when I saw DAYS OF HEAVEN at MGM in 70 millimeter and I thought, "Wow, this is the look I need. Who is this young filmmaker?" And it turned out he wasn't young, he’s Néstor Almendros who had worked with Truffaut, and I tracked him down in New York and I went to see him. And I said, "I gotta do this movie with you." And he wasn't sure and Frank Price finally said, yes, to it, and so I said to Néstor, "I really want you to shoot this." And he wasn't sure, so he brought Barbet Schroeder, who he trusted to my house and I pitched it to Barbet and Néstor. And then after the meeting, Barbet said, "Yeah, you should do it." So I was really, really thrilled when Néstor said yes to that. And he was responsible for a lot of the, you know, sequences where there was no dialogue. Because we would sit on the island and talk about it and he would just, you know, help me get to that point. But Doug Stewart [Douglas Day Stewart] took the basics of the novel that was written in 1890, I believe, and thought out what would really happen. It wasn't written in the book, it was just the kids grew up and they had a baby, but he step-by-step went through masturbation, menstruation, you know, having baby and all that stuff that was not in the book. [INT: Got it.]

INT: Let's talk career. Okay, you've been told you're going to be making educational films. What happened?

RK: Well, there was a changing of the guard I guess around in the '60s [1960s], starting with I guess EASY RIDER, when people thought, "Wow, there's an audience out there for movies about younger people and they all show up." And so the whole studio system seemed to switch and people wanted to have movies for young people, by younger people. And people started getting jobs and getting to work, so and it just seemed like the doors opened and people came through it.

INT: And your first professional job?

RK: Well I guess it was MARCUS WELBY, M.D. [INT: How did that happen?] I had finished PEEGE, my master's thesis about my grandmother. And I sent it over to Universal hoping they would distribute it as a short, but they don't do that. But Frank Price saw it and I had used a lot of Actors from television, Barbara Rush, William Schallert, Bruce Davison, Jeanette Nolan, who played the lead in my film, and I had no idea at the time 'cause there was no IMDb, that she had played Lady Macbeth opposite Orson Welles. And here she was in my student film. I just thought she was some Actress who I didn't know. [INT: All right let's... here she was in your student film.] Yes. [INT: How did you come about having the capacity to first say, "I really want real good Actors in this movie," and go then after in fact, some very respectable Actors.] Barbara Rush, yeah. [INT: How did that happen?] Well, Joel Thurm was this casting guy that I knew. [INT: And how did you know him?] I guess from parties around town, you know? I guess that's how I first met him. And he, I showed him my script 'cause I said I wanted to get Actors that are, "Can you help me cast this?" 'Cause he was casting GUNSMOKE at the time and I just knew, "I heard you were a Casting Director, would you look at my script?" And he looked at it, "Wow, this is great." So he sent it to Bruce Davison who's the first one to say yes, 'cause he liked the part. And then Bruce's Agent was Barbara Rush, and his name was Joel Dean [Joel Edward Dean] and he handled Barbara Rush, and then Joel wanted to handle me and he's the one that sent it to Universal. So it all came together. Once Barbara and Bruce were attached then the other Actors said, "Oh what's this? Oh," they could send it around and say, "These two Actors are attached, would you like to be in this student film?"

INT: Had any of your contemporaries like Harry Winer or you know, George [George Lucas], whoever was there at the time you were at USC, were they, had any of them also had the attitude of, "Let's get some, you know, real respected Actors?"

RK: I don't think so. [INT: Or were most of them working with student Actors?] They were all working with student Actors. Because I guess they hadn't met someone like Joel Thurm. You know? I was lucky that I met somebody who was a professional, who could get me those people. And also the script I think worked. And they wanted to do it. [INT: No question about it, but you know, the idea that that phrase of casting up for a student film. And many students at film schools don't think that. Maybe because they're afraid, 'cause they haven't worked with professionals or there may be a variety of reasons.] Sure. [INT: But that very fact that you did that actually in a way is responsible for your entering into...] Totally, totally. If I hadn't done that I wouldn't have gotten started because it was the fact that I had these known Actors in my student film and Universal was using those same Actors in their shows, they said, "Oh well let's let him try, you know, working here."

INT: When you walked onto MARCUS WELBY [MARCUS WELBY, M.D.], and I'm sure you remember probably your first day. [RK: Every second. Oh yes, I certainly did.] You know, one of the things I think is true for many of us is, we remember more about our first professional job than we do about any of the thousands of time more complex movies. [RK: Yes. Anything. Absolutely.] Do you remember your first day?

RK: I sure do, yes. I do. In ways it was a disaster, in ways it was funny. The disaster part was the movie, the show was always brightly, brightly lit. And I decided to come in and change the show because I wanted to put my mark on it. So the Cameraman was Walter Strenge, who wrote the American Cinematographer Manual, he was 80-years-old and he'd been doing this for years and years and years. And I walked on the set and I said, "Now Walter, I would like to have this scene with Marcus Welby sitting in the room, in a dark room, looking into his fireplace before the door knocks." And he said, "What? You want to light the set?" And I said, "No, no, I don't want to light the set, but we studied you in the American Cinematographer Manual and I know you can do this." And, "Oh well, I guess I can do it." So I talked him into lighting the set for the first time low-key. And then they called Robert Young to the set, the star of the show. And I was standing there waiting for him to come and I heard, "Oh my god, oh my god." And a thump. I turned around and he had, it was so dark he tripped over the dolly and had knocked himself out. So they woke him up and they put him back in the chair and I thought, "Mr. Young, do you want to go home? And do you want to relax? What?" He said, "No, let's go on." And I couldn't figure out why he was so cooperative. And then I later found out that he owned the show, so he didn't want to lose the time or money. But that was part one of the first day, and the second part was when the first moment that I had a 40-man Crew all around me that had worked in the industry all those years and this is my first time. And I had told them, "Hey, this is my first time, I hope you'll all help me," yadda-yadda-yadda. And then it was time to shoot and-- [INT: By the way, how did you communicate that idea?] I just announced it to everybody when I was standing there, yeah. And I was... But here's what happened. So they start rolling the cameras and I say, okay, “Action,” at the beginning, “Cut” at the end, “Action, cut, action, cut." And I was shooting Elena Verdugo, a close-up of the nurse. And so I combined them and I said, "Cunt!" And the whole Crew broke up laughing, I turned purple and she said, "I've never been so insulted in my life," as a joke, you know? But that broke the ice. A true story. [INT: That's great man, that's great.]

INT: All right, two things on those first days, on those first shows, like that, like that show MARCUS WELBY [MARCUS WELBY, M.D.]. Working with professional Actors, you now have--because of PEEGE you already had that experience. And I think that some of the Actors and the Actors in some of the... in your two USC films also, particularly the surfing one, had people who actually were this professional. Was there a difference and what did you learn?

RK: Wow. Well I learned how fast things work in TV and how it's like a machine that just keeps churnin’, and you know, how all the Actors seem to be able to hit their marks and say their lines and not mess up. I mean, I was so impressed that I felt like it was part of this thing like that, you know? And trying to do nine, eight pages a day, I can't remember. The thing that I found most challenging was when you're trying to take eight pages of dialogue in one day, how to do something interesting. Other than just have them talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, you know, how do you get an interesting shot or a move or... so I was always trying to look at the day's work and say, "Where can I put something interesting in here?" Because it was so hard to just, it was basically just like doing a telephone book in some ways, you know? Not a telephone, but you know what I'm talking about. So I tried to add things like rain, or you know, for a scene by rain so there'd be some movement. Or I often heard that putting a scene by water often makes a scene more interesting. And I've done that a lot, moving water. Yeah. Like a river, a waterfall, rain, something like that. [INT: You do that in THE GATHERING, there's a scene…] That's right, that whole opening scene is by a big waterfall. And that keeps, you know, the exposition is interesting, 'cause you know, there's all that movement going on. [So you learn speed.]

INT: In readjusting an Actor's performance particularly on these early first three television shows--you did STARSKY AND HUTCH I think as well? [RK: Yeah, ROOKIES, yeah.] What was that process? What were you learning, if anything new, about the relationship between Director and Actor in these early television shows?

RK: Oh. It was so fast that I was just trying to make it work rather than add something, really. I mean trying to get from the page to the screen without any screw-ups. You know? [INT: You're still using Nina's [Nina Foch] teachings...] As much as possible, but at that speed with no rehearsal really until you’re--it's more blocking than rehearsal, as you probably know. You know, you show up, and I would show up in the morning to look at the set and there'd be no set, you know? I'd say, "Aren't we shooting here?" "Oh that's not 'til 11 o'clock." And then at 11 o'clock they bring in all the set and then I have to figure out how to stage it because, you know, here was the page, here was the set, and all these people standing around saying, "Now what?" And you know, that was scary.

INT: Now I know because of you're being a graphic artist, you can storyboard yourself. [RK: I, yeah.] Were you already using that process and how were you using the process?

RK: I was, in dialogue scenes I would do where the over the shoulders were and I wouldn't know where to put them, but at least I'd know... a lot of times I would do something to get the look of more coverage, I would break down a scene where halfway through the scene I wanted to be closer. So I would indicate an off-camera zoom when the other person was talking and I'd tell the Operator, "Okay, when they say this line, go in tighter." And then I was sort of cutting in the camera, but that way it looked like there was more coverage. You know, I'd find a point in the scene where I wanted to be closer and I'd just say, "Off-camera zoom here."

INT: In staging, in blocking, in particular camera movement and people movement, what would you do?

RK: Well, I don't know if I really focused on that because like I say, I was trying to get from the page to the screen. But I do remember that with these kind of movies that you're talking about, where there's mostly dialogue, most of what I learned from USC I learned about editing and about eye movements and everything, was from a film they showed at school about editing, put out by the Editors Guild, where they had GUNSMOKE dailies. Do you know that one? Do you teach with that? [INT: No.] No? [INT: No.] Because what they had in our class was the teacher, Doug Cox ran that film, he would go back and forth over the cuts and show how the person was looking from here to there. And then they cut to the other person and they'd look down. And I learned so much about what you can do with just eye movements, about telling a story in cutting. And how long you stay on a person when they move their eye and you stay on them, and then you cut to the other person. That makes this person stronger. Or if you cut to them and the other person holds the look, that keeps them strong. If they drop their eyes right when they look at them, it looks like they're weak. I mean, all these amazing things you can do just with eye movements. And I think I was doing a lot of that kind of stuff in these TV shows. [INT: Now would you, this is really specific, would you actually give the technical direction to one of these, "I've been on the show for five years."] No, not really. No, it was just aim and shoot.

INT: What was the shift for you out of directing these television shows?

RK: I guess Robert Stigwood had a TV movie they were gonna do called ALL TOGETHER NOW, and because of PEEGE it was about, it was about, a true story of a family where the parents died and the oldest brother raised the kids. And they saw PEEGE and they asked me to do that. And--[INT: Now was that through your Agent that they saw PEEGE?] I think so, yeah. Yeah. [INT: So an Agent made...] Made a deal. Made a difference. [INT: Do you remember who your first Agent was and how that happened?] Yes, very much. Joel Dean [Joel Edward Dean] was my first, the one who handled Barbara Rush and Bruce Davison, so he loved PEEGE and sent it around to everybody. He's the one who got it to Frank Price, and it started circulating around and people at Spelling/Goldberg [Spelling/Goldberg Productions] saw it, and then I think that was my calling card for a long time. [INT: And at this time this is now, they have to watch this in a screening room?] Right. That's amazing. [INT: And they also... and you met Dean through...?] He was handling two of the Actors in PEEGE. [INT: Got it. So the casting person, your friend Thurm [Joel Thurm] got to Bruce [Bruce Davison] and Bruce was...] Right. [INT: And then they came?] Yeah. [INT: I gotcha, I gotcha. So and what Agency was he with?] CMA, Creative Management Associates I think it was called. [INT: Got it.]

INT: So here's this move to your first movie of the week. The differences in the experience between that and...

RK: Little slower. Little more control. I got to pick where we shot, I mean I went back to USC. I changed the script and made him into a filmmaker, you know, that went to USC and we went back to college and shot there. I worked with old-time Actors, which was a lot of fun. A lot of times in these episodic shows they'd bring out people who had done a lot of movies from the '40s [1940s] and '50s [1950s], you know? So I got to work with people... [INT: That's interesting.

INT: Talk about the TV evolution career and then we're gonna deal with sort of specific areas of directing. But talk about that. [RK: Going...] Yeah, getting you to I guess THE BOY IN THE BUBBLE--[RK: THE BOY IN THE PLASTIC BUBBLE, I think...] Did THE GATHERING happen first?

RK: No, no, I think first, next was DAWN: PORTRAIT OF A TEENAGE RUNAWAY, which was about a prostitute played by Eve Plumb from THE BRADY BUNCH. And it's funny, I just came across an audiotape that I did with Bo Hopkins and Eve Plumb when we were rehearsing that. And it was so interesting, was listening to it the other day 'cause I'm trying to archive all kinds of old stuff. And Bo Hopkins was saying, "I don't want this guy to be a total bad guy," who's the pimp, so I was trying to find redeeming features for him and stuff like that. You know, 'cause when talking to Actors, they always want to show both sides of a villain and that was interesting to hear dealing with that. But yeah. [INT: How did you handle it?] I think I just came up with some ideas for him to give him some good points and I don't know exactly what I said, but I was aware of what I was trying to do in that audio.

INT: And the evolution to BOY IN THE BUBBLE?

RK: Yes. Well I think Joel Thurm knew John Travolta's Manager; they were friends. And they were looking for a Director for BOY IN THE PLASTIC BUBBLE, and Joel had sent the script to the Manager, and John was looking for something to do and I think something had just fallen through for him, and this came along and he was very, very popular in WELCOME BACK, KOTTER at the time. He was a very big TV star. And he loved the story and then they showed him PEEGE and then he said yes. So that's how that happened. [INT: And did you recognize that in terms of the other TV movies, as a different opportunity for you within your career? Or was this, you know, "This is my next movie."?] Because John was such a big TV star, I knew that this was going to be different from the other projects. And also the fact that it was based on a real kid, and an immune deficiency thing that had not been explored yet on television, and it was gonna be an event movie; it wasn't just gonna be another TV movie. So based on those two things, I knew that the stakes were a little higher. And the script by Doug [Douglas Day Stewart] was really good and I'd worked with him. I think there was another Writer on before and then Doug was brought on. And we worked together on the script, you know, and...

INT: What did that lead to? Did that lead to THE GATHERING next? [RK: I think so.] I'm just sort of trying to get you into your feature career as well.

RK: I think so, I think that the next one was THE GATHERING and that was also because of PEEGE, you know? The Producer saw that and it was a similar story, you know? The one about the man dying of cancer and his family coming back, so it had a similar feel. And that was a wonderfully cast movie, again, by Joel Thurm, where the Actors in that all went on to do many other things… [INT: But you cast Bruce [Bruce Davison]. No, well Joel had to.] Oh yeah, well Joel originally cast Bruce in PEEGE, but yeah, Bruce and then we had Gregory Harrison and Ed Asner [Edward Asner] and Maureen Stapleton. It was great working with these... [INT: Did that lead to your feature? Your first feature?] Well, I had worked with John [John Travolta] on BOY IN THE PLASTIC BUBBLE and I worked with Stigwood [Robert Stigwood] on ALL TOGETHER NOW, the TV movie, and I guess when the list came up who to direct GREASE, I was on both their lists, and John pushed for me too, 'cause we had just finished BOY IN THE PLASTIC BUBBLE. And I was originally supposed to do SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER when that original article came out, “Tribal Nights of the Saturday Night” in New York Magazine by Nik Cohn. Stigwood flew me to New York to meet Nik Cohn and talk about that. And then a couple weeks went by and suddenly they offered me GREASE, so I guess they thought I wasn't right for SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER, which is true. I wouldn't have done as good a job as John Badham did. But I was happy to get GREASE.