Michael Deeley - Blade Runners, Deer Hunters & Blowing the Bloody Doors Off: My Life in Cult Movies

This book made available by the Internet Archive.

Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2012

http://archive.org/details/bladerunnersdeerOOmich

PLATE SECTION I

i Lobby-card artwork for One Way Pendulum. (Courtesy of Michael Deeley/ Wood/alt)

2 The Knack: Oscar Lewenstein, Richard Lester and MD. (Courtesy o/MD)

3 MD with Lindsay Anderson, on location for The White Bus. (Courtesy ofMD)

4 The Italian Job: MD with Tony Beckley, Noel Coward and Michael Caine. (Courtesy ofMD)

5 MD receives Italian knitwear from soon-to-be wife Ruth. (Courtesy ofMD)

6 The Italian Job's stunt of Minis jumping factory roofs. (Courtesy ofMD)

7 Michael Caine and MD in Turin for The Italian Job. (Courtesy ofMD)

8 MD in the midst of Murphy's War. (Courtesy ofMD)

9 Nic Roeg directs David Bowie on The Man Who Fell to Earth. (Courtesy ofMD/ EMI)

io Cannes, 1975. MD with Bernard Delfont. (Courtesy ofMD)

11 The Driver (1978): MD with Larry Gordon. (Courtesy ofMD)

12 MD, Bob Sherman and Sam Peckinpah on location for Convoy. (Courtesy ofMD)

13 Michael Cirnino and Robert De Niro on location for The Deer Hunter. (Courtesy ofMD/ EMI/Universal)

14 'Oscar Night' 1979: MD with John Wayne. (Courtesy ofMD/ Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences)

Vll

PLATE SECTION 2

1-8 Sketches by Blade Runners 'visual futurist' Syd Mead: an 'Orgasma'; Chew's microscope; the Voight-Kampff machine; a futuristic wall plug; a phone with video function built into the handset; a 'retro-fitted' parking meter; sketches for an elaborate automated tea room, which eventually inspired the sushi bar in Blade Runner (1982). (Courtesy of Syd Mead)

9,10 Scene paintings by Syd Mead: the cityscape of Los Angeles, 2019; Zorah's nightclub dance (never shot). (Courtesy of Syd Mead)

11 Pris in the back of J. F. Sebastian's cluttered truck. (Courtesy of Syd Mead)

12 Street scene, Los Angeles, 2019. (Courtesy of Syd Mead)

13,14 Blade Runners fearsome replicants: Daryl Hannah as Pris; Rutger Hauer as Roy Batty. (Both photos courtesy of The Ladd Company.)

15 A photo of Sean Young inscribed to Michael Deeley. (Courtesy ofMD)

16 Blade Runner director Ridley Scott. (Courtesy of The Ladd Company)

17 Ridley Scott and Harrison Ford in conference. (Courtesy of The Ladd Company)

18 Production Executive Katy Haber and MD on the Blade Runner set. (Courtesy of The Ladd Company)

INTEGRATED

US advert for Sandy the Reluctant Nature Girl. (Courtesy of Michael

Deeley) page 23 Paramount's 'cumulative distribution statement' for The Italian Job.

(Courtesy ofMD/ Paramount Pictures) page 75 The certificate that marked The Italian Job's nomination for a

Golden Globe as Best English Language Foreign Film of

1969. (Courtesy ofMD/ Hollywood Foreign Press Association)

page 77 Bernard Delfont's irate response to his reading of the script for

Monty Python's Life of Brian. (Courtesy ofMD) page 140 Full-page advert in the Hollywood Reporter of 20 June 1978, pitching

direct to the heads of the ten major Hollywood studios.

(Courtesy o/MD/ Hollywood Reporter) page 184 Meeting HM Queen Elizabeth II at royal premiere of Death on

the Nile in 1978. (Courtesy qfMD) page 186 Director Alan Parker's cartoon for Screen International. (Courtesy of

MD/ Alan Parker) page 191 Doodle by Ridley Scott inspired by Blade Runner screenwriter

Hampton Fancher. (Courtesy qfMD/ Ridley Scott) page 209 Two scenic sketches by Ridley Scott known as 'Ridleygrams'.

(Courtesy of MD/O Ridley Scott) pages 220-1 Screening notes from Bud Yorkin and Jerry Perenchio regarding

Blade Runner. (Courtesy qfMD) page 252 More 'Ridleygrams'. (Courtesy qfMD/ Ridley Scott) pages 256-7 Bud Yorkin's good wishes to MD at outset of Blade Runner ...

(Courtesy qfMD) page 260 ... and the unhappy end. (Courtesy qfMD) page 261 A 1990 letter from Harold Wilson's office to MD. (Courtesy of

MD) page 266 Newspaper advert for cable premiere of Young Catherine.

(Courtesy qfMD/ TNT) page 269

Foreword

Michael and I partnered to make Blade Runner in the late 1970s. It was to be my first actual experience making a film in Hollywood. It was a bumpy ride but one I wouldn't have missed - for anything ...

Michael's sense of humour and wit prevails in his book, making it an accurate and entertaining read. A producer's life is not for the faint-hearted.

Sir Ridley Scott

Overture And the Winner Is...'?

It is 9 April 1979, 'Oscar Night' at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion on Grand Avenue in downtown Los Angeles. Inimitable master of ceremonies Johnny Carson announces the presenter of the last and most important award category, Best Picture and the audience is astonished to see John Wayne mount the stage.

'The Duke', seventy-one years old and terribly afflicted by stomach cancer, has made an extraordinary effort to be here. In the course of the previous year's ceremony MC Bob Hope sent a get-well to Wayne from the podium, inviting him to amble down in person next year. And now here he is. The audience's ovation is prolonged, and all the more moving because Wayne's obvious and uncharacteristic frailty suggest that he is losing his well-documented battle with the disease. (In fact, this would be his last appearance in public: two months later he was gone.)

I was among that audience - an English film producer and Academy member of ten years' standing, yet this was the first time I had ever attended the Oscar ceremony. I was nominated for a picture called The Deer Hunter, and had spent the last five hours waiting nervously to learn the names in the sealed envelope between Wayne's shaky fingers. Robert De Niro, the star of our film and fellow nominee, wasn't in the audience, such was the state of his own nerves. He had asked the Academy if he could sit out the show backstage, but no permission was forthcoming, and so De Niro chose to stay at home in New York.

Blade Runners, Deer Hunters & Blowing the Bloody Doors Off

From my place in the stalls I had slowly come round to the view that De Niro had spared himself a good deal of grief.

An Oscar nomination can be a life-changing marvel for a filmmaker, but if your nomination is for Best Picture then you must accept that you are in for an interminable evening. The Academy demands that attendees be seated by 5:30 p.m., but you are unlikely to hear your fate any time before eleven o'clock. This comes, moreover, at the end of a peculiarly long day. A limo arrives to fetch you at 2:30 p.m. and off you go in full evening dress on a bright sunny afternoon - an object of curiosity to everyone in your neighbourhood. Faces peer through the window as your limo creeps along the line towards the theatre entrance, awash with press, TV cameras and avid movie fans. But it's all worth it, no question, for the glitziest event in the Hollywood calendar. And yet the actual making of the film for which I was nominated had been one of the more unpleasant experiences of my career.