The Angel who was anything but

In their book, Moments in the sun: baseball’s briefly famous, authors Mark McGuire and Michael Sean Gormley have a chapter on Bo Belinsky:

“He was the man every guy wanted to be back in the days before political correctness. He was a stud who could cut down hitters, pick up “broads,” and knock down drinks with anyone, anytime. He was good-looking, witty, irreverent, young, and talented in everything but making curfew.”

Here’s a scene from my screenplay when a 4 a.m. fire forces the Angels to evacuate their Boston hotel:



• INT. SOMERSET HOTEL – BOSTON – NIGHT



• BELINSKY and teammate DEAN CHANCE just settling in.



• BELINSKY


• So what does one do on a Monday night in Beantown?



• CHANCE


• Gee, Bo, I don’t know. I’m beat, think I’ll just turn in.



• BELINSKY


• Not me. I’m heading out to paint the town.



• INT. A BAR IN SCOLLAY SQUARE – LATER



• BELINSKY is huddled around a pinball machine with a couple of SLICK CHICKS. He’s really getting into it, HUMPING the machine toward a frenzied orgasm of noise, neon, and numbers.



• SLICK CHICK #1


• God, if my body was that machine, the free games you would have racked up!



• BELINSKY


• (lights flashing across his face as he pounds on the buttons)


• Good one, babe.


• (a BEAT)


• Damn! Another tilt.



• SLICK CHICK #2


• (brushing up against him, seductively)


• I’ll give you a tilt.



• INT. SOMERSET HOTEL – LATER



• CHANCE is asleep. The phone RINGS, he slowly awakens.



• CHANCE


• (picking up the phone)


• Yeah.



• It’s BUD FURILLO on the line.



• FURILLO’S VOICE


• Dean, there’s a fire!



• CHANCE


• (yawning)


• Huh, what time is it?



• FURILLO’S VOICE


• I don’t know, about four. Look, Dean, there’s a fire in the hotel!



• CHANCE


• Come on, Bud, you’re drunk. Let me sleep.



• He hangs up. The phone rings again.



• CHANCE (CONT’D)


• (picking it up)


• Look, Bud, I told you—



• He‘s interrupted by the hotel OPERATOR.



• OPERATOR’S VOICE


• Don’t get excited. Just get up. Don’t dress. Don’t get anything. Just come down to the lobby.



• He puts down the phone, jumps out of bed.



• EXT. OUTSIDE THE HOTEL – SAME



• CHANCE comes out and finds manager BILL RIGNEY in his pajamas, shivering on the sidewalk with scores of other GUESTS in various stages of undress.



• RIGNEY


• (only half-joking)


• Dean, don’t tell me you guys are burning down the hotel.



• Trainer FREDDIE FREDERICO comes rushing over.



• FREDERICO


• (yelling)


• Where’s Bo? Where’s Bo?



• CHANCE


• Shut up, Freddie! He’s not in yet.



• Up comes a cab and BELINSKY gets out, reeking of booze and broads. Rigney observes him trying to blend in with the pajama-wearing group.



• Belinsky, smiling mischievouly, comes over to his manager.



• BELINSKY


• Hey, Skip, bet you don’t know if I’m just getting up or just getting in.



• Rigney throws his hands up in disgust.

The Playboy Pitcher

I never knew much of Bo Belinsky.

As a kid, my dad had a comedy record called My Son, the Folk Singer by Allan Sherman. The song Oh Boy had the line, “Oh boy, Igor Stravinsky; oh boy, Bo-ho Belinsky…” That and a Bill Russell baseball card with the cartoon on the back: “BO BELINSKY MARRIED A PLAYBOY BUNNY.”

That was Jo Collins (in 1970), but not before he dated every aspiring model and actress in L.A. – Ann-Margaret, Connie Stevens, Mamie Van Doren, Tina Louise – he squired them all and many more. Word is there was Hollywood interest in a movie, but nothing ever came of it.

Of course I had to give it a try.

No more query letters!

To the agents/managers/producers that still expect paper queries: you can count me out. Gone are the days of stuffing envelopes and affixing stamps. From now on, it’s strictly e-queries for me.

It's the water

According to Beth Melnick, veteran location scout and manager, there’s an unsung star in the history of Oregon filmmaking. As she tells The Oregonian:

The moisture in the air creates this extraordinary glowing light. One minute it rains like crazy, and then it clears and there’s this glow. It’s unique to this part of the country.

We have a saying in Oregon... "Two seasons: rain and August."

The ghost of Tom Joad

I recently watched The Grapes of Wrath for the first time. John Ford seems to have captured everything in this film: a gripping story; poignant scenes; a heroic yet humble character, Tom Joad. As Steinbeck’s “Okie” driven from home by drought and the Depression, he sets out for California in search of a new life.




• TOM JOAD


• I'll be all around in the dark– I'll be everywhere. Wherever you can look– Wherever there's a fight, so hungry people can eat, I'll be there. Wherever there's a cop beatin' up a guy, I'll be there. I'll be in the way guys yell when they're mad. I'll be in the way kids laugh when they're hungry and they know supper's ready, and when people are eatin' the stuff they raise and livin' in the houses they build– I'll be there, too.
  
  

Recalling Henry Fonda’s I'll be there speech, son Peter once said: “I think the most brilliant part about that speech is the way my father delivered it. He never blinked. Like a prizefighter, he never blinked.”

Indeed, wherever people show great strength amid suffering Tom Joad is a powerful symbol. "I suspect I met a few Tom Joads in Kabul," said Khaled Hosseini in describing his book The Kite Runner.

Tom Joad has something important to tell us – about where we’ve been – and perhaps where we’re heading. His actions in the face of economic ruin are historical lessons still relevant today.

Frankly, she doesn’t give a damn

Just found a cool story by Clark Gable’s granddaughter, Kayley. Herself an aspiring actress, she was recently featured on Paris Hilton's My New BFF. She writes about the pressures that come with being part of Hollywood royalty:

I’m not my grandfather. People expect me to be like him. I’m just 22 years old, and I’m having a good time. I get a lot of haters, but I just ignore it, because if they don’t have anything nice to say, that’s their issue. I’m going to live my life the way I want to, and if I’m going to drink, I’m going to drink.

I’ve got just the role for her: Franz Dorfler, the young actress in Billy the Ham Actor. That could make for some awkward cinema considering the character is romantically involved with her grandfather!

How’s that for casting?

Times bombing heads to the big screen!

I always knew it had the potential to make a great film. That’s why I chose the 1910 Los Angeles Times bombing for my first screenplay. Just one problem: “American Lightning” is somebody else’s movie. After two years of trying to get it made, it seems my Dynamite script has fallen by the wayside, beaten into production by the Howard Blum book.

According to Variety, Wind Dancer Films has purchased the rights and is developing an adaptation. Production head Judd Payne read Blum’s teaser, “American Dynamite” in Vanity Fair. I think I’ll contact Mr. Payne and let him know I have a finished script. Who knows, maybe he’ll go with mine instead!