Column: Hollywood Tale

by Woody

Hollywood Tale Ends With Airtight Alibi

The other day a friend asked if I had ever considered writing a movie script. To my credit, I didn’t end our friendship on the spot.

Let me explain. I once gave it a whirl and like most screenwriters – wannabe greenhorns to green-lighted veterans alike – I ended up secretly wishing revenge on a movie producer who has lied through white-capped teeth.

1-hollywoodBinding the snake’s hands, putting a pillowcase over his head, cracking a rib and basically scaring the living daylights out of him during a nighttime home break-in admittedly might be a tad extreme.

Depending on your definition of “tad.”

My Hollywood tale began in Lana Turner-like fashion. Instead of being “discovered” on a stool at the soda fountain in Schwab’s Pharmacy on Sunset Boulevard, I was at my desk in The Star’s newsroom. A reader phoned, said he admired my columns, and asked if I would be interested in writing a screenplay for him.

I reacted the way my wife did one evening when Vin Scully returned my phone call at home: she thought it was a friend playing a practical joke and hung up. Like Mr. Golden Voice, Mr. Silver Screen Movie Producer called right back. He insisted he was serious. I insisted I was not interested. He persisted. I agreed to meet him.

Mr. Movie Producer’s home (pronounced “mansion”) at the top of a long, winding driveway took my breath away. When he opened the 10-foot-tall elaborately carved art piece of a front door he “had me at hello.”

By the time I said goodbye two hours later, Mr. Movie Producer had shown me a rough edit of a film he was wrapping up (I actually recognized a few of the actors) and we had hashed out some ideas for a “Remember The Titans”-like plot I would write. I should mention this was a few years before “Titans” became a blockbuster.

There were, however, a few buckles in the red carpet to trip over: I had never written a screenplay; never taken a screenwriting class; did not even know how to properly format the text of a script.

“No problem, no worries, no big deal! Writing a sports column is harder,” Mr. Movie Producer insisted.

“Introduce all the characters in the first five pages, give the plot a twist at page 30 and another at page 60,” he explained.

“Buy a screenwriting program and a new laptop and I’ll pay you back,” he promised.

I delivered a script that Mr. Movie Producer insisted he loved; he delivered excuses and delays, but never a nickel reimbursement for the screenwriting software much less a dime of the $5,000 writing fee he guaranteed.

In truth, I was not 10 percent so gullible as to think there wasn’t a 90 percent likelihood I would get stiffed; I saw it as motivation to write a screenplay and an excuse to get a new laptop.

Still, I would be lying if I did not admit to dreaming of movie success and becoming nicknamed Hollywoody. So when Mr. Movie Producer stopped phoning me and started ignoring my calls, I was a little angry.

While I gave up big-screen hopes for my “Blindsided” script, I held on to wishing I would one day come across it as a straight-to-DVD release and I could – in true Hollywood fashion – blindside Mr. Movie Producer with a lawsuit.

Fast forward a number of years when I read a newspaper story about a late-night home invasion by two masked gunmen. They reportedly tied up the homeowner, who had been watching TV, covered his head with a pillowcase, punched him in the face and broke one of his ribs before escaping with $2,000 and some computer equipment.

When I read the victim’s name I did a double take – it was Mr. Movie Producer! On the silver screen, I would have been an obvious suspect.

Indeed, I felt as lucky to have the airtight alibi – being seated in a press-box chair at a Lakers game the night it happened – as Lana Turner must have felt sitting on that famous stool at Schwab’s.

*   *   *

Woody Woodburn writes a weekly column for The Ventura County Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com.

Wooden-&-Me-cover-mock-upCheck out my new memoir WOODEN & ME: Life Lessons from My Two-Decade Friendship with the Legendary Coach and Humanitarian to Help “Make Each Day Your Masterpiece”